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ABSTRACT
The successes recorded against apartheid sport are lauded and celebrated. These remain a touchstone for progressive social change and are considered a model for contemporary action. This paper uses Sir Stanley Matthews as a case study of an English sports superstar and household name across the footballing world, who benefitted from apartheid but also vacillated and seemingly opposed the system. Autobiographies, biographies, contemporary accounts and films all suggested that he challenged the status quo, while this article contends the opposite. More broadly, this article argues that while the struggle against apartheid sport recorded significant victories, a reassessment of international sports contact during this period is necessary. By carrying out such a reassessment, a more layered, nuanced and complex understanding is possible.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 The author wishes to thank Neil Carter, Gustav Venter, Dil Porter and the anonymous reviewers for generously sharing sources and constructive suggestions. An earlier version of this paper was presented at Global Histories: Sport and Apartheid South Africa, Pennsylvania State University, 19 April 2019.
2 The author acknowledges ‘race’ is a social construction used in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. The term ‘black’ is used to include all those oppressed under apartheid due to their ‘race’. The terms white, African, Coloured, and Indian are only used where historically appropriate and are not an endorsement by the author.
3 P. Irwin, ‘It’s the Matthews “Thank You” Game – in Swedish’, Sunday Times, 5 June 1955, 24; and E. Litchfield, ‘Matthews is Match-Saver – Nets from Penalty’, Rand Daily Mail, 1 June 1955.
4 E. Litchfield, ‘Matthews is Match–Saver – Nets from Penalty’, Rand Daily Mail, 1 June 1955.
5 R. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport: Greenwood, 1975); P. Hain, Don’t Play with Apartheid: Background to the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971); R. Archer and A. Bouillon, The South African Game (London: Zed, 1982); J. Nauright, Sport, Cultures and Identity in South Africa (London: Leicester University Press, 1997); D. Booth, The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Frank Cass, 1998); and G. Brown and C. Høgsberg, Apartheid Is not a Game: Remembering the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign (London: Redwords, 2020), amongst others.
6 For methodological considerations regarding the use of biographies and autobiographies see M. Taylor, ‘From Source to Subject: Sport, History and Autobiography’, Journal of Sport History, 35, 3 (2008), 469–491.
7 L. Hill, ‘Football as Code: The Social Diffusion of “Soccer” in South Africa’, in P. Alegi and C. Bolsmann, eds, South Africa and the Global Game: Football Apartheid and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2010).
8 C. Bolsmann, ‘White Football in South Africa: Empire, Apartheid and Change, 1892–1977’, in Alegi and Bolsmann, South Africa and the Global Game.
9 In 1957, SAFA changed its name to the Football Association of Southern Africa and deleted the clause that that members had to be ‘of full European descent’.
10 R. Johnson, H. Holmes and P. Vasili, South African Footballers in Britain (Sheffield: Football Unites Racism Divides, 2009).
11 A.W. Wells, South Africa: A Planned Tour of the Country To-Day (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1944), 382.
12 J. Seed, The Jimmy Seed Story (London: Phoenix Sports Books, 1957), 60.
13 C. Bolsmann, ‘Professional Football in Apartheid South Africa: Leisure, Consumption and Identity in the National Football League, 1959–1977’, in International Journal of the History of Sport, 30, 16 (2013), 1947–1961.
14 Uruguayan club side Cerro visited in 1963. A South African newspaper reported they were ‘the only completely all-White club team in South America’; see ‘Another Soccer Team will Tour in 2 Weeks’, Sunday Times, 30 June 1963, 17.
15 The whites-only South African Football Association formed in 1892 was renamed the Football Association of Southern Africa in 1957. In 1992, after unity talks the new governing body was also named the South African Football Association.
16 M. Taylor The Association Game: A History of British Football (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2008), 235.
17 M. Johnes and G. Mellor, ‘The 1953 FA Cup Final: Modernity and Tradition in British Culture’, Contemporary British History, 20, 2 (2006), 263–280; and T. Mason, ‘Stanley Matthews’, in R. Holt, Sport and the Working Class in Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990).
18 R. Daniels, Blackpool Football: The Official Club History (London: Robert Hale, 1972).
19 V. Granger, ‘Lubbe Snoyman Dies’, Rand Daily Mail, 7 July 1984, 2.
20 R. Holt, ‘Champions, Heroes and Celebrities: Sporting Greatness and the British Public’, in The Book of British Sporting Heroes (London: National Portrait Gallery, 1998), Editor: James Huntington-Whiteley 13.
21 For an account of Lubbe Snoyman’s trip see S. & M. Matthews and D. Taylor, Back in Touch: An Autobiography (London: Arthur Barker Ltd, 1981), 169–173.
22 Quoted in Matthews and Taylor, Back in Touch, 170.
23 Rand Daily Mail 4 May 1955.
24 ‘Matthews Game Will Break Ground Record’, Rand Daily Mail, 24 May 1955.
25 ‘Greatest Soccer Artist Is “Always Nervous Before Big Game”’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 May 1955, 1.
26 E. Litchfield, ‘Matthews Looked Ageless in Warm-Up’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 May 1955.
27 ‘Matthews Will Play at the Cape’, Rand Daily Mail, 31 May 1955.
28 E. Litchfield, ‘Matthews Wants Peterson at Blackpool’, Rand Daily Mail, 30 May 1955.
29 Southern Transvaal Football Association Minutes of the Board of Control Meeting 28 April 1955; and C. Jaques, ‘Southerns Will Treat Match as Exhibition’, Rand Daily Mail, 26 May 1955, 16.
30 See Rand Daily Mail, 2 June 1955, 6, and 18 June 1955.
31 J. Henderson, The Wizard: The Life of Stanley Matthews (London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2013), 262.
32 Southern Transvaal Football Association Minutes of the Finance Committee Meeting, 3 November 1955. Johannesburg Public Library.
33 Southern Transvaal Football Association Annual Report, 30 November 1955. Johannesburg Public Library and ‘Matthews Saved Them from Bigger Loss’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 January 1956.
34 Matthews and Taylor, Back in Touch, 174.
35 E. Litchfield, ‘Soccer Plan For All-Star “Guest” Team’, Rand Daily Mail, 26 August 1958, 16.
36 D. Miller, Stanley Matthews: The Authorized Biography (London: Pavilion, 1989), 206.
37 E. Litchfield, ‘World Cup Men (McGarry, Owen) in Soccer Tour’, Rand Daily Mail, 21 February 1956.
38 E. Litchfield, ‘Now Natal Want Stan Matthews’, Rand Daily Mail, 25 February 1956.
39 South African Football Association, Minutes of the Executive, 3 March 1956. Football Association of South Africa (FASA) Papers, 1892–1992: Collection AG3365 of the Historical Papers Research Archive at the William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. (Hereafter FASA Papers, Historical Papers, Wits).
40 ‘F.A. Players Might Have Gone on Strike’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 April 1956.
41 Ibid.
42 Miller, Stanley Matthews, 206.
43 J. Collier, ‘Why Matthews Cancelled Clinic’, Lancashire Evening Post, 22 May 1956, 6.
44 Ibid.; and ‘Stanley Walks Into a Race Row’, Western Mail, 12 May 1956, 10.
45 ‘Barefoot Side Keeps Hold on Matthews’, Birmingham Daily Gazette, 14 May 1956, 8.
46 ‘Stan Matthews Plays in Mixed Match’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 May 1956, 14.
47 C. Buchan, ‘This Colour Bar Makes me Mad’, Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly No. 55, March 1955, 3.
48 See ‘Immigrants at Soccer’, Sunday Times, 1 July 1956, 21.
49 Trevor Huddleston, Naught for your Comfort (New York: Doubleday & Co.), 1956, 199.
50 P. Darby, ‘“Let Us Rally Around the Flag”: Football, Nation-Building, and Pan-Africanism in Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana’, Journal of African History, 54 (2013), 22–46.
51 ‘Surprise in Store’, Liverpool Echo, 18 May 1957; and P. Alegi, African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game (London: Hurst & Co., 2010).
52 ‘At the Court of King Stan’, Daily Mirror, 24 May 1957, 21.
53 The Wanderers’ Club, Minutes of the General Committee, 30 April 1957, Johannesburg Public Library; and Southern Transvaal Football Association, Minutes of the Board of Control, 22 November 1956.
54 T. Gutsche, Old Gold: The History of the Wanderers Club (Cape Town: Howard Timmins, 1966).
55 E. Litchfield, ‘Matthews and Hubbard in Combined XI in Pretoria’, Rand Daily Mail, 10 June 1957, 18.
56 E. Litchfield, ‘Matthews – Hubbard “Wing” Schemes Goal!’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 June 1957.
57 ‘Service with a Smile!’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 June 1957, 20.
58 S. Matthews, The Stanley Matthews Story (London: Oldbourne, 1960), 251.
59 Ibid., 251–252.
60 ‘Letter to the Editor: Race Discrimination in Athletics’, Times, 17 July 1958, 11; and ‘Sportsmen in UK Criticise Colour Bar’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 July 1958, 5.
61 ‘Variety Gives a Lead’, Times, 11 September 1958, 9.
62 ‘Voices from S. Africa: Advertisement’, Times, 27 November 1959, 4.
63 ‘Firmer Stand on Racial Policy’, Times, 8 December 1959, 6.
64 F. Fell’s Address to SAFA AGM, March 4, 1939, Historical Papers Collection, William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, AG3827.
65 V. Granger, The World Game Comes to South Africa (Cape Town: Howard Timms, 1961), 8–10.
66 Ibid., 2.
67 H. Snyders, ‘“Preventing Huddersfield”: The Rise and Decline of Rugby League in South Africa, c.1957–1965’, International Journal of the History of Sport 28, 1 (2011), 9–31, 9.
68 A. Grundlingh, Potent Pastimes: Sport and Leisure Practices on Modern Afrikaner History. (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2013).
69 T. Fleming, ‘“Now the African Reigns Supreme”: The Rise of African Boxing on the Witwatersrand, 1924–1959.” The International Journal of the History of Sport, 28, 1 (2010) 47–62.
70 ‘They Want Matthews for the Off-Season’, Rand Daily Mail, 26 January 1959, 16.
71 The South African Football Association was renamed the Football Association of Southern Africa in 1956 to suggest change in light of the increased international pressure the whites-only federation experienced.
72 M. Taylor ‘Football’s Engineers? British Football Coaches, Migration and Intercultural Transfer, c.1910–c.1950s’, Sport in History, 30, 1 (2010) 138–163.
73 V. Granger, ‘Rangers Telephone Stan Matthews’, Rand Daily Mail, 18 March 1959, 18.
74 ‘Stan Matthews Is Uncertain’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 March 1959, 16.
75 C. Bolsmann, ‘Professional Football in Apartheid South Africa: Leisure, Consumption and Identity in the National Football League, 1959–1977’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 30, 16 (2013) 1947–1961; and G. Venter, ‘Slippery Under Foot: The Shifting Political Dynamics within South African Football, 1973–1976’, South African Historical Journal 69, 2 (2017) 265–287.
76 Granger, The World Game, 108.
77 Ibid., 143.
78 E. Litchfield, “Stan Insured for £45,000’, Rand Daily Mail, 6 May 1960, 22.
79 See The South African Footballer, Cup Final Edition, 15 October 1960, 7.
80 Advertisement Rand Daily Mail, 11 May 1960, 16.
81 Quoted in ‘A Vicious Attack on Stan’, Daily Mirror, 4 May 1960, 31; and ‘Row Over Matthews Visit’, Rand Daily Mail, 4 May 1960, 11.
82 Quoted in Litchfield, “Stan Insured for £45,000’, 22, and ‘Just Going to Play Football, Birmingham Daily Post, 5 May 1960, 1.
83 ‘Matthews Refused to Talk Politics’, Rand Daily Mail, 6 May 1.
84 ‘Matthews Has Tea with Minister’, Rand Daily Mail, 15 June 1960, 6.
85 S. Matthews, The Way It Was: My Autobiography (London: Headline Book Publishing, 2000), 509.
86 ‘English Soccer Men Ban Overseas Play’, The Vancouver Sun, 21 April 1962.
87 Henderson, The Wizard, 310.
88 In an early Matthews biography, Anthony Davis claimed a South African, Rev. Phil van Niekerk, wrote to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1960, and suggested Matthews be knighted ‘on behalf of thousands of all age groups, nationalities and races’. Anthony Davis, Stanley Matthews C.B.E. (London: Cassell, 1962), 101.
89 ‘This Man Matthews – Soccer’s Modest Genius’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 May 1966, 18.
90 Souvenir Programme Sir Stanley Matthews Invitation X.I. vs. Highlands Park F.C. Wanderers Stadium, 31 May 1966.
91 ‘Sir Stan Is Wanted’, Rand Daily Mail, 21 May 1966, 14.
92 ‘They can’t see Sir Stan Play’ Rand Daily Mail, 26 May 1966, 1.
93 M. Cooke, ‘“A Chastening Experience”: When Sir Stanley Matthews Managed Port Vale Football Club’, 2019, https://www.playingpasts.co.uk/articles/football/a-chastening-experience-when-sir-stanley-matthews-managed-port-vale-football-club/ Accessed 20 January 2020.
94 Henderson, The Wizard, 326.
95 Matthews and Taylor, Back in Touch, 168.
96 ‘Sir Stanley to See Saturday’s Big Soccer Clash’, Rand Daily Mail, 11 November 1971, 5; and ‘Secrets that Made Bucs NPSL Champs’, Drum, 1 January 1972, 14–15.
97 S. Matthews, Feet First Again (London: Transworld Publishers, 1955), 186–187.
98 Ministry of the Interior, Letter to FASA, 20 June 1960. FASA Papers, Historical Papers, Wits.
99 P. Alegi, Laduma! Soccer, Politics and Society in South Africa (Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004), 117.
100 FASA, Letter to the Minister of the Interior, 27 February 1964. FASA Papers, Historical Papers, Wits.
101 ‘Sundowns Get White Coach’, Rand Daily Mail, 4 March 1967, 27.
102 S. Maseko, ‘“Africans-Only” Rule Upsets Sundowns’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 November 1967, 37.
103 ‘League Coach Sacked by Team’, Rand Daily Mail, 25 May 1971, 6.
104 H. Pongolo, ‘No Transvaal NPSL Games this Weekend’, Rand Daily Mail, 26 February 1972, 15.
105 See P. Alegi and C. Bolsmann, ‘From Apartheid to Unity: White Capital and Black Power in Racial Integration of South African Football, 1976–1992’, African Historical Review, 42, 1 (2010), 1–18; A.K. Mager, Beer. Sociability and Masculinity in South Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010); and Venter, ‘Slippery Under Foot’.
106 ‘From the Chair’, African Soccer Mirror, April 1972, 2.
107 ‘Sir Stan Accepts’, Rand Daily Mail, 19 February 1972, 21.
108 A. van der Zwan, “Sir Stanley Confirms It’, Rand Daily Mail, 5 May 1972, 19.
109 S. Lerman, ‘Sir Stan Picks Three Pirates’, Rand Daily Mail, 28 January 1974, 7.
110 ‘Watch for Sir Stan’s Men!’, Sunday Times, 16 September 1973, 17.
111 D. Rowan, interview with Sir Stanley Matthews, C1307/655 S2 C2 NSA, British Library, 1976.
112 See BB Tobacco advertisements of Stanley Matthews in a beer-sponsored tracksuit in Sharpshoot/Soccer Weekly, 13 September 1974, 27.
113 Pretoria introduced the policy of multinationalism in which foreign racially mixed sides could tour South Africa and play against racially defined ‘nations’ in the country. South African teams abroad could be racially mixed.
114 P. Darby, ‘Stanley Rous’s “Own Goal”: Football Politics, South Africa and the FIFA Presidency’, Soccer and Society 9, 2 (2008) 259–272.
115 ‘Brazil, Here We Come’, Sunday Times, 10 February 1974, 154.
116 ‘In Five Days They’ll Be in Brazil’, Sunday Times, 16 March 1975, 133.
117 J. Blades, ‘Mix or Get Out, Says FIFA Boss’, Sunday Times, 23 March 1975, 24.
118 J. Blades, ‘The New Pele – His Name’s Zico’, Sunday Times, 6 April 1975, 115; and J. Blades, The Rainbow Game: A Random History of South African Soccer (Lanseria: Bailey’s African History Archive, 1998), 39.
119 S. Matthews, The Way It Was: My Autobiography (London: Headline Book Publishing, 2000), 566.
120 Ibid., 569.
121 G. Francis, The Black Man with a White Face (Bononbo.tv 2010); Matthews: The Original No. 7 (EUX Media, 2017); and Matthews, The Way It Was.
122 Rick Broadbent, ‘“Matthews: The Original No 7 – the story of when Sir Stanley took on Apartheid”; a new film sheds light on how the’, Times, October 24, 2017, 65.
123 ‘Sir Stan’s Men and the World Cup in Rio … ’, Sharpshoot/Soccer Weekly, June 1975, 5.
124 T. Mthembu, ‘Rio’s a Real Riot for the Men’, Sunday Times, 30 March 1975, 107.
125 Matthews, The Way It Was, 564.
126 Miller, Stanley Matthews, 206; and Matthews and Taylor, Back in Touch, 211.
127 Miller, Stanley Matthews, 207.
128 FASA letter D.M. Zagnoev to Dr P. J. Koornhof, 26 November 1975, FIFA Feite-Insamelingskomitee, MS 6/5/20, National Archives Repository, Pretoria.
129 H. Snoyman, ‘Sir Stan’s FIFA Appeal’, Rand Daily Mail, 14 July 1976, 26; and ‘Great World Star Appeals To FIFA: Test South Africa’s Sincerity’, FASA Papers, Historical paper, Wits, 1892–1992: Collection AG3365 of the Historical Papers Research Archive at the William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
130 South African Federation for Youth and Sport, Letter A. Meiring to D.M. Zagnoev, Football Association of South Africa, June 9, 1976, FASA Papers, Historical Papers, Wits. The South African Sports Federation was established in 1951, changed to the South African Federation for Youth and Sport in 1963 and after 1975 known as the South African Sport Federation.
131 See Soccer in South Africa, 24-page pamphlet, Harold Strange Collection, Johannesburg Public Library.
132 Report to Delegates to FIFA July 1976, Montreal. FASA Papers, Historical Papers, Wits.
133 J. Blades, ‘Blacklist Won’t Stop Me Says Sir Stan’, Sunday Times, 7 June 1987, 6; and ‘Consolidated List of Sportsmen and Sportswomen Who Have Participated in Sports Events in South Africa’, 1 September 1980–31 December 1987 (United Nations, 1988).
134 Sir Stanley Matthews Tribute Dinner Souvenir Brochure, 28 January 1988 Carlton Hotel, Johannesburg, South Africa.
135 The National Soccer League was established in 1985 and represented the dominant league in the country. ‘Make Sir Stan a Freeman, Says Bhamjee’, Sunday Times, 31 January 1988, 38.
136 S. Lerman, ‘Abdul Slams “Spoilsports”’, Sunday Times, 31 January 1988, 27.
137 See also S. Lerman, ‘Retreating Like Bats Fearful of the Light’, Sowetan, 3 February 1988, 19.
138 S. Lerman, ‘Abdul Slams “Spoilsports”’, Sunday Times, 31 January 1988, 27.
139 S. Lerman, ‘There Is Some Money After All’, Sunday Times, 20 March 1988, 30.
140 Henderson, The Wizard, 371.
141 J. Dlamini, Askari: A Story of Collaboration and Betrayal in the Anti-Apartheid Struggle (Auckland Park: Jacana, 2014), 234.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Chris Bolsmann
Chris Bolsmann is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at California State University Northridge and a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is co-author with Dilywn Porter of English Gentlemen and World Soccer: Corinthians, Amateurism and the Global Game (London: Routledge, 2018). He also co-edited, with Peter Alegi, Africa's World Cup: Critical Reflections on Play, Patriotism, Spectatorship, and Space (University of Michigan Press, 2013) and South Africa and the Global Game: Football, Apartheid and Beyond (London: Routledge, 2010).