On the 9th of July, Bluebells United and the community of Lenasia in the South of Johannesburg will commemorate 50 years since the football club helped defeat an apartheid by-law which prohibited the team from playing soccer at the Lenasia Stadium and using it as their home ground.
With the help of a councillor in the Johannesburg City Council Chamber, Doctor Selma Browde, and activist, the late Doctor Don Mattera, the campaign to repeal the legislation in 1973 played a major role in opening up parks and public venues to the black majority of the country.
Watch SABC news coverage below:
The contribution, talent, fight for justice and determination these indivudals had for the sport, and a non-racial society goes unnoticed in the current SA landscape. The country is slowly forgetting these stalwarts of sport and education. As a South African living in Canada and a player of this team in the late 1990’s I commend the former players efforts and the SABC for finally having the right people on board to make this visible to the broader SA society who really appreciate and understand what it takes to be a South Africa. My son, who is in fact Indian played in a team made up of mainly boys of colour and had a similiar experience – but what I call reverse apartheid. He heads off to Spain this June on a trial in La Liga, an opportunity he would not have had if he stayed in South Africa, based on the stereotypes that have been created. Viva SA Viva irrespective of all the issues !!!