| Match Pictures | Matches:1899 – 1900 | 1899 Pictures |
Trivia
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South African side: The first black tourist team to play in the UK, Basuto XI
- The Kaffirs were a team from South Africa
- The Kaffirs or the The Kaffir Touring XI was a name used for the touring side in the UK; Basuto XI is the formal name of the side.
- RSSF post the score as having been 2-1, other sources puts it as 2-0. Notable point as this is the only match otherwise in which the touring side did NOT score in the matches against sides in the UK.
- The Kaffirs were the first black tourist team to play in the UK, so it’s an interesting landmark in football and a show of egalitarianism that Celtic are a small part in this piece of history.
- They played around 49 games, mostly against professional teams in England & Scotland, and one game in Ireland v Belfast Celtic.
- A curious side name as the term ‘kaffir’ is now a derogatory term used in South Africa to refer to a person who is black. It was formerly a neutral term for South African blacks, so maybe it was acceptable at the time when Celtic & other clubs played them (and likely the football authorities & the club managements were unaware of the full connotations of the name as it was a S African reference). A team of black players isn’t likely to have used the name if it was offensive to themselves (although the administrators were likely white and the decision out of their control). It wasn’t until the second half of the 20th Century that it was deemed and used as derogatory. The word is derived from the Arabic term kafir (meaning ‘infidel’), which originally had the meaning ‘one without religion’, but that is a discussion for elsewhere.
- An amateur team of Basuto affiliated to the Orange Free State FA were the first South African squad to tour Britain (playing in Belfast and Roubaix as well); the squad consisted of 20 players as: Thomas, Adolph (keeper), Daniells, Apollis, Davids, Brown, Kennedy, Laking, Mohn, Zwagi, Bothloko, Broffitt, Kortie, Stevens, Abel, Twazi (captain), Nicholas, Solomon, Twayi and Koslie; however, Twazi and Twayi certainly refer to the same player (captain Joseph Twayi) and the same may apply to Kortie and Koslie; Bolsmann’s article states there were 16 black players (not named individually) and 4 white officials (Roberts, Nathan, Day and Moss). The team were referred to as ‘The Kaffirs’ in the contemporary British press.
- Their team wore blue shorts and orange shirts with blue facings.
- John Blackwood & Willie McOustra signed for Celtic after a trial in this match.
- Thread on the 1899 tour: link.; RSSF info link.
- Article on their tour: link.
- This was the only match on their tour in which the touring side failed to scored (assuming two nil was correct scoreline).
- The Boer War kicked off two months after this match, between the UK and the Boers in South Africa.
- On one of their tour matches, v Brentford, the local paper reflected the insensitivities of the time with the remark:
“…very fine weather and the crowd enjoyed in full the amusement afforded by the darkies.” (Chiswick Times (29 December 1899)) - The Glasgow Herald of 21 Sept reports: “DUNDEE V KAFFIRS. – Much interest was occasioned in Dundee by the visit from the Kaffir Football Club at present on tour in this country, and over 1,000 people turned out to see a match between them and the local League club at Dens Park. The crowd were drawn together by the novelty of the match and not by any expectations to see football. The match was a bit of a farce all through, but the action of the blacks made the crowd feel quite pleased. The ultimate result was a win for Dundee by 6 goals to 4.”
- This touring side is the first team of non-white players to have played v Celtic. John Walker for Hearts (who was non-white & West Indian descent) played v Celtic in December 1898. The first non-white Celtic player in a competitive match was not for many years to come: Gil Heron. Queen’s Park pioneer Andrew Watson (the first non-white international footballer) had already left the club in 1887 just before Celtic had formed and played their first match v Queen’s Park.
Review
The game was played on Thursday 21st September 1899 with Celtic winning 2-0.
Quotes & notes below will have been taken from the press reports of the time.
The Kaffirs = team of “dusky sons” (Press Report) of the Orange Free State on a no win tour of Britain.
Racist innuendo: “Things were very black indeed . . . Celtic introduced a couple of dark horses, McOustra & Blackwood . . “
Both McOustra & Blackwood on trial in this match playing for Celtic were signed by Celtic after the game.
Notes state that Dan McArthur played outside right suggesting that Celtic did not take the game too seriously, and played it purely as a friendly.
Following notes are from:
The 1899 Orange Free State Football Team Tour
link: http://eprints.aston.ac.uk/16771/1/The_1899_Orange_Free_State_Football_Team_Tour.pdf
The Scottish Sport (newspaper) noted that they were reportedly ‘big, powerful men, with a “rare turn of speed” and “considerable individual skill”’ and went on to describe them as a ‘determined, fine-built body of men, who have only picked up the game in the last four or five years’.
It was evident that the South African side lacked the technique and ability to seriously challenge first class opposition. The tour progressed to Scotland where they played and lost six matches in front of large crowds. The Scottish Sport reported that ‘the Africans ought to come very well out of their engagements. The demand for novelty is not so pronounced in football as in some other sports, but the latest Colonial incursion is something out of the common’. After the game played against Hibernian, which was watched by 3,000 people, the Scottish Sport wrote:
“To treat the game between the Kaffirs and Hibs seriously would be one door off sacrilege, and to endeavour to find excuses for the persons to blame for inducing our clubs to give them fixtures would be an unpardonable breach of public confidence … it would in all humility and seriousness suggest that the Kaffirs and the ‘lady footballers’ should combine their forces … and stump some less civilised part of the world than Great Britain – France, for instance.”
A letter appeared in the same newspaper written by a Scot residing in Cape Town. The author questioned the strength of the visiting side and went on to remark ‘Out here such a thing as a match between “white” and “black” clubs is unknown … [and] such a team in no way represents South African football’.
In response to the emerging criticism of the tour the Scottish Sport published an interview with Day, Roberts and Twayi, who explained that the team officials had arranged a series of games against foreign opposition with the support of the OFSFA. A letter written by the OFSFA claimed that the ‘native football team … are officially recognized as representing the native Association players in this State and have our sanction to be advertised and play under our name’.
Teams
Celtic 2
Team & Scorers not listed
Kaffirs 0
Adolph
Abels
Daniels
Appollis
Soloman
Broffit
Kortie
Lakay
Twazi
Martin
Stephen
Teams taken from Celtic Historian Eugene MacBride’s notes (team listing will be written as published in the press so spellings may differ).
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
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External Links
Articles
Prejudice and curiosity: Football’s first black African touringparty
BY MICHAEL HUDSON
In early September 1899, 111 years before South Africa’s World Cup and with the Boers and Britain manoeuvring back towards war, 16 black footballers – captained by a grocer and accompanied by four officials from the whites-only Orange Free State FA – arrived by steamship at Southampton for the start of a 49-game continental tour. Just two years after the Corinthians had won 21 and drawn two of 23 fixtures against the likes of Cape Town Civilians, Military and the Orange Free State, the inaugural South African squad to play in Europe were greeted with open ridicule, prejudice and unabashed racial stereotyping. “What sort of football will these dark beauties play?” pondered the Football Echo; the Athletic News carried a caricature of a player wearing a single boot and brandishing a spear, while the Evening News fatuously hoped the visitors would “dress in proper football costume, and not be allowed to carry assegais while charging.”
The players had travelled under the name of the Orange Free State Bantu Football Club, though the Southampton Football Echo and Sports Gazette heralded the arrival of “eleven little [offensive ‘N’ word] boys from Savage South Africa” and the squad was commonly promoted elsewhere as the Kaffir Touring XI. A delay in reaching Britain had already caused the postponement of a match at Aston Villa, which meant the Bantu Club’s opening tour game was against Newcastle United, just three days after they’d disembarked at the other end of the country. The Magpies were beginning only their second season in the first division and had never previously come up against foreign opposition, the novelty drawing a crowd of 6,000, including what the Newcastle Evening Chronicle – who had earlier suggestively touted the visitors as “a fine lot of men…reputed to possess remarkable staying powers” – described as “a sprinkling of the fair sex”. Unused to playing on grass pitches, the South Africans wore studless boots throughout the game. “(It) was something of a farce with a vast difference in ability between the two sides,” sniffed one contemporary scribe. “Newcastle gave the opposition two goals in a 6-3 walkover.” The Football News called the tourists “alleged footballers” while “the spectators in fact laughed more than they would do at the most successful comic opera”.
The Bantu players continued to attract curiosity and condescension, a report on their 7-3 loss at Middlesbrough describing how “from a corner just on the interval, the Kaffirs amidst loud laughter were permitted to score”. Beaten heavily by three-time Football League champions Sunderland and Scarborough, who were then a mid-table amateur side in the Northern League Division Two, the South Africans were more narrowly defeated 3-2 by Hibernian in front of 3,000 spectators at Easter Road, though the Scottish Sport’s correspondent thought the score line belied the gulf in ability between the two sides. “To treat the game…seriously would be one door off sacrilege,” he railed in print, suggesting “that the Kaffirs and the ‘lady footballers’ should combine their forces – and stump some less civilised part of the world than Great Britain – France for instance”. Five further matches in Scotland included a 2-0 loss at Celtic – the only fixture in which the tourists failed to score – before games in Belfast and Liverpool, where the team of masons, tailors, carpenters and clerks went down 9-3 to First Division runners-up Everton in what was already their 12th outing in 22 days.
While white-only clubs had existed in the Orange Free State since the mid-1870s, the squad selected for the tour had little prior experience of playing together. “Any junior team in the country would beat them,” the Football Evening News thought. “The professional teams which they have met have invariably played exhibition games, simply getting a lead of two or three goals and then playing about to amuse the crowd and not give the strangers too severe a drubbing,” mused the Sporting Life. The press was no better in their own country. “The whole affair is as farcical as it is unsportsmanlike,” the Cape Argus had fumed when the trip was first announced. “Probably the enterprising financiers will rake in the shekels, but every white man south of the Zambesi not directly interested in the venture will regret the whole proceedings”. For their part, the organisers insisted that the matches – funded by the promise of a half share of gate receipts – had been arranged “to do an immense amount of good.,,and help spread the game.” “It is not a speculative game at all,” an unnamed official told the Scottish Sport. “In fact, we expect to be out of pocket, but the exhibitions will bear fruit…surely Scotsmen and Englishmen will not begrudge to sow a few seeds of the game”. In the wake of the Everton game, the latter was a theme picked up by the Liverpool Daily Post in a piece which also reflected the more ominous political situation: “They want to discover the art of British athleticism, as probably others on the continent will soon solve the secret of another kind of British proficiency”.
On October 11th 1899, the Bantu side were on a rest day between games at Northampton Town and Nottingham Forest and the second Boer War began with the British refusal to withdraw their troops from the borders of the South African Republic. With the Orange Free State now fighting against Britain, the remainder of the tour was thrown into doubt. “It will be rather a joke if we keep on playing against the enemy,” the Football Echo and Sports Gazette remarked. Nonetheless, five weeks and 13 fixtures later the Orange Free State XI played their delayed game at Aston Villa, having publicly donated the £61 gate receipts to a Boer War fund and added red, white and blue ribbons to their usual orange shirts. “If Queen Victoria fights we fight for her,” Twayi promised. “I like England very much for its freedom. The people are so good to us, and they treat us splendidly”.
Unsurprisingly, the reporting of the team’s matches had by now acquired an explicitly political tone, with newspapers increasingly less scornful of the tourists’ play and their goalkeeper (identified only as Adolph) in particular singled out for praise. “Several of the men showed excellent staying power and speed,” wrote the Tottenham and Stamford Hill Times after the 6-4 loss at Tottenham Hotspur at the end of November. The report of the 8-4 defeat to Richmond Association two days later mentioned “the goalkeeper who saved brilliantly at times and who, we understand, has been approached with a view of enlistment with one of the First League teams”.
By mid-December the Boers were inflicting successive defeats on the British at Sormberg, Magersfontein and Colenso, while the Bantu squad were preparing for the only victory of the entire tour. Following single-goal losses to Gravesend and Sheppey United – the opposition “was certainly superior to the German team that visited Sheerness three years ago,” one local paper thought – the tourists crossed the English Channel to play Sporting Club Tourcoing at Roubaix. In front of a crowd swelled by amateur footballers from Belgium and France, the South Africans triumphed 3-1. The game was described as “excellent and sensational” in one report, with Adolph identified as the best goalkeeper many of the spectators had ever seen.
After Tourcoing there would be eight games and eight defeats, the tour closing with losses to Bristol City and Aberdare in the first two days of 1900. The South Africans had played 49 games in five countries in just four months, but finances and visa requirements led to the cancellation of fixtures against Coventry City, Walsall and Ilkeston Town as they prepared to travel home. “Considerable disappointment has been caused to Coventry officials,” wrote the Midland Daily Telegraph, “the tourists explained that ticket restrictions meant they were only permitted to be out of the country for a six month period”. On January 6th 1900, the squad sailed back for Cape Town. Not all of them were lost to history: fifteen years later, Joseph Twayi, captain and grocer, was made treasurer of the newly-founded South African National Congress, better known today as the ANC.