Post by Scott on Jul 10, 2006 20:06:34 GMT
From ManUtd.com:
The summer tour of South African tour is the latest in a long line of United connections with the country. But it’s been a rocky road to get here, as Sir Bobby Charlton can testify only too well…
When United touch down in South Africa for a 10-day tour of the Rainbow Nation, Bobby Charlton may well get a red carpet treatment all of his own. For it was a controversial, if now little-remembered tour led by a 41 year-old Charlton in 1979, that ultlmately helped undermine two decades of racism, infighting and discontent wreaked by apartheid – and fostered a footballing partnership now into its second century.
Charlton, who three years earlier had turned out for Pretoria’s Arcadia Shepherds in the whites-only National Football League (NFL), tried to bring some sort of ‘normality’ to the sport when he led the boycott-busting tour to the Republic to play mixed-race teams – the first time since 1897 that a visiting British team had faced sides comprising black and white players. South Africa had been expelled from FIFA less than three years earlier for violating the world governing body’s anti-discrimination codes. And Charlton’s tour was not without risk.
“Due to the ban the English players couldn’t come out as a team,” recalls Alan Watt, then a goalkeeper with a local side. “They had to arrive as individuals. There was huge controversy, with all sorts of drama going on behind the scenes. It was a tumultuous time in our soccer and the tour became a political football.”
The arrival of Charlton’s Mainstay XI – average age 38 – which included Charlton’s one-time Reds team-mates David Sadler and Ian Storey Moore, fellow World Cup winners Bobby Moore and Roger Hunt, and former Liverpool skipper Ron Yeats, was designed to brighten the gloom surrounding the sport following 15 years of isolation. Indeed in the final game at Soweto’s Orlando Stadium, an enthusiastic 40,000-strong crowd watched Kaizer Chiefs beat the tourists 2-1.
The man responsible for bringing the British side to the country was Football Council president George Thabe, whose reformist work had seen white and black clubs join forces in 1978 under the banner of the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL). Around the same time, in an effort to reduce racial tension, a few clubs experimented with players of different colour in a specially designed tournament. For example, three white players were permitted to represent a black outfit – an 18-year-old goalkeeper by the name of Gary Bailey made history by turning out for Benoni United.
Charlton’s trip helped pave the way for a series of coaching clinics held by then-Reds boss Dave Sexton in 1980 for 150 aspiring mixed-race players. Among his assistants were future Red Viv Anderson and West Bromwich Albion hitman Cyrille Regis. Regis was also due to play for Arcadia. But his arrival coincided with Pretoria City Council’s announcement that no “non-European” could play at the club’s Caledonian Ground. With mixed soccer still in its infancy and a number of previously all-white clubs beginning to field non-whites – this was devastating news.
In 1982, with the country desperately crying out for a sight of international stars, former United and England utility man Brian Greenhoff arrived in Johannesburg to play a few matches for a British Stars XI. But the organisers of the tour underestimated the reaction of black political groups. What was billed as the country’s most exciting “Soccer Spectacular” in years turned into a damp squib following a midnight house-to-house hunt by activists for soccer officials of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, who were eventually forced to withdraw their respective sides from this South African Breweries-sponsored event.
So, unlike Charlton’s side, Greenhoff and his team-mates were unable to demonstrate their skills against top-liners like Kaizer Chiefs. Instead, they played two low-key matches against invitation sides as well as a game with Amazulu, a mediocre Durban outfit. John Barnwell, now head of the League Managers’ Association, was in charge of the side.
“I really wanted the tour to be an honest attempt to bring black and white together, and for this reason we included a number of black English players. Unfortunately my vision was never allowed to mature, but I did make sure that we took time to give budding young South Africans a chance to learn from my players when we held our coaching clinic at Orlando.”
The chains of apartheid had effectively been broken by the mid-1980s, but unity in South African soccer was delayed due to infighting among the various football bodies. However, as soon as the country had been re-admitted to FIFA in 1992, United were quick to take up an offer to play two matches, and with it extend an ever-increasing association with the new Rainbow Nation.
On Sunday 25 July 1993, the Reds, freshly crowned as the inaugural Premiership champions, came up against Arsenal in Johannesburg. The 60,000 crowd (many wearing the colours of their British idols), watched referee Errol Sweeney red-card United skipper Bryan Robson during the Gunners’ 2-0 win.
Three days later both clubs, as well as Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs, entertained 65,000 spectators in the United Bank Soccer Festival’s double-header at the First National Bank Stadium. Arsenal and Pirates set the ball rolling in the first game, while United and Chiefs battled it out in the second. These historic matches were some of the greatest moments in the history of South African football.
Over the next few years the cordial connections grew at an astounding rate. In May 1997 South Africa’s national team faced England at Old Trafford for the first time in an officially recognised international, the match ending 2-1 in favour of the home side. Then, in August 1999, Quinton Fortune followed in Alex Bell’s footsteps when he signed for the Reds. At about the same time an official link between his Cape Town-based club FC Fortune and United was established.
United celebrated a century of South African links that began with the signing of Cape Town-born Alex Bell in 1903, the year Carlos Queiroz, former national team coach, began establishing himself as a successful assistant manager.
There will be no political activists attempting to stop Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs playing Manchester United this summer. In fact, their respective officials, fans and players will be totally committed to showing their guests just how far they have travelled themselves.
The summer tour of South African tour is the latest in a long line of United connections with the country. But it’s been a rocky road to get here, as Sir Bobby Charlton can testify only too well…
When United touch down in South Africa for a 10-day tour of the Rainbow Nation, Bobby Charlton may well get a red carpet treatment all of his own. For it was a controversial, if now little-remembered tour led by a 41 year-old Charlton in 1979, that ultlmately helped undermine two decades of racism, infighting and discontent wreaked by apartheid – and fostered a footballing partnership now into its second century.
Charlton, who three years earlier had turned out for Pretoria’s Arcadia Shepherds in the whites-only National Football League (NFL), tried to bring some sort of ‘normality’ to the sport when he led the boycott-busting tour to the Republic to play mixed-race teams – the first time since 1897 that a visiting British team had faced sides comprising black and white players. South Africa had been expelled from FIFA less than three years earlier for violating the world governing body’s anti-discrimination codes. And Charlton’s tour was not without risk.
“Due to the ban the English players couldn’t come out as a team,” recalls Alan Watt, then a goalkeeper with a local side. “They had to arrive as individuals. There was huge controversy, with all sorts of drama going on behind the scenes. It was a tumultuous time in our soccer and the tour became a political football.”
The arrival of Charlton’s Mainstay XI – average age 38 – which included Charlton’s one-time Reds team-mates David Sadler and Ian Storey Moore, fellow World Cup winners Bobby Moore and Roger Hunt, and former Liverpool skipper Ron Yeats, was designed to brighten the gloom surrounding the sport following 15 years of isolation. Indeed in the final game at Soweto’s Orlando Stadium, an enthusiastic 40,000-strong crowd watched Kaizer Chiefs beat the tourists 2-1.
The man responsible for bringing the British side to the country was Football Council president George Thabe, whose reformist work had seen white and black clubs join forces in 1978 under the banner of the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL). Around the same time, in an effort to reduce racial tension, a few clubs experimented with players of different colour in a specially designed tournament. For example, three white players were permitted to represent a black outfit – an 18-year-old goalkeeper by the name of Gary Bailey made history by turning out for Benoni United.
Charlton’s trip helped pave the way for a series of coaching clinics held by then-Reds boss Dave Sexton in 1980 for 150 aspiring mixed-race players. Among his assistants were future Red Viv Anderson and West Bromwich Albion hitman Cyrille Regis. Regis was also due to play for Arcadia. But his arrival coincided with Pretoria City Council’s announcement that no “non-European” could play at the club’s Caledonian Ground. With mixed soccer still in its infancy and a number of previously all-white clubs beginning to field non-whites – this was devastating news.
In 1982, with the country desperately crying out for a sight of international stars, former United and England utility man Brian Greenhoff arrived in Johannesburg to play a few matches for a British Stars XI. But the organisers of the tour underestimated the reaction of black political groups. What was billed as the country’s most exciting “Soccer Spectacular” in years turned into a damp squib following a midnight house-to-house hunt by activists for soccer officials of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates, who were eventually forced to withdraw their respective sides from this South African Breweries-sponsored event.
So, unlike Charlton’s side, Greenhoff and his team-mates were unable to demonstrate their skills against top-liners like Kaizer Chiefs. Instead, they played two low-key matches against invitation sides as well as a game with Amazulu, a mediocre Durban outfit. John Barnwell, now head of the League Managers’ Association, was in charge of the side.
“I really wanted the tour to be an honest attempt to bring black and white together, and for this reason we included a number of black English players. Unfortunately my vision was never allowed to mature, but I did make sure that we took time to give budding young South Africans a chance to learn from my players when we held our coaching clinic at Orlando.”
The chains of apartheid had effectively been broken by the mid-1980s, but unity in South African soccer was delayed due to infighting among the various football bodies. However, as soon as the country had been re-admitted to FIFA in 1992, United were quick to take up an offer to play two matches, and with it extend an ever-increasing association with the new Rainbow Nation.
On Sunday 25 July 1993, the Reds, freshly crowned as the inaugural Premiership champions, came up against Arsenal in Johannesburg. The 60,000 crowd (many wearing the colours of their British idols), watched referee Errol Sweeney red-card United skipper Bryan Robson during the Gunners’ 2-0 win.
Three days later both clubs, as well as Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs, entertained 65,000 spectators in the United Bank Soccer Festival’s double-header at the First National Bank Stadium. Arsenal and Pirates set the ball rolling in the first game, while United and Chiefs battled it out in the second. These historic matches were some of the greatest moments in the history of South African football.
Over the next few years the cordial connections grew at an astounding rate. In May 1997 South Africa’s national team faced England at Old Trafford for the first time in an officially recognised international, the match ending 2-1 in favour of the home side. Then, in August 1999, Quinton Fortune followed in Alex Bell’s footsteps when he signed for the Reds. At about the same time an official link between his Cape Town-based club FC Fortune and United was established.
United celebrated a century of South African links that began with the signing of Cape Town-born Alex Bell in 1903, the year Carlos Queiroz, former national team coach, began establishing himself as a successful assistant manager.
There will be no political activists attempting to stop Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs playing Manchester United this summer. In fact, their respective officials, fans and players will be totally committed to showing their guests just how far they have travelled themselves.
