Sport in the Apartheid days.

I love sport.

Being from South Africa and growing up during the Apartheid years, sport was a key tool in the propaganda war. White South Africans invested so much passion in the game. The key game was rugby. The national team was named the Springboks and the almost the entire white population knew their names and their histories. Of course there were the “odd” people who had no idea about rugby. To the average South African (white), those people were even regarded as mild traitors. The White Nationalist Government had been intensifying segregation policies and even extended it to sport. The most ridiculous arrogance advised the All Black Rugby team from New Zealand that they were not allowed to include Maoris in the national team when they came to South Africa on tour. Things came to a head when England was to tour South Africa in 1968/1969. A former South African cricket player, Basil D Olivier, had moved to England and played for England. The South African Prime Minister, BJ Vorster, would not allow England to select Basil (Dolly) and tour in South Africa. The tour was subsequently cancelled. This was the watershed moment for white sport in South Africa under the Nationalist government, even though the Australians toured South Africa in 1970, it was the last cricket tour until a change of government into a democratically elected ANC in 1990.

(this is cricket for the uninitiated)

The ANC intensified their campaign against the White Nationalist Government by isolating sports such as rugby and cricket in particular. This had a great impact on the morale of white sports supporters. It is a strange thing but in a warped society, sport becomes a vital part of a nation’s morale.

Due to the isolation, massive focus and emphasis was placed on local sport and rugby games between the Northern Transvaal (now the Blue Bulls) in the city of Pretoria, and Western Province (now the Stormers) in the city of Cape Town. In the 1977 Currie Cup Final that was held in Pretoria, the springbok captain, Morne du Plessis at eighth man was deemed to have tackled the flyhalf, Naas Botha too early from an alleged offsides position and Naas was injured. Naas was a very talented youngster and greatly beloved by all Blue Bull supporters. There was almost a riot and an intimidated referee (in my opinion) gave a penalty to the Bulls which was successfully converted which gave the Bulls victory. Police had to escort Morne off the field after the game to protect him from incensed fans. (see youtube video “Morne flattens Naas”)

(a young Naas)

(curry cup - been going since the 1890's)

The duel in cricket was between Transvaal (based in Johannesburg) and Western Province in Cape Town. The Transvaal team was known as the “Mean Machine”. Many of the best cricketers from South Africa went to play in County cricket in England.

The sporting public used to boast that “our” teams would beat anyone in the world and that the world was just afraid to play “us”. If the team that one supported lost, there were generally two options for the supporter: first, to change the team one supported that was now losing to rather follow the winning team. This was the most popular method. The second option was to remain loyal to one’s own team but go into a state of deep depression. It the national team lost a game, particularly in rugby, the white population would go into a state of deep mourning and even depression. I used to feel this way for most of my adult life until I realised that the losing players did try their absolute best and if I had to look at my own sporting skills in comparison and mental strength, then I could accept the national team losing (occasionally, hopefully). Armchair spectators in this country always can do better than the referee, the manager or the sports players. Probably true for the rest of the world.

Soccer for white people in South Africa was mostly centered in England. There are a great number of English speaking people who are greatly passionate about “their” club in England. Most South Africans tended to support the most successful teams such as Manchester United, Arsonal, Liverpool (my team still). The reason why I started supporting Liverpool was due to my school friend, Carl Johnson, who supported Liverpool. We were watching the 1977 FA Cup final between Liverpool and Manchester United. Because he was my friend I decided to follow his team. I can still remember how annoyed I was when my sister said that she would support the opposing team and they beat Liverpool 2 – 1. She never even watched sport!

We watched all sport we could find but we disliked golf and especially horse show jumping. Of course there was a lot of show jumping as South Africa had overseas competitors who would come here and the South Africans tended to win. This boring stuff on TV would drive us out of the house to engage in our own soccer and activities. So I suppose it was a blessing in disguise. Our soccer games used to get quite serious, eventually there would be about 20 to 30 white kids playing. My dad even joined us on a regular basis and even though he was well into his sixties, he was greatly skilled at fouling us. He lacked the speed but still was able to dribble and pass the ball. He became known as the “Bald Kid from Amalinda” when my friend Calum made the irreverent observation. All the other kids admired my old man for regularly joining us, none of the other dads ever did.

It still makes me smile when I think back.