Sporting Witness
Sporting Witness
Stanley Matthews' Soweto team
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January 23, 2020
9 minutes
Available for over a year
In 1975 a group of young black soccer players from apartheid-era South Africa went on tour to Brazil. They were part of a team known as "Stan's Men", organised by the English soccer legend, Sir Stanley Matthews, in the black township of Soweto. Matthews had been helping train youngsters in South Africa since the 1950s, in defiance of the racist white government, and continued travelling there after his retirement from English soccer.
Mike Lanchin has been hearing the memories of Hamilton Majola, one of the players who traveled to Brazil with the team, and to Matthews' daughter Jean.
Photo courtesy of Jean Matthews.