The untold story of Robben Island: sports and the anti-Apartheid movement

Abstract

Anthony Suze was born in 1942, in a small township northwest of Pretoria. By his own admission, a more avid sportsman than student, he participated in a number of sports and played second-division soccer with Methodist FC. His political awareness emerged in Apartheid-era South Africa 1960 when he was recruited by the Pan Africanist Congress. In 1963, Suze was one of members instructed by party commanders to mobilize and indoctrinate other students. Upon Suze's resulting arrest, he was one of 14 men, most in their early-20s, who were sentenced in May 1963 to a combined 185 years on the infamous Robben island prison. Suze spent the next 15 years on the island. While there he participated in a remarkable movement of sport resistance, as the political prisoners agitated for and won the right to organize their own soccer league. The resulting Makana Football Association was a multi-team, two-division league – featuring formal team administrative structures, referees trained according to FIFA standards, and a league-wide disciplinary committee – that allowed the participants to be physically active while honing their organizational skills as the government-in-waiting.