It is difficult to imagine that at the height of the Anti-Apartheid movement in the 1960’s sporting authorities such as rugby and cricket should still believe that it was acceptable to tour and play all white teams from South Africa. All white because black players were not allowed to take part in these major sporting events.
In 1969 over 80% of South Africans were Africans, Coloureds or Indians (referenced from a 1969 AA campaign leaflet during the rugby protests in Manchester). Even if non white sportsmen reached international standards, they could never wear the Springboks shirt.
It should not be underestimated, the level and extent of protest by the Anti-Apartheid movement during this time. The 1960’s was a decade of protest and striking with the intention of improving what many saw as an unfair society and an unequal world. The Stop the Tour campaign in 1970 had an enormous impact and was an exemplar of public pressure on government.
The reason for writing about this is a report filed by my brother Peter Carver in May 1970 and published in the Coventry Evening Telegraph. This was a newspaper that Peter wrote for under syndication from the press agency that he worked for as a Parliamentary lobby correspondent. The report that I found was not his usual weekly report but a breaking news piece reporting on the decision by the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, to ban the 1970 cricket tour in England that summer. Peter’s piece merited front page headlines in the ‘Night Final’ edition of the paper that day.
In the run up to Callaghan’s decision was a direct-action campaign that saw at least one cricket pitch being prepared for the five test series being vandalised and others needing to protect their pitches with barbed wire.
It was not just public opinion that saw the cricket tour being banned, it was the inability of the Cricket Council, as the England and Wales Cricket Board was formerly named, to make a decision, even with formal requests by Government ministers.
As Peter describes:
The government this afternoon asked the Cricket Council to call off the South African cricket tour. Mr. Callaghan, the Home Secretary, asks on grounds of broad public policy for the invitation to the Springbok’s to be withdrawn. He expects the decision to be given by lunchtime tomorrow following a meeting of the Council in the morning.
The Cricket Council argued that making such a decision, which they considered political, was not their responsibility. This argument was presented to James Callaghan at a two and a half hour meeting with the Council’s representatives. Their response was purely a method of washing their hands of decision making. James Callaghan wrote to the Council after this meeting.
Mr. Callaghan put strong pressure on the representatives, saying that the issue had gone far beyond a mere game of cricket. The Council representatives apparently told Mr. Callaghan that matters of public and political interest fell outside their own responsibilities and “it was beyond their competence to judge what significance to attach to them”. This, they felt, was the responsibility of the government who were equipped to judge and to act upon them. Mr. Callaghan in a letter to the Council said, “I accept this distinction.”
In other words, the Cricket Council seem to have asked the Government to make the decision for them.
The Home Secretary’s letter was released to the press and when questioned about his decision and whether it would open the gate for more violent disruption, Callaghan replied:
“I do not believe that minority groups in this country will ever prosper unless they command a substantial segment of public opinion behind them.”
I take that response as being his observation that there was a surge in public opinion in favour of the ban.
There were mixed feelings about this decision and among the most unusual opinions that I have come across is an opinion piece written by Des Wilson, written for the Guardian in August 1970. He started his article by describing the protests that the South African golfer, Gary Player, received when he was playing in America in 1970 and he wondered if the current breed of protester at that time was doing more damage than good. Here is a snippet of his thoughts:
Did they, then, impress the mass of the public? This too is unlikely. The majority are either working class and engrossed in their own struggles, or middle class – and the loyalties of the latter are overwhelmingly to St Andrews, Lord’s, and Wimbledon.
Then did the demonstrations encourage the black South Africans themselves? This is more possible, though still hardly likely, for the black African tends to be thoughtfully “protected” from such good news by the master race and anyway confronted as he is with the harsh realities of apartheid, he might not feel that the demonstrations are much help.
Exactly who was converted, educated, heartened, or impressed? One is left with the uneasy feeling that the most that was achieved was that the demonstrators themselves, and a minority of like-minded, well-meaning people, felt better.
Des Wilson is the famous political campaigner who was one of the original founders of Shelter, the homeless charity.
I think history has told us otherwise. As the years have gone by, we see the impact that protest makes, the world might not be in its best place but in South Africa a heinous racial policy has been dismantled.
I hope you enjoyed this short account of a major event in 1970 which only came to my attention when I was searching the archive for Peter Carver’s articles from that period. The day he wrote the headline piece, albeit for the night final edition of the Coventry Evening Telegraph.
Headline news from the Coventry Evening Telegraph 1970, courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive
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