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Sporting Witness: Stanley Matthews' Soweto team

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23/01/2020 GMT

Stanley Matthews' Soweto team

BBC World Service - Sporting Witness, Stanley Matthews' Soweto team

How an English soccer legend ran a team of black players in apartheid-era South Africa

How the English soccer legend organised a team of young black players in apartheid-era South Africa, and then took them on tour to Brazil.

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.

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