The World Cup II: Bafana Bafana

Eli Jelly-Schapiro

Soccer’s history in South Africa, and perhaps on the continent at large, began in 1862, when British sailors, soldiers, and bureaucrats organized a match in Cape Town. Consistent with its British public school origins, soccer in South Africa was initially a game of the colonizing classes. Like cricket and rugby, the sport was used to nurture an imperialist ethos of mannered masculinity amongst British youth, imperial servants, and privileged colonial subjects. [Part 2 of a 3 part series.]

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