50 years of professional football
This year marks five decades since the start of professional football for all clubs in South Africa in 1971 and looks back at how the new league was set up.
April will mark 50 years since the first professional league was set up for clubs u from the so-called ‘black leagues’, agu s’, a momentous mom moment in n the hi history o o of South African football. tb l. It was not without drama, d ama, but bu is s the th point at which the e ga game became bec more organised on a national level and eventually u led ed t to the e Premier Soccer L League agu we eh have ve today. Five decades e on, , KICK K OFF’s Mark Gleeson reveals how the e league was formed and who were the early trendsetters in local football.
If you follow the path of the Premier Soccer League back along a straight line, after swimming through a veritable alphabet soup, you would arrive at the genesis of the modern-day professional game in South Africa.
It was on April 3, 1971 – a half century ago this month – that the direct forefather of today’s DStv Premiership was launched.
The National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) is the granddaddy, the National Soccer League (NSL) the father and the PSL the current incarnation.
In between the likes of the National Football League (NFL) and Federation Professional League (FPL) have been incorporated into the NPSL and NSL respectively.
Black clubs battled for several years to get a professional league underway. The South African Soccer League had been an initial effort at the establishment of a non-racial league, but the Apartheid authorities quickly strangled its efforts by denying the use of grounds.
Whites had been playing professional soccer since 1959 in their NFL, but black clubs played in a repetitive cycle of mini tournaments, local leagues and ‘stake’ games, where a promoter would put up a ‘winner-tales-all’ cash prize and make his money back from the gate takings.
The NPSL made an abortive bid to get underway in 1969 and again in 1970, when Bethuel Morolo, president of the South African Bantu Football Association, promised that a black professional league would be formed.
It was already six months down the line, in late January 1971 that the SABFA held their annual general meeting, at the Planet Hotel in Johannesburg, where the main item of discussion was the new ‘airborne’ league.
Already committed were Bantu Callies from Pretoria, Kimberley Dalton Brothers, Real Katlehong City, a Mamelodi Invitation XI, Moroka Swallows Big XV, Orlando Pirates, Pimville United Brothers from Soweto and Witbank Black Aces.
A decision on the participation of two Natal clubs – Lamontville Golden Arrows and African Wanderers – was still awaited but their incorporation would ensure the league had a national flavour and require some air travel.
For that reason, the media dubbed it the ‘airborne league’, creating the image of a sophisticated competition and capturing the public’s imagination.
Black supporters had watched for more than a decade already as the whites played out a countrywide league where the rivalry between clubs from Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg added spice to the proceedings.
Apartheid’s strict separation of the races at the time meant there was no opportunity to cross the colour bar, although the launch of the NPSL would ultimately have a direct hand in the hastening of the removal of petty Apartheid restrictions.
It took two months of negotiation and planning following on from SABFA’s meeting, before the dream finally looked to be turning into a reality.
Orlando’s DOCC offices was where Ephraim ‘Shakes’Tshabalala, the secretary of the NPSL, announced that the ‘airborne’ league would be worth R30,000 in prize money and kick-off on Thursday, April 1 with a game under floodlights at the Orlando stadium, Soweto between Pimville United Brothers and Real Katlehong City.
Initial sponsorship of the league was to be R45,000, but because of the wrangling between clubs over the make-up of the league, some potential sponsors had pulled out and the prize money had dropped down by R15,000. The league would also be one round only, effectively 12 matches for each team.
Talks with South African Breweries were still on going at that stage but they would later become the inaugural sponsor
George Thabe had in the meantime taken over as the new SABFA president and announced the initial 13 clubs for the league – adding Arrows, Bloemfontein Celtic, Kaizer Chiefs, Wanderers and Vaal Professionals to the line-up.
Chiefs were just over a year old but had made a massive impact since the split from Pirates and initial launch as the Kaizer XI, playing exhibition games around the country, drawing players from other clubs. Now they had to sign their own but would have no problem attracting top talent
The addition of Celtic and Arrows ensured the legitimacy of the ‘national’ aspect of the league, which still had a heavy concentration in the then Transvaal province.
Despite the protracted nature of negotiations over the first line-up of teams for the league, where several of the clubs needed some serious cajoling,
suddenly there were a bevy of other clubs disappointed at being left out.
The NPSL assured them of plans to try and accommodate them in a second division. But for the meanwhile, clubs from the Cape, Natal and the Orange Free State would have to continue competing in their existing provincial leagues.
As D-Day approached, so there was a frantic scramble to get everything in order … plus changes to make a more dramatic splash.
Plans for an April 1 kick off were abandoned as the impact of a game hosted on a Thursday would be nothing like a weekend kick off, it was pointed out to the new league. Already then, marketing was vital and the NPSL eventually decided to launch with a double-header at the Orlando stadium on April 3.
Swallows Big XV would meet the Mamelodi XI at 2.30pm and then African Wanderers would go up against Black Aces.
Other matches would be played the same day at other venues around the country – Callies home to Dalton Brothers in Atteridgeville, PUBS away against Katlehong City at Huntersfield, Vaal Pros hosting Chiefs in Sharpeville and Pirates traveling to Bloemfontein to take on home side Celtic.
The regulations were also announced and included fines of up to R100 (a veritable fortune in those days) for a myriad of offences -- including arriving late at games,
using unregistered players, failing to hand over the team list to the referee, and for managers and coaches seen to be running or walking up and down the touchline. Clubs would be allowed to use two substitutes in the game.
Black professional soccer had finally arrived, albeit 20 minutes behind schedule as Mamelodi XI arrived late for the clash against Swallows Big XV.
Steven ‘Brixton’ Maseko took just three minutes to score the first-ever goal in the league and Swallows went onto win 5-2 with another goal from Maseko and two from his name-sake Moses ‘Mosenthal’ Maseko. The second match saw Black Aces thump Wanderers 6-1, after leading 3-0 at half-time.
PUBS won 4-3 at Katlehong, while Callies beat Dalton Brothers 6-2, which included the first penalty ever awarded in the league and successfully converted by Callies’ George Shigo for a 4-1 lead.
Pirates won 2-0 in the Free State but Chiefs’ first ever league game proved damp squib – in more ways than one. Heavy rain in Sharpeville saw their game against Vaal Professionals called off after 20 minutes – chairman Thabe making the decision himself.
The success of the opening weekend led quickly to a commitment from SAB for a proper sponsorship deal and so the ‘airborne league’ became officially the ‘Keg League’. Later as it gained more traction, SAB put more money in to introduce a second round of the league, so that it was now a proper home and away competition.
Another sponsor – cigarette makers United Tobacco Company – agreed to back a national cup competition to the value of R7,500. It would be called the Life Challenge Cup after a popular brand of smokes, and continues to this day in the form of the Nedbank Cup.
The first season was not without a host of foibles, many of them comically naïve by modern day standards. After two months the league kicked out African Wanderers and replaced them with Zulu Royals, now known as AmaZulu.
Two Wanderers teams turned up for the match at KwaMashu against Kimberley Dalton Brothers – the “red” and the “white” factions, who claimed to represent the club.
Police stepped in to stop fighting between the two camps and a compromise was arranged with five players from each camp chosen for a single team. Just which camp the 11th player came from was never made public!
The compromise also saw the players keep their original kit, so five of the team are turned out in red and five in white. The colour combination obviously dazzled the opposition as Brothers were beaten 6-3, but the league were not amused.
When the internal wrangling saw Wanderers miss two fixtures in Pretoria, they were kicked out, with Zulu Royals having to take over their points tally.
But with each passing week the competition grew and the credibility of the product was built. Fans flocked to stadiums, albeit in an era when the township residents werew almost under weekend house arrest becauseb of the notorious pass laws.
It was no irony that when SA Breweries general g manager George Topp handed over the t Keg League trophy, and a R1,500 first prize, p to first champions Pirates, and R1,000 to runners- r up Chiefs, he prophetically predicted that t black professional soccer will be the biggest b spectator sport in the country within the t next 10 years. He was not wrong.