The Natal Inter-Race Soccer Tournament of the 1950S:Reinforcing Or Undermining Race Identities?
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The Natal Inter-Race Soccer Tournament of the 1950s:Reinforcing or Undermining Race Identities? By Mphumeleli Aubrey Ngidi A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Sciences (Masters) in the Programme of Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, College of Humanities, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2013 1 I, Mphumeleli Aubrey Ngidi (206516128), hereby declare that this is my own work and that all sources that I have used have been acknowledged and referenced. No part of the dissertation has been submitted for any other degree. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author and are in no way represent those of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The dissertation has not been presented to any other University for examination, either in the Republic of South Africa or overseas. Signature : Date : Supervisor : Prof. Goolam Vahed Signature : Date : 2 ABSTRACT The Inter-Race Tournament of the 1950s: Reinforcing or Undermining Race Identities This dissertation focuses on the inter-race soccer tournament which was held in Natal between 1946 and 1960 under the auspices of the Natal-Inter-Race Soccer Board. The tournament was played between Coloured, Indian and African teams chosen from players across Natal. The tournament was played at an important time in African-Indian relations in the province. This was a time of growing tension on the ground between ordinary Indians and Africans as well as political co-operation across racial lines. This thesis provides a narrative history of the tournament and, as such, makes an important contribution to the historiography of soccer in South Africa. None of the major works on South African history focus on this tournament and, in fact, get some of the details wrong. This thesis provides the results, some outstanding players and administrators, playing styles, as well as the importance of sport as a source of power and patronage for Black sports administrators, which explains the reluctance of some to embrace non-racialism. The story of the Natal-Inter-Race Soccer Board and its tournament makes a valuable contribution to the growing field of the historiography of South Africa soccer. 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my debt to several people who assisted me in completing this dissertation: Firstly, Professor Goolam Vahed, my supervisor: for his advice, devotion and endless gratefulness in motivating me to combine my love of sport, especially soccer, and history. Without him I would not have moved an inch towards completing this Masters degree. Bravo Prof, thank you for your assistance. The dignified manner in which you care for your student researchers deserve to be emulated. Secondly, the ever-present support of lecturers in the Programme of Historical Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) for their informed evaluation of the progress of my studies and motivation both to my academic and personal life. Thank you for believing in my abilities Dr. Thembisa Waetjen, Dr. Kalpana Hilaral, Dr. Marijke du Toit and Dr. Vukile Khumalo who introduced me to Goolam Vahed in 2012, during my Honours tenure, when I told him about my love for history and soccer. I would also like to thank Dr. Khumalo for his input in the final stages of this dissertation. Thirdly, I would also like to thank my father, Petros Nkosiyami Ngidi, for his efforts and thrust on me to kick-start my university career. The families of Ngidi, Nduli, Phewa and Dlomo families had valuable motivation to my upbringing, unconditional love and achievements. My maternal and paternal brothers, sisters and cousins your presence is a present to my survival. Everyone who is part of my life, friends and people I meet along the way, all of you deserve unconditional credit to my accomplishments. Thank You. MPHUMELELI A. NGIDI 4 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my late mother, Thokozisile Mavis Nduli, who tragically died in July 2011, the year I completed my first-ever undergraduate degree. You never reaped the fruits that you watered for 23 years but I know that wherever you are you are proud of the blossoming tree that you unwillingly left. All credit of my achievements should go to you. You are a woman who went through all the pain, travelled a thorny pathway and committed her utmost to grow me from a boy to a man that I am today. I salute your gratitude and will forever be thankful of your endeavours and I know that whenever you look down you smile. May your ever-present spirit give me more strength for more success. Mother, you are gone but never forgotten. To my only maternal brother, the late Sphamandla Ian Nduli, who also died tragically in March 2012, my achievements are your achievements; may your soul rest in peace. To your child, Sinodumo Nduli, this is for you, grow up and achieve more than what my brother and mother wished me to achieve. 5 NOTES ON SOURCES USED This study has used the Chicago Style of Referencing. Out of the two styles of referencing under the Chicago style I have chosen to use the “notes and bibliography system.” The other one is called the author-date system. The chosen style, that is, the “notes and bibliography system” is a suitable style for humanities courses as it uses notes, either footnotes or endnotes, in the body of the paper and a bibliography at the end of the paper. My primary sources have been newspapers since the majority, if not all, of the matches, including previews and reviews, were reported on print media. Finding information pertinent to the Natal Inter-race soccer matches on the newspapers was not the easiest of tasks as the dissertation focus era is an earliest period from 1940s to the 1960s. Some newspapers that would have furnished the dissertation with extensive information were either not available or did not publish affairs related to the tournament. For example, The Bantu World, a newspaper founded in the early 1930s for black middle-class elite, only reported on the events occurring in Transvaal. However though, on a lighter note, Ilanga LaseNatali and The Leader came into my rescue as both newspapers had information, albeit not all, such as match reports, previews, reviews, and match-day squads and other information relating to the Natal Inter- Race Soccer Tournament. The Graphic, an Indian-oriented newspaper, also provided me with far-reaching, though not all embracing, information from 1952 onwards. Culumnists provided in-depth information than match reports; they opened up new dimensions of the tournament and were sharp-sighted and satisfactorily attentive in unearthing essential information. Examples of columnists “discoveries” includes their observations that the inter-race matches were not serving the purpose of integrating races but disintegrating them instead. The columnists, and newspapers, played a leading role in the removal of “race” from various sport codes. The chief difficulty concerned little information on Coloureds. Information on Coloureds in Natal had not been a major topic in the newspapers that I found in my disposal. This may have likely been caused by the estimated small Coloured’s population in Natal as compared to the Cape Colony. My attempts to solicit information on Natal Coloureds on newspapers drew blank because the Coloureds population, according to my findings, had no newspapers specifically dealing with their affairs such as The Natal Mercury, Daily News, Natal Witness, etc, for Whites, The Graphic, The Leader, The Indian Opinion, etc. for Indians and Ilanga LaseNatali for Africans. This limited my research on the extensive information, on and off 6 the field, of Coloured players, the Natal Coloureds FA annual general meetings and other affairs concerning Coloureds. Without the availability of the newspapers that I used in this dissertation in archive centres such as The Documentation Centre in UKZN Westville campus, The Killie Campbell Collections in Musgrave, The Bessie Head Library in Pietermaritzburg and Don African Library this research would not have materialised as its majority of information was published on newspapers. I thank the supervisor, the discipline of Historical studies lecturers and the working staff at the above-mentioned archive centres for helping me to locate the newspapers and find other information. One other problem was inadequate information on the annual general meetings of the three bodies which were affiliates of the NISB. The AGM’s of the NISB were not fully published themselves. I had to dig deep to find such information from other newspapers with the exception of The Leader which reported, though not in full sometimes, on most of the NISB meetings. I would have welcomed full reasons on the 1949 NISB AGM so as I would have unearthed the in-inner depth reasons on why the tournament had to be cancelled in that respective year. The reason of: ‘because of 1949 race riots’ in Durban was, I assume, not satisfactory enough. The other limitation to my research was that though the tournament was the foremost soccer tournament in its heydays there is little scholarly works written about the NISB tournament. This limitation was also a limitation to my wish of incorporating the role of women during the tenure of the tournament. There was little information provided on women except that, in some cases, were attendees in the matches. In the preliminary stages of my research I have identified interviews as one source of information that I would gather to necessitate an extensive analysis of my research. This consideration was not achieved because I could not find people who have attended, were part or who held positions during the helm of these matches except those who voiced their opinions in the respective newspapers.