Читать книгу The Politics of South African Football - Alpheus Koonyaditse - Страница 9

chapter one

Every South African will no doubt remember the Saturday of May 15, 2004. They should: for it was arguably the most glorious day yet in the history of this country’s football. It followed the national disappointment of four years earlier, when after much anticipation, Germany was voted host for the 2006 FIFA World Cup. This time around it was different. South Africa won the three-way race to host the 2010 tournament. Not only was this momentous for South Africa, it was also a landmark event as it would be the first time in 80 years of World Cup history that the finals would be held on the African continent.

When the result of the vote was announced, Nelson Mandela wept tears of joy and said he felt “like a young man of 15.” But the roots of South African football went back much further, to before the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) was formed in 1904.

In 1909 South Africa became the first country outside of Europe to become a FIFA member – before Argentina and Chile in 1912, and the United States in 1913. Prior to that, FIFA had only seven member countries: France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. South Africa was already active on the international football stage, touring Great Britain and other European countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand and South America, although it was not until much later that they played against other African nations. The first recorded football matches in South Africa were in 1862 – seventeen months before the October 1863 foundation of the Football Association in England: an event usually regarded as the birth of modern football.

The first recorded match was played during the last week of May 1862; the Eastern Province Herald (Port Elizabeth) having announced on May 23 that it would be played “Saturday next in front of the Grey Institute at 3 o’clock.” The second match was between soldiers and employees of the British colonial administration on August 23, 1862.¹ That the “old game of football”, as the Port Elizabeth newspaper the Eastern Province Herald put it in 1862, was brought to South Africa by the British (as it was everywhere else) is beyond dispute.

Soon enough, football clubs sprang into existence all over the country. The first one was Pietermaritzburg County, reportedly founded in 1879. This was followed by the Natal Football Association in 1882 and Pioneers FC in Cape Town in 1890. Pietermaritzburg County, based in the town of Pietermaritzburg (north of Durban in present-day KwaZulu-Natal), first played against British military selections and drew its players solely from European immigrants. The league was played under the auspices of the Natal Football Association and comprised only four clubs: Pietermaritzburg County, Natal Wasps, Durban Alpha and Umgeni Stars.

Football was also being played elsewhere in South Africa. In Johannesburg, the Transvaal Football Association was formed in 1889, and the main championship was the Transvaal Challenge Cup. The early winners were Wanderers Wasps in 1889 with Rangers prevailing in 1890, 1892 to 1894, and 1896. The likely reason for the formation of a number of football associations was that South Africa was comprised of various colonial and other territories and had not yet been unified into a single political entity. The coastal area was ruled by the British and most of the interior by Dutch settlers – known as “Boers”.²

While the British ruled Natal and the Western and Eastern Cape provinces, the Boers, following a long history of wars over land ownership, had established their own republics: the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. The British annexed the Transvaal Republic in 1877, but continued Boer resistance led to a British withdrawal in 1881.

The British had seized the Cape of Good Hope more than half a century earlier in 1806, causing many of the Dutch settlers to trek north to establish their two independent republics. The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and of gold in 1886, spurred a new wave of primarily European immigration and intensified subjugation of the native Africans. The Boers resisted British encroachment on the mineral rich republics but were eventually defeated in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). A peace of sorts was achieved with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging³ on May 31, 1902, whereby the two Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty while the British committed themselves to reconstructing the areas under their control. The British at that time already had plans to unify the country, and eventually, in 1909, the South Africa Act created a single union from the Boer republics and the British colonial territories. The Union of South Africa, comprised of four provinces – the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State – had come into being. Under the provisions of the South Africa Act, the Union remained British territory, but with home rule for Afrikaners within the former Boer republics. In those areas, the deal firmly closed out any political participation by black South Africans, whereas in the Cape there was a qualified franchise which included some people who were not officially considered white. Gaining British Dominion status gave the Union of South Africa international standing and put it on a par with Canada, Australia and New Zealand – three other British dominions and allies.

The Natives’ Land Act of 1913 was the first major piece of segregation legislation passed by the Union Parliament and, especially after 1948, remained a cornerstone of segregation policies (apartheid) until the 1990s, when it was replaced by the policy of land restitution. This was all in the future, however.

Before that, in 1882, the South African Football Association (SAFA) was founded – it was later to change its name to the Football Association of South Africa, and then to revert back to SAFA. Even at that time, when most countries in the world, other than Britain,⁴ were not playing regular international football matches, South Africa was. A “national team” represented South Africa when the English club, Corinthians, toured the country in 1897, 1903 and 1907. In 1898, the Orange Free State Bantu Soccer team toured Great Britain: the first overseas tour ever made by a South African team. It was significant inasmuch as this was the first documented Football Association by black South Africans.

Other international tours by white football associations followed. Notably, the South African national team – popularly known as the Springboks – visited South America. Crossing the Atlantic by steamboat took a full nine weeks. The first stopover was Brazil, and while it was reported that the match was against an unofficial Brazilian national team, the players were in fact all drawn from clubs in the state of São Paulo, as indicated in the name of the team: Combinado Paulista (São Paulo combined).

Combinado Paulista (São Paulo combined) 6-0 South Africa5

July 31, 1906 – São Paulo: Velódromo Paulistano, 4 000 spectators

Referee: R Paterson (England)

COMBINADO PAULISTA

Jorge “Tutu” de Miranda Júnior, Walter Jeffery, Frank Hodgkiss, Pyles, Argemiro, Stewart, Leo Bellegarde, Charles William Miller, Renato B Cerqueira, Oscar de Andrade, Henrique Ruffin

Coach: Charles William Miller (England)

SOUTH AFRICA

WG Brown, Henry N Heeley, JH Robinson, WF Schmidt, JW Binckles, T Chalmers, Hector J Henman, A McIntyre, Robert Tyler, Gerald Hartingan, WT Mason

Coach: Henry “Harry” Heeley

GOAL SCORERS

A McIntyre, Robert McIntyre, WF Schmidt, WT Mason (2), G Hartingan

From São Paulo the South Africans went on to Buenos Aires, where they beat Argentina on July 9, 1906. Although the Argentineans give a final score of 1-0, other reports show 4-1.

After the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, there were more international fixtures. Then, in 1924, the Springbok Touring Team travelled to England, Ireland, Northern Ireland and the Netherlands from August 30 to December 3. They played 26 matches, including five against unofficial “national” teams. Of those five, only the match against the Netherlands was recorded (in this case by the Dutch) as an official international game. The host team won 2-1 in Amsterdam on November 2, 1924. South Africa fielded players from all over the country, thus effectively constituting a genuine national team.

Netherlands 2-1 South Africa

November 2, 1924 – Amsterdam: Nederlandsche Sportpark, 26 000 spectators

Referee: Dr Peter Joseph “Peco” Bauwens (Germany)

NETHERLANDS

Agaeus Yme “Gejus” van der Meulen, Henri Léonard Barthélémi “Harry” Dénis (captain), Henk Vermetten, André Le Fèvre, Bertus Bul, Gerrit Horsten, Albert Snouck Hurgronje, Wim Frederick Volkers, Cornelis Alidanis “Kees” Pijl, Charles van Baar van Slangenburgh, Johannes Daniël “Jan” de Natris

Coach: Robert “Bob” Glendenning (England)

SOUTH AFRICA

Arthur J Riley, Charles R Thompson, George W Burton, George R Parry, Alex Skene, Bob P Tochy, Jim Green, Gordon Hodgson, John Murray, H Charles Williams (captain), Eric SG Stuart

Coach: John Wheeler

GOAL SCORERS

Volkers (9), De Natris (19) – Murray (20)⁶

Six weeks prior to the Dutch tour, on September 24, 1924, the Springboks went to Belfast, where they beat Northern Ireland 2-1 after conceding an early goal by the Irishman Frank Rushe.

Northern Ireland 1-2 South Africa

September 24, 1924 – Belfast: Solitude, 6 000 spectators

Referee: William Cowan (Netherlands)

NORTHERN IRELAND

John Gough – Alfred Bruce, Thomas Frame, James Anderson, William Burns, John Harris (captain), Thomas McKeague, Thomas Croft, Frank Rushe, Ralph Lynas, Harold Wilson

Coach: Joe Devlin

SOUTH AFRICA

Arthur J Riley – Charles R Thompson, George W Burton, George R Parry, H Charles Williams (captain), Robert P Tochy, PD Jacobi, Jim Green, David James Murray, Gordon Hodgson, Eric SG Stuart

Coach: Hugh Sweetlove

GOAL SCORERS

Rushe (10), Murray (44), Green (75)

The table below gives the full results of the 1924 European tour. Note: The first score in all cases is for South Africa.

Team	Date	Result
Dublin Bohemians	August 30,1924	4-2
Wimbledon	September 6,1924	6-0
Brentford	September 10, 1924	1-3
Wycombe Wanderers	September 13,1924	5-2
Chelsea	September 17,1924	4-2
Northern Ireland	September 24, 1924	2-1
North-West Ireland	September 27, 1924	9-1
Northampton Town	September 29, 1924	3-1
Liverpool	October 1, 1924	5-2
Wales	October 4, 1924	0-1
England	October 11, 1924	2-3
Aston Villa	October 15, 1924	3-0
Palatine League	October 18, 1924	8-1
Queen’s Park	October 22, 1924	2-3
Dulwich Hamlet	October 25, 1924	4-0
Zwaluwen	October 31, 1924	2-1
Netherlands	November 2, 1924	1-2
Corinthians	November 5, 1924	3-0
The Army	November 8, 1924	3-4
Isthmian League	November 13, 1924	4-2
Corinthians	November 15, 1924	1-4
Colwyn Bay & District	November 22, 1924	4-2
Manchester City	November 24, 1924	1-3
England	November 26, 1924	2-3
Norfolk County	November 29, 1924	1-3
Everton	December 3, 1924	3-2

There are also reports of earlier matches between South African and Australian teams. On May 18, 1919, the Melbourne Argus reported that the Australian Army service football team which had been touring England would make a “six-week tour” of South Africa.

Evidence of other matches includes the following brief report by the Reuters news agency: “Soccer Amateur International at Tottenham: England defeated South Africa 3-2.” Although the report does not constitute proof, the match could well have been played at White Hart Lane, which was built in 1899. Invitational matches of this sort were apparently popular in the first decades of the nineteen hundreds. The South African Football Association (SAFA) had earlier sent an invitation to Celtic and Rangers, the two leading soccer clubs in the Scottish football league “to visit South Africa during 1913.” Even at the time, the “Old Firm” derby was known around the world, with both these teams dominating the Scottish league. On March 2, 1913, The Washington Post reported that Celtic and Rangers would be paid $12 500 and it was stipulated that at least sixteen players would make the South African trip and that fifteen matches would be played.

At the time, matches involving South Africa seem to have been confined to the countries of the British Dominion – the largely autonomous units of the British Empire.⁷ On February 20, 1926, Reuters reported in relation to a prospective tour by South Africa to New Zealand: “[O]n the ground that such a tour would be premature; the South African Football Association has declined to send a soccer team to New Zealand.” The reasons for declining were never given, but six months later, on August 16, the Melbourne Argus reported that South Africa’s membership of the British Dominion would be discussed at an Imperial conference in London in November 1926. While South Africa per se was not discussed, the conference rejected the idea of a codified constitution as espoused by Jan Smuts, who was the South African Prime Minister at the time. The conference however, also fell short of endorsing the “end of empire” as espoused by Smuts’ arch-rival, Barry Hertzog.

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¹ The match was advertised in the Cape Argus of August 21, 1862.

² ‘Boer’, the Dutch and Afrikaans word for ‘farmer’, has since been used to define white South Africans of Dutch descent.

³ A Dutch word meaning “unification”.

⁴ British football consisted of the British Football Associations of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (Ireland being partitioned in 1921).

⁵ It was not always possible to obtain the full names of all players in the teams.

⁶ The numbers in brackets indicate how many minutes into the game the goal was scored.

⁷ The original dominions were Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa. India, Pakistan and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) joined after World War II, and soon thereafter the Dominion was referred to as the British Commonwealth.