“It is the principle behind the issue which is important and sacred”: Kenyan rugby and the 1980 University of Nairobi campaign to end British contact with apartheid sport

Abstract

A London-based rugby team toured Kenya mere days after the recently concluded, extremely controversial 1980 British Lions rugby tour of apartheid South Africa. Failure by Kenyan officials to retract the invitation for yet another British team was an outright denial of clearly stated anti-apartheid principles. After student campaigners advocated a boycott of the tour by the London Metropolitan Police, the University of Nairobi rugby team was the first to refuse to compete. This action by a Kenyan university team choosing to disrupt a British sports tour broke the top-down mold of past Kenyan anti-apartheid sport activism and was a rare instance of a student-led sport boycott that directly opposed the stance taken by Kenyan sport officials.