More Than Just a Game : Soccer vs. Apartheid: the Most Important Soccer Story Ever Told

by Korr, Chuck; Close, Marvin

• ISBN13: 9780312596170
• ISBN10: 0312596170
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-04-27
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books

Summary

Timed perfectly for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, the true story of how political prisoners under apartheid found hope and dignity through soccerIn the hell that was Robben Island, inmates united courageously in an act of protest. Beginning in 1964, they requested the right to play soccer during their exercise periods. Denied repeatedly, they risked beatings and food deprivation by repeating their request for three years. Finally granted this right, the prisoners banded together to form a multi-tiered, pro-level league that ran for more than two decades and served as an impassioned symbol of resistance against apartheid. Former Robben Island inmate Nelson Mandela noted in the documentaryFIFA: 90 Minutes for Mandela,"Soccer is more than just a game.... The energy, passion, and dedication this game created made us feel alive and triumphant despite the situation we found ourselves in."

Author Biography

CHUCK KORR is professor emeritus of history at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and author of The End of Baseball As We Knew It and West Ham United. He has been published in the New York Times and has appeared on ESPN and CNN.

 

MARVIN CLOSE is a scriptwriter in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. x
The Apartheid State	p. 1
The Price of Resistance	p. 23
The Struggle for Prisoners' Rights	p. 45
The Need to Organize Football	p. 67
Football Establishes Itself	p. 97
The Atlantic Raiders Affair	p. 117
Growing Older with Football	p. 145
Two Football Codes on One Island	p. 167
Something More than Football	p. 183
Football Struggles to Survive	p. 197
The Arrival of the Soweto Generation	p. 221
Epilogue: Life After the Island	p. 249
The Story Behind More Than Just a Game	p. 257
Index	p. 291
Acknowledgements	p. 311
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