More Than Just A Game: Football v Apartheid - Softcover

Korr, Prof Chuck; Close, Marvin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007302991 ISBN 13: 9780007302994

Publisher: HarperNonFiction, 2009

Synopsis

The most important football story ever told.

`It is amazing to think that a game that people take for granted all around the world, was the very same game that gave a group of prisoners sanity – and in a way, gave us the resolve to carry on the struggle'. Anthony Suze, Robben Island Prisoner.

This is the astonishing story of a unique group of political prisoners and freedom fighters who found a sense of dignity in one of the ugliest hellholes on Earth: South Africa’s infamous Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was famously incarderated. Despite all odds and regular torture, beatings and daily backbreaking hard labour, these extraordinary men turned soccer into an active force in the struggle for freedom.

For nearly 20 years, these prisoners found the energy, spirit and resolve to organise a 1400 prisoner-strong, eight club football league which was played with strict adherance to FIFA rules.

The prisoners themselves represented a broad array of political beliefs and backgrounds, yet football became an impassioned and unified symbol of resistance against apartheid. They refused to let their own political differences sway their devotion to the sport, which allowed them to organise and maintain leadership right under the noses of their captors.

This league not only provided sanctuary and respite from the prisoners’ cruel surroundings, it kept their minds active and many credit it with keeping them alive. More Than Just a Game chronicles their story, the politics of the time, the extraordinary characters, their heroism and the thrilling matches themselves.

About this title

About the Authors

Chuck Korr is a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

He has twice been visiting professor at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa and was an advisor to the Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid Committee and to the Robben Island Museum. He has published numerous books and his writing has appeared in newspapers including The Observer and the New York Sunday Times, and he has appeared on many TV and radio programmes as an expert in sports history.

Marvin writes for the theatre, radio and television. His plays include the award winning Dorothy Parker is Dead. His writing for television has been prolific, and he has written more than 65 episodes of Emmerdaleand storylined over 200 episodes of Coronation Street.

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperNonFiction
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007302991
• ISBN 13: 9780007302994
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270