“A footballer all Scots took to their heart was Joe Gaetjens,” said Lochee contributor Charlie Walker.
He then explained why: “Gaetjens was the player who scored the only goal when the USA produced the shock of the tournament by beating England in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil.
“I think he was a Greek who played for America.
“He was a hero who went missing in the 1960s and his disappearance was a mystery.
“Did it ever emerge what happened to him?”
Joe Gaetjens was a Haitian footballer, who played for the US and is in the US Soccer Hall of Fame. Files reveal that he later disappeared at the hands of Haitian dictator Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier.
Exactly what happened to him has long remained a mystery.
After that June day in 1950, Gaetjens went on to play professionally in the US and Europe.
In the American Soccer League, Gaetjens played for Brookhattan in New York before returning to Haiti in 1953.
He started a successful business, married, had children and coached youth football in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
He was doing well but life in Haiti was changing.
In 1957, dictator Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier became president.
He formed the Tonton Macoutes — a brutal militia that kidnapped and killed anyone Duvalier felt threatened his grip on power.
Gaetjens was not involved in politics but his brothers were, which made him a target.
In July 1964, two officers from the Tonton Macoutes showed up at the dry cleaning store Gaetjens owned in downtown Port-au-Prince and arrested him.
One file says that, six years after he was taken away, the Haitian government eventually admitted to Gaetjens’ family that he was dead but there is nothing to confirm how or why.
He was one of 3,000 people imprisoned in Fort Demanche who never walked out.
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