A way of saying ‘we shall overcome’: Playing football on Robben Island | Football
Written by Black Hot Fire Network on December 4, 2023
Cape Town, South Africa – One morning in December 1967, prison warders strode into Robben Island’s Cell Block 4 with a football and randomly chose two teams of 11.
While walking to the grassless pitch they had cleared themselves, the prisoners hastily discussed tactics and came up with names for their teams: Bucks would play Rangers in the maximum-security prison’s first-ever organised football match.
The players were rusty, malnourished and exhausted from their backbreaking work in the island’s slate quarry. Barefoot, and wearing their khaki prison uniforms, they also . . .
