Critical Reflections on Physical Culture at the Edges of Empire 1928480683, 9781928480686

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE AT THE EDGES OF EMPIRE

Francois Johannes Cleophas Editor

Critical Reflections on Physical Culture at the Edges of Empire Published by African Sun Media under the SUN PReSS imprint All rights reserved Copyright © 2021 African Sun Media and the contributing authors This publication was subjected to an independent double-blind peer evaluation by the publisher. The editor and the publisher have made every effort to obtain permission for and acknowledge the use of copyrighted material. Refer all enquiries to the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, photographic or mechanical means, including photocopying and recording on record, tape or laser disk, on microfilm, via the Internet, by e-mail, or by any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission by the publisher. Views reflected in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. First edition 2021 ISBN 978-1-928480-68-6 ISBN 978-1-928480-69-3 (e-book) https://doi.org/10.18820/9781928480693 Set in Gotham Book 9/10 Cover design, typesetting and production by African Sun Media SUN PReSS is an imprint of African Sun Media. Scholarly, professional and reference works are published under this imprint in print and electronic formats. This publication can be ordered from: [email protected] Takealot: bit.ly/2monsfl Google Books: bit.ly/2k1Uilm africansunmedia.store.it.si (e-books) Amazon Kindle: amzn.to/2ktL.pkL Visit africansunmedia.co.za for more information.

CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................

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Introduction ...........................................................................................................................

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Francois Johannes Cleophas

INDIVIDUALS 1. Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive: A case study of Ron Eland ........................................................................................ 11 Francois Johannes Cleophas

2. The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa: David Isaacs and others .............................................................................................. 37 Francois Johannes Cleophas

MOVEMENTS & COLLECTIVES 3. Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions: On gender and the limits of female emancipation in the Sokol gymnastic movement....................................................................... 57 Martin Klement & Jan Pezda

4. Steeplechase: Personal reflections on Fit2Run’s race of life ............................................. 85 Tarminder Kaur & Norman Ontong

5. Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses: Harry Crowe Buck and Charles Harold McCloy take the ‘Y’ to India and China in the early decades of the 20th century........... 101 Patricia Vertinsky & Aishwarya Ramachandran

6. Re-engaging non-racial sport: The Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) and the schools’ sport movement in the Western Cape, 1956-1994............. 113 Paul Hendricks

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES 7. Of boots and bare feet: Footwear, race and civilisation in Australian sport before World War II................................................................. 137 Benjamin Sacks

8. Health for the masses? Physical culture, radio and the State in 1930s Ireland.......................... 157 Conor Heffernan

ENVIRONMENT & PHYSICAL CULTURE 9. Bats, balls and boards: Islands, beaches and decolonising Pacific sport...................................... 175 Malcolm MacLean

10. From apartheid to democracy: The response of Cape Town‑based mountain clubs to the changing political landscape, 1970-1994........................................ 191 Farieda Khan

PARTING THOUGHTS 11. Sport and physical culture at the edges of the imperial project.................................................................................................................... 209 Tony Collins

Contributors .......................................................................................................................... 215

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This publication is the outcome of an ongoing research interest in physical culture studies that was kickstarted many years ago. My first contact with physical culture was with Mona, my mother on the cover page, and Ronnie, my father pictured here. I will forever be indebted to you both for that.

My interest in an alternative physical education programme was sparked by lectures on a critique of Fundamental Pedagogics and Christian National Education by Winston Kloppers in 1990, and the sociological frameworks of functionalism, conflict theories and figurationalism by Denver Hendricks in 1987, at the University of the Western Cape. I will never forget those lectures and it still provides my foundational analysis for physical education and physical culture. I also wish to express my gratitude towards professor Floris van der Merwe, my phd supervisor, for his guidance during my initial exploration of physical culture. I acknowledge the H.B. Thom Bursary committee for providing funding for a research visit to the H.J. Lutcher Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports at University of Texas at Austin and the Eland family in Canada in 2017. The Centre unselfishly opened their archives and allowed me access to materials I otherwise would not have been able to obtain in South Africa. A special thank you to Janice and Terry Todd for your hospitality. I will always be extremely thankful for the very generous and kind manner in which Cindy Slater accessed, photocopied and scanned hundreds of articles and clippings for me. Some of which appears in this publication. The chapter on Ron Eland would not have been possible without the Eland family entrusting me with Ron Eland’s archive. Thank you for letting me into the space. I hope the chapter does justice to his legacy. My visit to Canada was rounded off by the hospitality of former South Africans (family, friends and new acquintances). Thank you to all who shared your stories with me. A special thank you to Lilian and Joe and family for going out of your way to make my stay as comfortable as possible. Thank you uncle Tony and auntie Ann Feder for accommodating me and facilitating direct telephonic access to Precious Mckenzie through your contacts. Thank you also uncle Abe auntie Nellie, Bonnie and Patricia and families for your hospitality and driving me around. You are gone from home because of apartheid. I continue to fight the vestiges of that system. I love you always. In no small way do I owe a debt of gratitude to dr Hendrik Snyders for ideas around this publication. My political consciousness is shaped by the traditions of non-racialism and the movements associated with it. Some of these movements are mentioned in this volume. I remain grateful for the ideas these movements advocated in the past and remains relevant today. A special word of appreciation to Dr Paul Hendricks and Brian Isaacs who set examples of what it means to: "Let us live for our children". It will not be enough to only say thank you to Michelle Heswick for supporting and motivating me to continue with what I enjoy doing – researching physical culture history. Finally, I thank all the contributors to this publication for both your patience during the process as well as your sustained effort over the years in promoting physical culture. I have worked with many of you, I met some of you through conferences or your writings and I share the same interest as you – physical culture at the edges of empire. Dr Francois J Cleophas Ph.D. Sport Science Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Stellenbosch University

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Introduction Francois Cleophas

Department of Sport Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Colonisation was imposed upon indigenous people, not only through brute power of military conquest, but also through cultural assimilation. This assimilation was not homogeneous, and the colonised often produced a different outcome to what the coloniser expected. This collection of essays thus portrays new ontologies of decolonising themes in physical culture. They recognise the depth of previous exclusions and start a process of reconstituting qualitative histories of excluded voices of the past. They conform to what the writer, Sindiwe Magona, relayed at a recent community gathering: “I write for ordinary people … to understand the power of domestic workers over domesticity.” In imitation of Andre Odendaal’s (2018:2) work on cricket, they put into place “new paradigms for understanding [physical culture’s] past and present by rooting the accounts in it’s social, economic, political and global context”. The foundation of this publication, with chapters of varying lengths, is that the gains made by oppressed and marginalised sport persons in colonial contexts are not innocent – they come with the baggage of coloniality (Mignolo, 2013). The writers of this publication are therefore wary not to make past grievances mythical in the present (Leipoldt, 2000:108). What these essays do is expose the interconnectivity between physical culture and the underbelly of colonial society. In more explicated terms, these essays explore physical culture beyond the mainstream narratives endorsed by imperial structures of power and knowledge. The contributors thus approach physical culture with two propositions: First, the body is always dialectic, which is to say its meanings are produced by, and are productive of, wider contexts and social structures. Second, the body is political and politicising, which means it actively contributes to systems of power rather than passively receiving their affects (McLeod & Matthew, 2020:87). Michael Krüger (2015:521) a German sport historian, claims that “the thesis of western cultural imperialism with regard to games and physical culture does not respect the fact that sport is multidimensional and universal”. Historically, the term physical culture is associated with displays of strength, health and fitness and later sport movements diffused from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This diffusion formed part of a European colonisation process and became a form of what Le Grange (2018:16) calls “an exercise of mimicry … where the colonised adopts the coloniser’s cultural habits”. This publication explores and analyses these cultural habits through the lens of physical culture. It does so by bringing to life some of the history of physical culturalists who were on the receiving end of exploitation and oppression. Most of these portraits are of ordinary people who

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE have made an impact on the society of their time to the extent that 21st century historians can “develop empathy and understanding for ordinary people’s lives of the past (Prinsloo & Robinson, 1992:8). Traditionally, physical culture history, with its emphasis on the Greek Ideal, centred around the European world in unproblematic ways in terms of class relations. The title, Critical Reflections on Physical Culture at the Edges of Empire, is drawn from the idea that the colonised who wanted to escape the oppression and exploitation of the imperial system could not move beyond the boundaries laid out by the coloniser, at least physically. The colonised was after all positioned at the edge of empire, never in the centre. This publication attempted to give voice to these marginalised voices through narratives, grouped thematically into: Individuals, Movements and Collectives, Alternative Approaches and finally, Environment and Physical Culture. The publication is concluded with some parting thoughts that summarises the narratives. With this in mind, Cleophas interrogates the private archives of a black South African weightlifter in the opening chapter ‘Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive: A case study of Ron Eland’ in an attempt to create new narratives from beyond the boundaries of the official archives. It is in these private archives, according to Cleophas, that marginal figures in South African sport history, past and present, get to tell their story in detail and thereby allow historians a glimpse into their lives. Here we have evidence of a physical education teacher who merged physical culture practices with school-based pedagogies amongst the underclass in society. This chapter thus challenges the validity of hegemonic and emancipatory theories. Emancipatory theories assume that the oppressed lack cognisance of their subjugation (i.e. because oppression works at the subconscious level). The essential aim of an emancipatory epistemology is to enlighten or empower the exploited. Such theory is elitist; it assumes that only those in power can fully understand the nature of power and how it oppresses (Hokowhitu, 2004:77). It also challenges the official archival record that no longer holds the sole authority on creating decolonising narratives. It does so by creating new non-European physical culture ontologies by shifting subaltern experiences – left outside of the official post-colonial archive – to the centre in an attempt to foreground a black presence. By centralising material out of Eland’s private archive, the author places importance on the object (black body) of everyday experiences (Baxter, 2020:155). Physical culture was introduced to South Africans in the late 19th century and contributed to colonial ways of being around practices of class, race and gender through displays of strength in spectacular forms and ways with symbols of empire. By so doing, the scene was set for later weightlifting and bodybuilding developments in South Africa where the colonised mimicked these displays. However, this mimicry by the colonised often has the opposite effect than what the coloniser intends. This is shown in the second chapter, ‘The shaping of non‑racial physical culture in South Africa: David Isaacs and others’, how some South African body builders used the sport as a commitment to principles of non-racialism and self‑sacrifice. They moved beyond the victim mentality

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Introduction

and ‘became what they wished to become’ despite dire circumstances of institutionalised racism and socially engineered poverty. In effect this chapter shows how materially poor sportspersons resisted racist oppression through noncollaboration practices. Isaacs’ physical culture narrative provides readers with an opportunity to experience an urban bodybuilder who operated in economic depressed circumstances in a multiplicity of connections to the city environment. In many cases, the colonised internalised the habits and cultural traits of the coloniser. Colonial narratives written by the colonised are therefore representative of the coloniser’s expectations at times. It is seldom that blacks and women are presented as full characters in colonial sport narratives and this presentation has endured, with few exceptions, until present. As Colin Tatz (2017) (in part) asked: “Australia has ignored black viewpoints before – why would a constitutional ‘voice’ be any different?” The narratives in this collection attempt to create new decolonising traditions that fall outside official policies. The editor is however cautious about proceeding in a narrow nationalistic way, and is aware that the liberation struggle against colonisation and racism in sport is a politically nuanced one (Cleophas, 2018a:153). The approach of this book is therefore different from certain modern writers who claim that nationalist history is “quite a story … a romantic history … colour, incident, tragedy and comedy, defeat and victory, joy and sorrow … full of the most gripping human interest” (Giliomee, 2003:xiii). On the contrary, the historical narratives in this book shows us that nationalist history is messy. Physical culture history is no exception to this messiness. Martin Klement and Jan Pezda (Chapter 3) illustrate in detail how the Sokol movement in various Czech lands propogated ‘typically’ masculine and the ‘typically’ feminine gender roles through social practice, public productions, and various printed sources. Drawing on first-hand accounts, and consulting handbooks, pamphlets, periodicals and books of fiction, this chapter fully illustrates how the Sokol movement created ideas and imagery around gender and society from the 19th until mid-20th century. It shows how imperial discourses on physical culture were also found in postcolonial states where they were negotiated and adapted to suit domestic politics. A common thread running through all the chapters in this book is the persistent inequalities in society that remains unchanged by sport interventions. This is brought home by Norman Ontong and Tarminder Kaur in their chapter ‘Steeplechase: personal reflections on Fit2Run’s race of life’ (Chapter 4) who demonstrates how the lingering legacies of apartheid in the form of poverty, gang violence, crime and broken families are daily experiences of many South African athletes. According to Ontong and Kaur, such experiences are worsened by social and economic exclusions in post-apartheid South African sport. Presented as an experiment in collaborative anthropology, Kaur and Ontong’s chapter is a small but important contribution to the social history of South African physical culture. At the centre of this micro-history is Norman Ontong’s first-person narration of his involvement, as a founder-athlete-educator-sports-coach, in a grassroots athletics organisation called Fit2Run. The Fit2Run embodies a community-level effort, an act of active citizenry, towards the most lauded claims of sport’s role in social transformation. Yet, in employing the metaphor of Steeplechase, they highlight

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE the socio-material challenges, inter-personal antagonisms, contradictions and complexities embedded in such pursuits. Ultimately, this is a story of negotiating and surviving petty political struggles, offering a glimpse into the changing character of relations between and among the racialised and classed groups in post-apartheid South Africa. In conversation with the broader historical writings on athletics, Kaur and Ontong argue for a shift away from policy research designed to offer recommendations for politicians and administrators of sports towards examining “the state of power relations and struggles, reception to opposing voices, and robustness of democratic political engagement, within the governing structures of sports”. By foregrounding Fit2Run’s story in the Edges of Empire and Society, this essay is a timely intervention in the recording of a decolonising South African sports history that shows how past exclusions have not been completely eradicated in the present. Patricia Vertinsky and Aishwarya Ramachandran also pay attention to colonial exclusions in their chapter ‘Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses: Harry Crowe Buck and Charles Harold McCloy take the “Y” to India and China in the early decades of the 20th century’ (Chapter 5). Here Vertinsky and Ramachandran invoke Edward Said’s understanding of culture with decolonial lenses to mean reading a text with an understanding of what was “forcibly excluded by drawing out, extending, giving emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented”. This allows them to uncover what they call “the infinity of imperial traces that were accompanied by resistance and subversion”. Paul Hendricks extends on ideas of resistance, subversion and the building of an alternative sport movement by lifting the veil of an up-to-date hidden account in his chapter – the ‘Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) and the non-racial schools’ sport movement in the Western Cape, 1956-1994’ (Chapter 6). By utilising data sourced from private collections, this chapter crafts a relationship between liberation movement politics, physical culture and school sport that falls outside the current mainstream and popularist “sport unites all” myth. The analysis pivots around the impact the Double Standards Resolution (DSR) had on the non-racial sport movement under the South African Council on Sport (SACOS), specifically schools sport. This chapter, according to Hendricks, points to an area of scholarship on how teacher activists sustained, over a period of four decades, mass-based school sport in disadvantaged and under-resourced areas. In a similar vein, Benjamin Sacks’ chapter ‘Of boots and bare feet: footwear, race and civilisation in Australian sport before World War II’ (Chapter 7) reveals how disparate examples speak to the ways that bare feet were understood in Australian sport before World War II. Sacks’ line of reasoning is that black and brown feet had a very different significance for both the athletes involved and white audiences who flocked to see them. In the case of indigenous and other non-white athletes, barefootedness was part of a suite of dress-related behaviours that marked them as ‘different’ and ‘uncivilised’ in colonial society. This chapter reveals that in the context of sport, footwear seems essentially functional: it offers protection and superior performance. Perhaps as a result, sporting footwear – and sportswear more generally – has been confined to the margins of scholarship. Yet, sporting

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Introduction

footwear – and a lack thereof – has also long signified patterns of belonging and exclusion. By examining feet and footwear in Australian sport, Sacks seeks to explore how ideas of race and civilisation were reflected and enacted on the field. More generally, the chapter demonstrates that a focus on sporting attire can generate novel perspectives about how power operates through sport and society – particularly at the edges of empire. The chapter, ‘Physical culture for the masses: Physical culture, radio and the state in 1930s Ireland’ (Chapter 8), provides a new insight into physical culture during the interwar years. Here the author highlights the global marketplace of ideas influencing Irish physical culture. In the past, histories of European physical culture have privileged larger states. This chapter provides a novel approach by not only providing a new interpretation of Irish physical culture, but European physical culture more generally. As the chapter shows, the fears and anxieties influencing major European nations were also being negotiated in smaller European regions. For those interested in physical culture, this chapter provides the essentials of new insights into physical culture at the edges of Empire. The notion that physical bodies and bodily activities are intertwined with political and social spheres was underdeveloped in physical culture narratives of colonised settings in their relations with the rest of the world. The contributors of this publication provide historically grounded research into the transnational dimensions of physical culture within colonial and postcolonial settings. By considering human bodies as social, political and historical complex sites of meaning, the contributing authors to this publication present new and novel physical culture narratives within colonial and postcolonial contexts. A significant corpus of literature has emerged during the post-Cold War era honing in on physical culture studies. With few exceptions, the bulk of this literature has portrayed physical culture without colonial convolutions. Yet, physical culture literature reveals how global histories are entwined with ideas of empire and colonialism where the othering of racial and cultural identities outside the ruling power were central themes. This has led to dominant sports narratives throughout the world that excluded many. Therefore, a need arises of rewriting physical culture narratives in decolonial forms. Such forms come after a diagnosis “in a study of variations with a view to discovering divergence from the [colonial] norm” (Leipoldt, 2000:103). Malcolm MacLean explores the notions of positionality and pluriversality in the chapter ‘Bats, balls and boards: Islands, beaches and decolonising Pacific sport’ (Chapter 9). This is crucial to decolonial thinking because it starts a discussion on the links between sport, physical culture, imperial and colonial relations in the Pacific. Focusing on cricket in Samoa, with its Samoan iteration as kirikiti, and the contradictions of the surf industry’s appropriation of an indigenous body culture, MacLean challenges sport historians to look beyond the conventions of sport and physical culture as a practice of modernity. MacLeans’s thrust is that although surfing tells a compelling story of an indigenous movement culture made global, it remains being told, not from the point of view of po’ina nalu (the Hawaiian

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE surf zone), but from the point of view and in the interests of the North American leisure and tourism industries. By exploring the dynamics between indigenous and colonising people in historical and contemporary physical culture settings, and in drawing on both play studies and indigenous concepts, MacLean unpicks sport as a practice of modernity and begins to open up ways that its practice and its study might be decolonised in a Pacific setting. MacLean weaves together decolonial theory and historical evidence in a place-specific analysis with implications for the field of physical culture history beyond a Pacific focus. What MacLean does is to confirm and extend on the work of Egbert Russel, an early observer of the surfbathing scene in Sydney who claimed that the surf represents a readjustment of all classifications that history and politics and social conditions ever brought about (Booth, 2020:256). The final chapter, ‘Mountaineering from apartheid to democracy – the response of Cape Town-based mountain clubs to the changing political landscape, 1970‑1994’ by Farieda Khan (Chapter 10), demonstrates how mountaineering history, an under-researched aspect of physical culture history in South Africa, is emerging in a way that demonstrates the inextricability of physical culture and politics. This, Khan argues and illustrates with precision, is key to an understanding of the skewed development of Cape mountaineering. Hence this chapter, which explores aspects of the history of mountaineering, which can be undertaken as a leisure activity or a formal sport, seeks to broaden the arena of sport and physical culture history. Secondly, this chapter ventures into mountaineering history outside the mainstream, which has mainly been concerned with white mountain clubs, in order to explore the largely hidden history of black mountain clubs. Khan’s chapter also presents mountaineering experiences not as an urban/rural binary but rather as a space where human bodies, in this case urban, are deeply enmeshed in social, cultural and political entanglements with the natural environment. This chapter also explores the institutional culture of the Cape Town-based mountain clubs, describing the way in which they interacted with each other and responded to the political hierarchy of inequality they all had to operate within. Khan thus seeks to uncover a more diverse and complex picture of mountaineering history than has thus far been available in literature. Through this publication, an attempt is made to create new decolonising narratives, epistemologically and methodologically, on physical culture from around the world with the intention of liberating global history from its Eurocentric paradigms Although the emphasis is on developments in the Imperial British Empire, there existed a much more elaborate informal empire. Therefore, throughout this publication, new knowledges about this informal empire on sport and physical cultures, is explored. In no way does this publication attempt to downplay previous work as insignificant, but strives to get (create) the viewpoint from the underclass or those at the edge of empire and society at community level. After all, as a Cape Town-based author and philosopher, Adam Small, stated: “If your aim is universality as an artist… it can only be achieved through locality and time” (Cape Herald, 1967:3).

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Introduction

Finally, as editor of this publication, I refer to Day and Vamplew (2018:1) who states: It is difficult for historians to re-create past events without viewing them through their own personal frame of reference and no historian starts with a clean slate, since, whatever the topic of study, meanings have already been attached to it. I have had an academic interest in the history of physical culture since the late 1980s and used my day-to-day interaction with physical culturalists to probe issues broadly relevant to the subject. With modesty I lay claim to initiating discourses on South African physical culture history (The Cape Times, 2018:9; Cleophas, 2009; Cleophas 2018a:148‑164; Cleophas, 2018b). I am therefore a participant-observer in the unfolding of this peculiar history and present, or at least try to present it from an informed standort. It is for these reasons that I am qualified in writing and commenting on this field of sport history – Critical Reflections on Physical Culture at the Edges of Empire.1

1 Note to the reader: The author and contributors distance themselves from any racial stereotyping that were associated with racial terms used in this publication. These terms are used in this study within it’s social and historical context of the time.

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References Baxter, K. 2020. The politics of the gloves. Finding meaning in entangled matter. In: J.I. Newman, H. Thorpe & D.L. Andrews (eds). Sport, physical culture and the moving body. Materialisms, technologies, ecologies. London: Rutgers, pp.151-169. Booth, D. 2020. Entangling corporeal matter and geomatter: Making and remaking the beach. In: J.I. Newman, H. Thorpe & D.L. Andrews (eds). Sport, physical culture and the moving body. Materialisms, technologies, ecologies. London: Rutgers, pp.246‑266. The Cape Herald. 1967. Adam Small drops his mask. 28 January:3. The Cape Times. 2018. The weight of history and the way it segregates SA sport need to be lifted. 18 January:9. Cleophas, F.J. 2009. Physical education and physical culture in the coloured community of the Western Cape 1837-1966. PhD dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University. Cleophas, F.J. 2018. Shaping a decolonial sport history curriculum through the National Question. Yesterday & Today, No. 20:148-164. Cleophas, F.J. 2019. Examining Physical Culture in a Local Context. In: S. Aderinto & M. Gennaro (eds). Sport in African History, Politics and Identity formation. New York: Routledge. Forthcoming. Cleophas, F.J. 2020. Black physical culture and weight-lifting history in South Africa. In: G. Aikndes, T. Clevland & T. Kaur (eds). More than just games: Sports in Africa, past and present. Oho: Ohio University. pp.207-218. Day, D. & Vamplew, W. 2018. Sports history methodology: Old and new. In: D. Day & W. Vamplew. Methodology in sports history. New York: Routledge, pp.1-9. Giliomee, H. 2003. The Afrikaners. Biography of a people. Cape Town: Tafelberg. Hokowhitu, B. 2004. Challenges to state physical education: tikanga mäori, physical education curricula, historical deconstruction, inclusivism and decolonisation. Waikato Journal of Education, No. 10:71-83. Krüger, M. 2015. Global perspectives on sports and movement cultures: From past to present- modern sports between nationalism, internationalism and cultural imperialism. International Journal of the History of Sport (IJHS), 32(4):518-534. Le Grange, L. 2018. Decolonising sport: Some thoughts. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, pp.1-8. Leipoldt, L. 2000. The mask. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. McLeod, M & Hawzen, M.G. 2020. Body objects, political physics, and incorporation. Object-orientated ontology for sport and physical culture. In: J.I. Newman, H. Thorpe & D.L. Andrews (eds). Sport, physical culture and the moving body. Materialisms, technologies, ecologies. London: Rutgers, pp.87-105. Mignolo, W. 2013. Decolonial Aesthesis: From Singapore, To Cambridge, To Duke University. [Online]. Available: https://bit.ly/2zF8E2H (Accessed 9 December 2018).

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Introduction Odendaal, A. 2018. Reflections on writing a post-colonial history of a colonial game. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, pp.1-8. Prinsloo, R. & Robinson, M. 1992. Our community in our classrooms How a school in Cape Town brought local history alive. Bellville: University of the Western Cape. Saul, J.S. 2008. Decolonisation and empire. Contesting the rhetoric and reality of resubordination in southern Africa and beyond. Johannesburg: Wits University. Scott, D. 2014. Omens of adversity: tragedy, time, memory, justice. Durham, NC: Duke University. The Conversation. 2017. Tatz, C. Australia has ignored black viewpoints before – why would a constitutional ‘voice’ be any different? 3 August.

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INDIVIDUALS

Chapter 1 Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive: A case study of Ron Eland Francois Cleophas1

Department of Sport Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Introduction This chapter traces accounts of a 20th-century black strongman Ron Eland through his hitherto unexamined private archive. According to Michelle  Perrot (1990:1), private archives are “places of pleasures, servitudes, conflicts and dreams”. The unpacking of Eland’s life and career through his archive represents an important contribution to the creation of a physical culture archival narrative at the edges of empire. In this sense, Eland’s history helps add to a canon of decolonised texts on South Africa’s physical culture history, at home and abroad. Decolonising physical culture narratives, as far as this chapter is concerned, entails discarding what has been wrongly written, and interrogating distortions of people’s life experiences, negative labelling, deficit theorising and genetically deficient or culturally deficient models that pathologised oppressed people (Le Grange, 2018:17). It also challenges the limitations and dominance of Western epistemologies employed by researchers who were uncritical of physical culture practices in colonial and apartheid South Africa. A decolonised narrative is one that seeks out new ontologies by deliberately moving subaltern experiences – left outside of official colonial spaces and places – to the centre (Slamat, 2018). From the second decade of the 21st century, there has been an increasing interest in creating sport historical texts within decolonial contexts, notably cricket narratives. A few key works produced in this regard are Cricket and conquest: The history of South African cricket retold (Odendaal, Merrett, Reddy & Winch, 2016) and Reverse sweep: A story of South African cricket since apartheid (Desai, 2017). Recently, the publication Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges appeared, which included the “articulations of academic researchers, professionals and retired sportspeople who were requested to … place themselves at the centre of discourses that dispel myths that blacks had no sport significance prior to 1994” (Cleophas, 2018b:9). There has also been some 1 Research funding for this chapter was made possible by the HB Thom Trust at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, in 2017.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE attention of an informal nature directed at creating decolonised South African physical culture narratives (Cleophas, 2018c). This is best done through the culling of data from private archives.

Archives and decolonisation Traditionally, state and official archives provided primary sources for South African sport research. Such archives are however limited in their capacity to constructing decolonised sport narratives. Despite certain limitations that underexploited private archives hold, they constitute a valuable body of evidence (Odendaal, 2018:2). The researcher, however, not the owner or donor, creates the private archive from loose materials. Therefore, what we call private archives today was previously referred to as private manuscripts, historical manuscripts or manuscript collections. The evolving terminology is not without polemics for archivists today, considering the impact and influence of their motive and thought on archives. ‘Private archives’ is both a more inclusive term than manuscripts in that it more readily encompasses digital records and non-textual media and also expressly applies the word ‘archives’ to fonds of private provenance, something beyond ‘historical manuscripts’. Then there are grey areas that dwell between public and private archives, and personal and corporate archives. Nowhere else, other than the private archive, do black weightlifters, who were and remain marginal figures in South African sport history, get to tell their story in detail and thereby allow historians a glimpse of their lives (Fisher, 2009:7). The aim of this chapter was to create such an archive by discarding and ignoring what has been wrongly written about black sport. Such an attempt is undertaken by an examination of Ron Eland’s private archive. Traditional South African weightlifting (the modern-day version of physical culture) narratives reveals a white bias (see Leach & Wilkins, 1992:141–144). During the colonial and apartheid eras, public archives supported this biasness, which therefore limits their usefulness for decolonial sport history research (Lalu, 2008:158). Public archives also no longer hold the sole authority over creating physical culture narratives because they are “processes of preservation and exclusion” (Booth, 2005:85). Private archives, on the other hand, reveal the conditions under which marginalised communities conducted physical culture programmes. Although there is some scholarly interest (Cleophas, 2009; Snyders, 2018) in South African physical culture, it remains a neglected field of research among scholars. However, the participation of William Ron Eland, a black South African weightlifter in the 1948 Olympic Games and a member of the British contingent, is drawing some interest in South African mainstream printed and digital media (Cleophas, 2018c:9; 2018d). Eland’s sport career is tied up in his private archive that reveals how he reached the highest echelons in international sport – the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games and Mr Universe – but remains an unknown entity in his country of birth. His international contribution to poor communities, his passion, endurance and commitment to furthering his education make him a role model for youths at risk. The absence of data in Eland’s archive relating to strength sport

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive

among women also reveals much about a genderised attitude during the 20th century. For most of the 20th century, black South African women were limited to acts of balancing and contortionism in physical culture. Seventy years after the introduction of apartheid and the 1948 Olympic Games, South Africa should be enriched by narratives emanating through this archive.

A South African-born strongman’s private archive: Ron Eland South African strongmen are seldom on the radar of sport historians. When attention is directed to this area, a white bias is usually perpetuated, indicative in claims such as “Oliver Clarence Oehley [a white weightlifter] can rightfully be described as the father of South African weight-lifting” (Raad vir Geesteswetenskaplike Navorsing, 1982:54). The South African public archives also hold little material on black South African weightlifting history, because apartheid and exclusion became naturalised, even among those who were themselves subjugated (Odendaal, 2018:1). This exclusion made black people invisible in colonial and apartheid society. One such individual who was made invisible in South African sport was the historically significant strongman, Ron Eland, who is omitted from formal work on South African Olympic participation in weightlifting (Van der Merwe, 1978:396–398). Historical significance is defined as data that shed light on enduring or emerging issues in history and contemporary life or that were important at some stage in history within the collective memory of groups. Significant topics might meet either of these criteria, but not necessarily both (Peck & Seixas, 2008:1027). Although South African black weightlifters were marginal, they left behind documentary evidence showing that they too were “exceptionally normal” (Penn, 1999:1) in their day, standing out clearly to be noticed by historians. They do have a history before, during and after apartheid as is evidenced by the private archive of Eland. This archive includes an uncatalogued collection of dairies, programmes, memorabilia (local, national and Olympic) and personal reflections. Eland’s private archive provides a telling record of the history of a black weightlifter’s struggle against the apartheid system. The author used a standard set of questions, as proposed by Booth (2005:32), for determining whether the sources (testimonials, curriculum vitaes, scrap notes) in this archive reveal truth: •

How close geographically and temporally was the recorder to the event?

•

How soon after the event did the recording take place?

•

What was the mental and physical health, age, educational level, memory and narrative skills of the recorder?

The historian should limit the narrative to evidence in the private archives under investigation, relate it to traces and accounts outside, subject it to deep analysis and finally have bottomless empirical understanding of the field of enquiry in order to draw conclusive statements. Based on Eland’s private archive, such a methodology enabled this author to construct a physical culture narrative of South African

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE black weightlifting.

Ron Eland’s private archive Childhood and early family life David Kirk (1999:68) made the point that meaningful engagement with physical culture involves a degree of learning during childhood through formal or informal experiences. An internet source (Steinmair, 2014) quoted a writer of Afrikaans literature, Riana Scheepers, and a colleague, Leti Kleyn, as follows on the topic of childhood influences on creative writers, which may also be applicable to physical culturalists: A complete detailed memory is not necessary … I think it is rather the reaction of the emotional or the obfuscation of an experience that has impact on a young soul that becomes artistic in later life. [Scheepers] believes that all children experience life as intense, sensitive and with amazement but the child that is an embryonic writer [or physical culturalist] can feel intuitively that certain personal experiences are artistic and thus cherish and grind it for later use [loosely translated]. William Ronald Eland was born on 28 February 1923 in Port Elizabeth to Andrew and Caroline (née Fleurs) Eland. Andrew Eland was a schoolteacher and elevator worker who was also a halfback on the national football team. Elsewhere in the archive collection, his occupation was given as caretaker. At some point in time he was also secretary of the Eastern Province Rugby Football Union (Coloured). Eland (snr) was born in Somerset East in January 1881 and died on 27 May 1934 of lobar pneumonia when Ron was 11 years old. Andrew Eland’s death notice indicates that he had family ties with the Scheepers and Leppan families, but his parents are listed as unknown. The Eland’s led a comfortable middle-class life. Andrew left his son (Ron) immovable property at 10 Ruth Street in Port Elizabeth and other fixed property at 14 Tulla Street was bequeathed to his two daughters. Eland Snr obtained this property through a loan from the APO Mutual Building Society (WCARS, MOOC 6/9/4457/42091). This was a society that was constitutionally adopted on 28 July 1919 by the African Political Organisation (The Claremont A.P.O. Mutual Building Society, 1920:4). From an early age, Ron Eland experienced personal tragedy. He was born with a physical limitation, bowlegs, that was corrected by placing him in sea sand. Such physical limitations are not uncommon among well-known 19th- and early 20th-century physical culturalists, commonly known as strongmen. In later life, Eland devoted a great deal of time in assisting physically disabled children at the Maitland Cottage in Cape Town. Eland recorded that he could not remember much about his mother’s background, except that she died at age 45 of anaemia and an enlarged spleen and liver on 18  January  1933, while giving birth to a still-born baby. Public archival records reveal that she was the daughter of Cowland and Sinah Fleurs and that her age at death was 47 years and 7 months (not 45, as Eland recalled). At the time of her death, she lived with her husband, Andrew, and three children, Sinah (Sinnie)

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive

Elizabeth (deceased), Metha Susana and Ron, at 14  Tulla Street, Port  Elizabeth (WCARS, MOOC 6/9/4370/40102). It was not uncommon for Afrikaans-speaking coloured folk to give their children English names alongside more colloquial names such as Metha and Sinnie. According to archival records, Sinah, Ron Eland’s sister (a schoolteacher, born May 1910), died on 1 April 1935 as a spinster (WCARS, MOOC 6/9/4666/47400). Some confusion exists surrounding this death date, as her death notice indicates that she died in 1935 (WCARS, MOOC 6/9/4666/47400), but on another notice (WCARS, MOOC 6/9/4370/40102) it states she was deceased by 1933. Eland and his sisters eventually went to live with a family member, Susan (Aunty San) February (at 18 Clarendon Crescent, Port Elizabeth), a washerwoman at the Central Hotel, who continued to be his guardian until 1950. Most mission schools for coloured children terminated at Grade 6 at the time (Cleophas, 2009:121) – Aunty San’s academic qualification. She was also the mother of the later national wrestler Cecil February. Further tragedy struck the Eland family when Metha (born 1912), a schoolteacher at the time and residing at 21 Shell Street in Port Elizabeth, died of myocardial infarction on her wedding day on 3 October 1955 (WCARS, MOOC 6/9/23747/5885/55). The young Ron Eland therefore experienced human tragedy of death of loved ones early in his life, which possibly had a lasting effect of caring and compassion. Eland elaborated at great lengths in his unpublished memoirs about the large family, consisting of nine children living at 18 Clarendon Crescent, Port Elizabeth, that grew up in a Christian-like home atmosphere. He also recalled that although Aunty San did not complete any higher education, she stressed the importance of a good education. She provided the young Eland with the love and care that he missed from a natural mother, spoiling him at times. Such an occasion was when he graduated from college and she had saved up enough money from her meagre income as a washerwoman to send him and his cousin, Cecil February, on a trip around South Africa. The Eland family forms an integral part of physical culture history in South Africa and abroad. Eland’s cousin Cecil, left South Africa in 1967 and became a physical training instructor in Washington, DC, where he pursued a wrestling career, appearing on television. Because television only arrived in South Africa in the mid‑1970s, this was a prestigious achievement for the South African-born wrestler. February passed away in Washington on 14 September 1981 at age 58, his death certificate indicating he was a ‘Black South African Recreation Specialist’. Eland’s brother-in-law was Christopher Lyner, a national bodybuilding champion. In later life, the Eland family lived in the coloured section of the suburb of Wynberg, Cape Town, in a house filled with physical culture significance. Eland recorded on 2 November 1968 that his six-year-old son, Elro, “played on the parallel bars in the yard and he fell and broke his wrist”. Currently, Elro is a magician, probably due to his father’s influence.

Education Schools shape ‘race’ consciousness – Eland recorded having white teachers

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE because there was always a shortage of coloured teachers in the 1930s. Eland’s archive reveals that he received his initial schooling at Samuel Brooks Primary and completed the primary standards at Weis Primary School (grades 7 to 9) in Port Elizabeth. Samuel Brooks Primary appeared in an official statistic report in 1926 for the first time as a “coloured school, 4 teachers (1 male and 2 women –certified; one woman – uncertified; 173 learners on the roll; 145 daily average attendance)” (Cape of Good Hope Department of Public Education, 1927a:85). It was a time when coloured children, unlike white children, were not subjected to compulsory education, and the school inspector in Port Elizabeth reported that “there are many children whose intermittent attendance at school is a grave drawback to progress … that is further adversely affected by a successions of epidemics” (Cape of Good Hope Department of Public Education, 1927b:62). Weis Primary School appeared in an educational report in 1930 as a school with “6 certified teachers (3 male and 3 women); with a school population of 210 and a daily attendance of 183 … [the school provided for] learners 7 years and above” (Cape of Good Hope Department of Public Education, 1931:123). Eland states in various writings that it was at school where he was exposed to marching and gymnastics in physical education and instruction in Afrikaans and English. Only coloured children attended these schools, but outside they played with children of all ‘races’. School was also the avenue where children were initially exposed to sport; Eland recalled that football, tennis, swimming and cricket became his favourite sports as he progressed through the school system. He also wrote that there were up to 300 children gathered at a time for a physical education lesson. Eland failed his Grade 5 examination because he did poorly in both languages – learners were not allowed to fail both. Schools at that time were discipline-orientated and military-like institutions where children were not encouraged to be critical-minded. Hence, despite a series of racist legislation passed against ‘coloureds’, Eland declared that he “had fond memories of singing God Save the King and Die Stem”. Die Stem was the unofficial national anthem in Afrikaans that was representative of white South Africa. Later, it became a symbol of oppression in the anti-apartheid movement. Discipline was interpreted as punishment, and Eland wrote that he had “not so fond memories of six of the best where children would get whipped with sugar cane sticks for things like forgetting a word”. In a similar fashion, Dennis Brutus remembers an incident during his junior high school days at Patterson High where a Mathematics teacher, Miss Ray Matz, slapped one of his friends in the face (Thomas, 2012:6). From primary school, Eland proceeded to Patterson High School. This was the first secondary school for ‘coloureds’ in Port Elizabeth and was opened in a temporary building on 26 January 1925. It was interchangeably called “Paterson Intermediate Coloured and Native School” and “Patterson Non-European Secondary School” at first. Conditions were rudimentary and discriminatory, and in his Grade 8 year, Eland wrote that he had to walk 4 miles to high school for woodwork classes. At that time, ‘coloured’ children had to pay for the wood they used. Eland’s archive reveals that he enrolled for a Lower Primary Teacher’s Certificate (Coloured) in 1937 at the Dower Memorial College in Uitenhage – an institution

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive

with an all-white staff and all-coloured student corps. His stepmother paid for his tuition fees and boarding through her employment as a washerwoman and a loan from the college. Here, Eland learned to fend for himself by sharing one of three dormitories with 30 other boys. He also participated in rugby, cricket, soccer, swimming and gymnastics. Further, he played wing for the college rugby team, but it was gymnastics that interested him most, as gymnastics formed the basis of all sport activities from primary school to college level, according to his own testimony. He therefore started an acrobatic team with his nephews, Peter and Leslie Arnaser, calling themselves ‘The Acrobatic Three’. Although Eland heard about weightlifting before, he was exposed to it for the first time at college, where he became a physical culture club leader. This club, and later the Milo Academy, developed a strong base for his weightlifting career. He qualified with a Lower Primary Teacher’s Certificate in 1941 and a Higher Primary Teacher’s Certificate (Music and Art) (Coloured) (HPTC) the following year. By the time he qualified as a schoolteacher, he recorded that he served his community as a physical culturalist, soccer convenor, athletic convenor and swimming convenor and had introduced weightlifting and bodybuilding at school level. In 1950, he qualified with a Higher Primary Teacher’s Certificate (Physical Education) (Coloured) at Wesley College, Cape Town (Cleophas, 2009:294).

Teaching career Eland started his teaching career at Goezaar Congregational Memorial School and De Vos Malan Primary schools in Port Elizabeth in 1943.

Goezaar Congregational Memorial School and De Vos Malan Primary School Being a Congregationalist, Eland was offered a teaching post for Grade 7 at the Goezaar Congregational Memorial School (GCMS) in Korsten, Port Elizabeth. It was a zinc structure commonly known as a blikskooltjie (Van der Ross, 2010:86), where he taught 42 children in the classroom with two other teachers. Eland recorded that the zinc structure “was a furnace in summer and very cold in winter”. Coloured teachers earned four-fifths of white teachers’ salary with the same qualifications (Van der Ross, 2010:84). Because Eland had a specialist certificate in art and music, he received a better salary than most coloured teachers at the time. He started his teaching career with a £10 salary, the usual being £7 to £8. He handed his full salary to his stepmother, who often would return it with an extra pound or two. Eland states that he was well cared for and never went without food or money, as many ‘coloured’ teachers at the time experienced. It was wartime and no official statistics are available for these schools, but in 1945, the GCMS had a staff of six (three men and three women) with a total learner enrolment of 294 and daily attendance of 273 (Cape of Good Hope Department of Public Education, 1947:299). After six months he was transferred to the newly built De Vos Malan Primary in Schauder township, a ‘coloured’ sub-economic development. In 1945 there were eight male and nine female teachers on the staff, with an average of 720 learners on the attendance roll and a daily school attendance figure of 586 (Cape of Good Hope, Department of Public Education, 1947:299). There he remained until 1948, when he went to Great Britain to compete in the Olympic Games.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE

Battswood College Battswood College grew out of the Battswood School (established in 1891) in Wynberg, a suburb in Cape Town, made possible by a donation by Martha Pieterse (Van der Ross, 2008:131), the widowed Countess of Stamford (neé Solomons), a black woman. Battswood College was started in the appropriately named Martha se Saal (Martha’s Hall) (Cleophas, 2009:100). By 1950, it was a ‘coloured’ teacher training institute that consisted of a post Grade 10 teacher training college, a secondary and a primary school. The college made use of itinerant physical education teachers, while the secondary and primary schools acquired the permanent service of Ron Eland, from c. 1955 until 1969. Eland conducted his lessons in Martha se Saal and Mission Road Park, a small public space close to the Battswood College. The park was used because, as Eland stated in a personal memorandum: “physical education equipment was virtually non-existent and the swings, sand pits and monkey bars [could be used] as apparatus”. During his time at Battswood, he expanded his physical education programme into the field of physical culture. In 1951, he trained a group of Battswood girls to give an exhibition of ground pyramids at the Mr Body Beautiful competition, and in 1966 he and Sally Hugo were the physical education teachers at the primary and secondary schools put in charge of organising a physical culture display as part of Battswood’s 75th anniversary (Cleophas, 2009:101). The 1960s was a period where dominant physical education opinion and policymakers such as I.R. van der Merwe (1960:43) justified the existence of physical education at the expense of physical culture because of an existential value the former has for the policy of apartheid. Eland was therefore caught between the downplay of physical culture as an unimportant area of activity and being a racially marginalised teacher (due to apartheid legislation) of physical education. As a schoolteacher, Eland filled various positions (administrator, coach, team manager and track and field official) in school sport unions in Cape Town. He also provided opportunities for his Battswood learners to get exposure in the prestigious Health & Strength magazine (Health & Strength, 1956: n.p). During his tenure as teacher at Battswood Practicing School, he became a member of the Teachers’ Educational Professional Association, a more liberal organisation than the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TEPA Educational News, 1957:46). Eland was also intensly involved with the Boys’ Brigade Movement.

The Boys’ Brigade Movement Eland wrote in a scrapbook that the two most important influences in his early life was his stepmother and the Boys’ Brigade Movement (BBM). The BBM started on 4 October 1883 with a small company of 55 boys under the leadership of Sir William Alexander Smith (Adonis, 1995:1). Smith came from a military family and was an ardent Sunday school teacher who started the first company of the BBM, based on his military experience, in the Mission Hall of the Free College Church in Glasgow (Cleophas, 2009:28). The stated objective of the BBM, according to Eland, was “[t]he advancement of Christ’s kingdom among boys and the promotion of habits of obedience, reverence, discipline and self-respect and all that tends

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive

towards true Christian manliness”. The earliest known account of the BBM in the Cape Colony dates to 6 September 1894, when the St Phillip’s Anglican Church in Cape Town established a company (Cleophas, 2009:190). As an indication of the imprint that the BBM had on Eland, he could recite and record its motto (which was read once a week during his 17-year membership) into his old age: I promise to do my best to attend all parades of the Company unless prevented by illness or some duty which I cannot consciously avoid. To render cheerful obedience to all orders of officers and others in authority. To abstain from evil doing and anything likely to cause pain or suffering to any of my fellows. At the age of 10, he joined the BBM and remained a member until 1970. Eland joined the BBM in 1933, two years younger than what he was allowed, but because his cousin, Cecil February, and his stepmother’s adopted son, September, were already members, he was granted membership. This was during the depression years and it was a struggle to pay the one penny per week subscription fee. The BBM provided Eland with an opportunity to experience the outdoors in disciplined and adventurous ways, across racial lines. He recorded: … trips to camps where we left on a Thursday evening over Easter weekend with 60-70 boys, marching to the train station, going from town to town entertaining people with concerts, making a small profit to pay for our expenses; sleeping on floors of schools between towns and playing rugby games. At times we stole fruit because there was none in the city (Port Elizabeth) … In Cape Town we had national camps where black and white companies would come together for gatherings. He progressed to the rank of lieutenant after returning from College. In 1954 he reached the rank of captain of the 1st Company, Port Elizabeth, South Africa at age 21. At some time in his career, he was made secretary of the BBM. Douglas Sylvester, a gymnastic administrator during the 1960s until 2000, stated that the BBM boys in Cape Town, District Six... ... looked forward to Boxing Day (26 December) for the annual competition in drill movements and Physical Education for various groups (junior, intermediate and senior). These activities (including Physical Education, physical training, drill, sport and outdoor adventure activities) remained alive in the memories of many people affected by the forced removals of the Apartheid system (Cleophas, 2009:193). Eland also extended the BBM to Battswood, as testified in a testimonial by a certain M. Pritchard, where he (Eland) “was responsible for the physical training of the members of the 3rd Wynberg Boys’ Brigade in which he held the rank of First Lieutenant”.

Sport career (South Africa) A tribute from a family friend, Colin Diedericks, in Eland’s private archive, reads in part: “Ron’s earliest tools of the trade were a pair of empty paint cans filled with sand and attached to the end of a broomstick … until he was discovered by the Milo Academy of Physical Culture, one of the pillars of the sport in Port Elizabeth”.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Eland joined the Milo Academy of Physical Culture (also known as the Milo Academy of Health and Strength) after graduating from College in 1943, under the direction of a pioneer of weightlifting in South Africa, Coomerasamy Gauesa (Milo) Pillay. He was introduced to the club by his cousin, Cecil February, who was training to be a wrestler, although the main sport in the gym was weightlifting. Eland trained three times per week with two-hour sessions, usually from 19:00 to 21:00. It was an unsegregated club at the time, but white people started removing themselves from 1949 onwards. Eland admitted it was a status symbol at the time to be invited into a white person’s space. The club had very crude and unscientific methods of training, and stretching before training was unheard of. Warm-ups consisted of dumbbell swings between the legs, bench presses, calf raises and light squats. Eland wrote in a scrapbook:

Figure 1.1 Ron Eland’s ‘earliest tools of the trade’ Source: Ron Eland private archive.

The exercises had no names … we had no racks and had to lift the barbell onto our shoulders, one side at time, in order to do back squats; the bars were loose; the weights were different sizes for the same poundages; the plates had large holes that got larger with usage and the bars were usually unbalanced … He ascribed this situation to “white people who kept written information about weightlifting to themselves and since the sport was not popular, information was scarce”. Without condoning white racism, Eland reflected that this situation had hidden benefits. He recorded: Without realizing it, these methods of training were making me stronger … for example, we never dropped the weights, we lowered them with care to avoid breaking the floor. I did lots of body weight exercises in the gym, to impress the guys … 100 pushups in a minute, a real showman … I suppose I could do anything if people were watching me. The Milo Academy also extended colonial gender attitudes into colonised communities where women were expected to conform to ideas of physical beauty and be supportive of male physicality. This was accompanied by the projection of Greek symbolisms. Milo Pillay’s own weightlifting experience was characterised by racist exclusion and rejection. A newspaper report stated that Pillay won the national weightlifting championship (before segregation) in 1933 and 1934 (Rand Daily Mail, 1976:1). There are also unconfirmed claims that he was selected for a national South African weightlifting team in 1938 for a competition in Lorenço Marques (Rand Daily Mail, 1975:3). Further untrue claims were made that he represented South Africa at

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive

the 1932 Olympic Games (Chapman, 1994:156). Despite these uncertainties, Pillay stands out as one of the early pioneers of weightlifting in South Africa. The Milo Academy, operated within colonial frameworks of the day in the form of mimicry. Le Grange (2018:16) refers to mimicry as a term ... ... that has been produced in the field of postcolonial studies to describe the ambivalent relationship between coloniser and colonised, whereby the colonised subject ‘mimics’ the coloniser by adopting the coloniser’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values … [but] the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits … what makes the relationship between coloniser and colonised ambivalent is the potential for the colonised to redefine this relationship. The Milo Academy mimicked white sport and Hellenistic themes while attempting to redefine existing sport relations. It had Danie Craven, a conservative Afrikaner and president of the (white) South African Rugby Board (Grundlingh, 2013:102), as patron; the president of the Midlands Chamber of Mines officiated at its annual competitions; and the Academy had as its motto the non-political slogan “Sacred thy Body as Thy Soul”. The Academy announced itself as “The Cradle of the Weight-lifting and Bodybuilding System in Africa (south of Egypt)”. Eland’s archive also contains documentation claiming that Pillay was the organiser of the first official beauty competition in South Africa in 1929 and the Figure 1.2 Eland (standing) in annual Miss Industry Beauty Pageant since 1962. classical Greek pose Pillay’s influence on weightlifting in Port Elizabeth Source: Ron Eland private archive was monumental, and Eland recalls in one of his writings that prior to his own weightlifting career, “acquaintances would rave about weightlifting as if it was everything in life”. Pillay’s influence stretched across the racist social constructions set by white administrators. Pillay was not the only black weightlifter with a club at the time. Eland also had the option of joining the Port Elizabeth Amateur Bodybuilding Club run by G.K. (Chief) Rangasamy, Pillay’s brother-in-law. He only chose Pillay’s club because it was closer to home and his cousin trained there. A controversy later arose in black weightlifting circles as to whether it was Pillay or Rangasamy who started Eland’s Olympic career. Rangasamy was recognised by Dennis Brutus as the leader of the anti-apartheid South African Sports Association that was established in East London in October 1958 (Thomas, 2012:7). After nine months of training at the Milo Academy, Eland entered his first weightlifting competition, the Eastern Province Weightlifting Championships, in 1943. There he bench-pressed 130 pounds, compared to his nearest rival, who could only manage 120. At the end of Eland’s career, he could bench-press 220 pounds.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Eland gained legendary status among black weightlifters in South Africa for decades as the South African champion and record-holder in the 1940s in the three Olympic lifts: the two-hands press, the two-hands snatch and the twohands clean and jerk. He was denied the opportunity of representing his country and competing internationally because of the segregation practices of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association (SAOBEGA). An unsubstantiated newspaper report was made that Eland won the official 1948 South African weightlifting Olympic trials with a total lift of 715 pounds, while the white runner-up with a total lift of 680 pounds was named to represent the South African team (Globe & Mail, 2003:5). The official minutes of the SAOBEGA (1948:2), however, make mention of three nominations for Olympic representation made by the South African Weightlifting Association in 1948. Eland was not one of them.

Reflection on the 1948 Olympics By 1947, South Africa was a segregated society, and the SAOBEGA did not disturb this segregation and forfeited applying for hosting the event in South Africa because, in the recorded words of Capt. Twomey, the South African National Amateur Boxing Association delegate, “the Colour Bar was a big question” (SAOBEGA, 1947b:2). Two South African weightlifting associations applied to the SAOBEGA for affiliation in 1946 – the South African Amateur Weightlifting Federation (non-racial) and the South African Weightlifting Association (white) (SAOBEGA, 1946b:2–3). The SAOBEGA held a meeting with the two organisations and “anticipated an amalgamation … [after which] a national championship would be held under the new organisation” (SAOBEGA, 1946a:3). According to the minutes of the SAOBEGA, the two organisations were amalgamated by 1947 and “would be accepted as an affiliate unit” (SAOBEGA, 1947a:1). This did not materialise, and Eland turned his sights to the British Olympic movement for assistance. According to Appler (1995:4), anti-apartheid activist Dennis Brutus raised funds to send Eland to the Olympic Games. Eland’s archive shows that he won a silver medal in the lightweight class in the Empire Championships held in conjunction with the Olympic Games. He also finished third in one of the three Mr Universe competitions held in 1948. In preparing for a television programme, This Is My Life, Eland provided details of his selection into the 1948 British Olympic weightlifting team: I was the only participant from South Africa to have worn the red, white and blue flag stitched to my blue baret and blazor. I very proudly marched onto the Olympic Stadium at Wembly, London … rubbing shoulders with the best Olympic sportsmen and women Great Britain could present. While taking the oath my mind flashed back to enjoy the honored place among the British elite athletes. I was thrilled to realize that I was officially the lightweight weightlifting representative of Great Britain … South Africa did not allow any non-white person to represent its native country. It was through the efforts of Milo Pillay and Chief Rangasamy who had written to the British Weightlifting Association explaining to them that

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive I had officially beaten all lightweight lifters in South Africa but was not allowed because of my skin colour, to represent South Africa. They were told by the International Weightlifting secretary, Oscar State, that if I could beat Britain’s lightweight lifters, Britain could nominate me as their official representative. Pillay and Rangasamy organized fund raising shows and collected enough money to pay my boat fare. I enjoyed my first sea voyage to Britain and stayed with South African friends, the Baileys … I trained under Oscar State but after realizing how inconvenient it was for me to travel from the Oval subway station to Twickenham, he made arrangements with Bill Pullum to coach me at the Camberwell Weight Lifting Club. Within the first few weeks, I broke all my South African records in the press, snatch and clean and jerk. At the British weightlifting trials on 8 May 1948, I beat the British candidate, Yorrie Evans. I reached my goal. The headlines in the Daily Mirror read: Colour barred – but not by Britain. In the meantime I visited the Boys’ Brigade. Eland claimed that his ability was soon recognised by the British Amateur Weightlifting Association and he became the first black to gain appointment as an official Olympic weightlifting coach. Health & Strength, the renowned British magazine, featured the young Eland on its cover twice. British TV also took an interest in him and he travelled all over Britain displaying his talent, one of the highlights for him being a performance before Queen Elizabeth, then Princess Elizabeth. All of this contributed to Eland becoming a symbol of Olympic hope for black South Africans and the Drum coined the phrase “The man who broke the Colour Bar” (African Drum Magazine, 1955a; 1955b). After his return from the 1948 Olympic Games, Eland formed an adult acrobatic trio, ‘The Athenian Three’, consisting of Eland, Abraham Opperman and Gordon Smith, two physical education specialists (Cleophas, 2009:297, 298), because, as Eland put it in his personal memoirs, “coloured people could never get good seats at circuses”. He was part of the move to establish the South African Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation (SAWLBF) in 1950 that held its 18th annual competition in 1968 (Rand Daily Mail, 1968). By 1954, Eland enjoyed celebratory status in Cape Town, as was evidenced by his wedding arrangements. He married Cynthia Daniels on 18 December 1954 in the United Congregational Church in Wynberg. At the church, officers of the BBM formed a guard of honour and the afternoon reception was held in Martha se Saal, where the speakers included Richard van der Ross (principal of Battswood College), Reverend D.P. Botha (moderator of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church) and the well-known strongman Tromp van Diggelen. A barometer of Eland’s international esteem can be found in the hundreds of letters, cards and telegrams received on his wedding day from throughout South Africa, the Central African Federation, France, Belgium, England and the USA. These included well wishes from John Grimeck, Oscar State, the editorial board of Man’s World and the Gatson Arts Studio (The Sun, 1954b:2). According to Eland’s curriculum vitae in his archive, he achieved the following weightlifting accolades:

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•

Eastern Province Lightweight Champion, 1943–1950

•

Western Province Lightweight Weight Champion, 1950–1970

•

Cape Province Lightweight Weight Champion, 1960

•

South African Lightweight Champion and record holder, 1943–1970

•

Milo Academy Champion, 1943–1950

•

National Weightlifting Coach of South Africa, 1951 and 1958

•

British Amateur Weightlifting Instructor’s Certificate, 1952

•

Mr South Africa Bodybuilding Champion, 1951.

For reasons unknown to date, Eland, along with another Cape strongman, John Geduld, was suspended from the provincial controlling body in 1969, the year before he left for North America. Geduld, Tom Minnords, Reg Anderson (all Western Province) and Victor Douglas (Transvaal) were all previously considered by the SAWLBF as possible weightlifting representatives at the 1966 Mr Universe competition in London (Rand Daily Mail, 1966:29).

Administration, coaching and community organisations Besides being an active weightlifter, Eland served as administrator and judge at physical culture events. In 1954, for example, he and John Geduld were judges for the Trafalgar Amateur Wrestling Club when it staged a Mr Trafalgar Physique contest at the Salt River Railway Institute on 13 April (The Sun, 1954a:5). During his period as a teacher at Battswood Practising School, he started the Farnese Bodybuilding and Weightlifting Club (later the Farnese Recreation Club) in 1959. From 1980, Eland was a volunteer worker at the Columbus Centre in Toronto, where the Sports Academy introduced the Farnese Weightlifting and Powerlifting Course. In Cape Town, the Farnese Club was a social success, and Eland recorded in his diary that a successful show was held in the Wynberg Town Hall on 29 November 1963. This club produced champions, but also provided an outlet for many youths at risk. Although not a youth at risk, Shireen Daries completed a Farnese fitness course under Eland and proceeded to become a Miss South Africa (bodybuilding). According to archival data, her father and Farnese president, Abraham Daries, stated in 1995 that this club was the “biggest and strongest fitness club in South Africa … with body builders aged 10 to 40 years”. That year, the club offered athletics, aerobics, bodybuilding, squash and weight-powerlifting. Between 1960 and 1968, Eland was also involved in preparing primary school athletes for inter-district (Wynberg and District Schools’ Sports Union) and interprovincial (Western Province Schools’ Sports Board) competitions. In 1970, Pearl Jansen competed in the Miss World contest on 20 November, finishing runner-up (The Cape Herald, 1970:1). Eland recorded in his diary on 4 September that he was appointed by the South African Bodybuilding and Weightlifting Federation to coach Jansen, who came from the economically depressed and apartheid-created township of Bonteheuwel. Jansen was the winner of the Ms Africa South contest. The Ms Africa South contest was segregated for black persons, while Ms South Africa catered for white contestants. After the Ms World Competition, Eland left for the USA on 21 November, where he was sponsored by Cecil February.

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Eland in the USA (1970–1974) By 1970, all black political organisations in South Africa with mass support were banned, the country was debarred from the Olympic Games and South Africans had little opportunity for representing their country in international sport, except through clandestine ways. The German sport historian Michael Krüger quotes Friedrich Schiller: “… that even the worst conditions and oppression are not able to destroy the human capacity for play and playing, inspired by will and the striving for freedom” (Krüger, 2015:522). This was true of Eland, and his diary indicates that he left South Africa for political reasons as well as domestic concerns in his private life. He recorded in his notebook that “although having a steady income and hoping to get the family to come and stay, my landlady in Houston gave me notice … on 8 February 1971 … calling me a .... Despite this setback, however, he recorded further that “things are going well … bought a F98 Deluxe automatic … am extremely happy [but] miss RonCyn”. RonCyn was the name of his house in Wynberg, Cape Town – an abbreviation for Ronald and Cynthia. The archival record reveals that for the next four years, Eland, separated from his family in South Africa, enrolled for university courses in the USA and “[worked] by permit – a 20 hour week as a janitor, gardening jobs at $25 a day plus fringe benefits and half a dozen small jobs … to keep head above water”. During this time, he studied fine art at the Catholic University of America as a part-time undergraduate student and passed with a B+. He was accepted at Howard College in Maryland for studies in Physical Therapy, but enrolled at the DC Teachers’ College. At the time, the tuition fees were: Howard – $800; DC Teachers’ College – $100. Eland started classes on 13 September 1971, stating that his “most concerning factor is my visa which is laying at Capitol Hill for nearly a week and I have 5 weeks left on my passport”. It was a stressful time for Eland – he recorded on 14 January 1972 that “I am physically sick … unemployed since 19th November last year, still awaiting my passport …” With money running low, he wrote on 9 March that he got a $300 present from friends “that helped me tremendously”. By then, his student visa had expired, he still had no reply regarding his visa and he did “not know what the future holds”. He however noted that he had much success at the Toastmaster’s Dinner with his public speaking, which was one of his subjects at the DC Teachers’ College. Eland’s success in this field could be ascribed to debating societies that were important features at ‘coloured’ colleges in Cape Town (Wieder, 2008:27). Eland was also a representative for the DC Teachers’ College at the Inter-Varsity speech-making contest and according to a diary entry on 10 April 1972, he reached the final round. Sometime during that year, he attended the Congress of the International Federation of Powerlifters and was invited to attend again the following year. He worked at the Howard University Sports Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the clinic of Russel Davis at the Freedman’s Hospital in the field of bodybuilding, weightlifting and fitness. On 7 November, he mentioned that “things were going badly … I feel I cannot make it … I’m desperate and concerned about my family … I’m keeping on pushing … via God’s help, I’ll get a good break”. On 17 February 1973, however he wrote: “I’ve no jobs and no

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE money”. Things worsened for Eland, when on 9 May, his car was stolen with his “passport and visa, camera and family photographs”. On 1 August, Eland wrote that he was “holding on and pushing, having to pay back $578 tax”. That year, Eland secured a part-time teaching post at the Woodward Preparatory School and had some employment at their Summer Children’s Fun Programme. At the same time, Peter Miller, Secretary of the National Amateur Athletics Weightlifting Union (NAAWU), invited Eland, officially, with support of the president of the International Powerlifting Federation, Bob Crist, to attend the World Powerlifting Championships in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from 8 to 10  November 1973. O.C. Oehley, the South African representative, also indicated that he would attend this meeting. Afterwards, he was employed as an athletic trainer on a full-time basis at the Federal City College in Washington, DC from September until July the following year. Roundabout that time, the Canadian Consulate General accepted the Eland family as immigrants, pending the successful outcome of their medical exams. He also attended the Bob Hoffman 75 World Powerlifting Championship for the first time that year. Financially, however, things did not go better until July 1974. After spending New Year’s Eve with Cecil February, he stated: “Having better times”. This was shortlived and on 1 March he wrote: “I am on a 20 hour working permit, earning $114 every two weeks … things are really going tough now”. In May, Eland was still struggling financially and wrote: “Money tight – odd jobs to keep me going”. However, in June, Eland wrote: “I have a job at the Central YMCA [in Washington, DC] as Director for the Children’s Summer Fun program and things are a little better”. He was employed at the YMCA until 23 August 1974. During this time he recorded that he was a trainer for the Panthers College football and netball teams, judge for the Junior Mr America Bodybuilding Contest alongside Bob Hoffman and Arnold Schwarzenegger, weightlifting and bodybuilding coach at a hostel for young delinquents between the ages of 17 and 22, and organised the District of Columbia Teachers’ College Annual Physical Education Show. He left the USA on 26 September with his family, who had joined him, for Canada with a string of positive testimonials. One testimonial came from Samuel Barnes, athletic director at the Central YMCA, stating: “We would accept him back at any time he might wish to return”. He also had a testimonial from Peter Miller, calling to mind three “examples among the many services he provided the NAAWU: A speech that was made at the annual Awards Banquet where he gave a tremendous speech on athletics; the excellent weightlifting exhibition at Federal City College and the superior judging at numerous meets. Ralph Reynolds, director of health and physical education at the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, described Eland’s “abilities and knowledge of Physical Education to be superior as well as his ability to teach and lead young people to be outstanding. He is of excellent character and integrity and can be entrusted to perform responsibly in every circumstance”. He also had a testimonial from Wally Howard, secretary of the British Commonwealth Weightlifting Federation in November 1973, giving an overview of his international career.

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Eland in Canada (1974–2003) After arriving in Canada, the Eland family resided with former South Africans Ken and Gwen Coffin until they obtained permanent residence at 1855 Jane Street, 1806, Weston Toronto, Ontario, to “make it possible for the children to be registered in schools”. Ronald (junior) and Alta attended the York Humber High School, while Dany and Andrew attended the Gracefield Public School. Eland took a keen interest in his children’s school progress, particularly in their physical education. He recorded in June 1975 that Alta represented her school at a leadership course in physical education, “doing exceptionally well”, and that Elro and Dany “made firsts in their PT”. However, the Elands faced financial difficulties and he wrote that his wages at the North York Maintenance Depot and Broadview YMCA did not cover monthly living, travelling and food expenses. By August 1975, Eland secured a teaching post, starting on 2 September, at Kent Senior Public School, teaching Mathematics and English for grades 7 to 8. He also completed a summer course in Special Education for children with special needs. Shortly afterwards, Eland enrolled at York University (Atkinson College) as a part-time student. Eland taught in schools under the Toronto Board of Education during the day and worked as a volunteer sports leader in the evenings and over weekends. On 12 December 1975, he recorded that he was “progressing most successfully” and that he was now a member of the Ontario Weightlifting Federation, being appointed as junior coach. The following year he was appointed bodybuilding and weightlifting coach at the local Youth Male and Women Hebrew Association in Bathurst Street, Toronto. He recorded on 10 May that he took his Ontario Weightlifting team to Washington and won the competition. He writes further that he was also assistant coach to Jack Gilchrist, the Canadian team coach at the 1976 Olympic Games, who had become a family friend by then. After his return from the Olympic Games, he invited Precious  McKenzie to stay with him. According to his archive, he was a founder member of the Forum Club in Canada in 1976 and filled the position of public relations officer. This club supported charitable causes in Angola, Tanzania, Rwanda, Mozambique and South Africa, notably the Bishop Tutu Fund and school feeding projects in sub-economic areas. In 1977 he noted that he was chairman of the Ontario Weightlifting Coaches Association, a position he held until 1979. On 28 May 1977 he made a diary entry: Weight lifting progress – been to Ottawa and Montreal for Olympic Games [last year]; Was at North Bay as coach at Winter Games. From 11‑14 February I went to Washington D.C. with national junior team against USA and lost. I went to Edmonton, as coach of the Ontario team at the Canadian National Weightlifting Championship. On 1 September 1977, Eland recorded that he was in Los Angeles with the Ontario Junior Weightlifting team, who won their contest. In that year, the Elands bought a town house at 4-4 Brookall Drive, Downsview, Ontario. He also recorded that he visited Washington from 25 to 31 December, where he arranged a weightlifting contest. The Elands became Canadian citizens on 24 April 1978, and Eland recorded the exact time – 19:01 – when they took the Oath of Allegiance. A celebration supper

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE was arranged at the Railway Tavern, followed by another celebration at home, “drinking, eating and showing South African films”. That same year he was coach of the Ontario weightlifting team at the Canadian Championship and in August, he attended the 6th Annual Commonwealth Conference on Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Sport. He recorded in a notebook that he assisted Wes Woo with coaching the Canadian weightlifting team at the Commonwealth Games. It was a successful meeting and Eland met fellow South Africans, the Hector family, from Wynberg, Cape Town, as well as Precious McKenzie. By November 1978, Eland was complaining about his health and was seeing a specialist. He also recorded that weightlifting in Canada was on “a poor wicket”. Eland wrote in a scrapbook that he was appointed technical director for the weight training section of Columbus Centre on 5 September 1980. In April 1981 he recorded that he was suffering from high blood pressure, but still graduated with a BA degree in Sociology from York University on 14 June. At that time, he was employed at Kent Senior Primary School, but was informed that his services will terminate at the end of June that year. Despite his deteriorating health (he recorded on 24 June 1982 that he was sick for 11 days and not feeling well), he was making plans to enrol for a BEd degree at Toronto University. He started a teaching contract at Oster on 7 September 1982, stating: “I had a rough time at the school but towards the end of 1982 things have improved in my Special Education classes”. The Eland’s experienced domestic problems (his son, Ronald, passed away of cancer on 11 October 2001), but he reported on his other son, Andrew: “He was scouted for his football ability at Concordia University in Montreal and is doing well at football and studies and is most mature”. Eland completed his BEd degree in 1982 and the family was visited by Shireen Daries (Ms  South  Africa)2 from 10 June until 3 July 1983, and the Abraham Opperman family in July to August. In June that year, he left the Columbus Centre Gymnasium along with Ian Monroe because they “could not take it any longer”. However, Prof. Bruce Kidd wrote a letter to Eland in 1993 where the address was: Ron Eland, Weight Training Consultant, Columbus Centre, 901 Lawrence Avenue West, Toronto, Ontario M6A 1C3. Eland’s health deteriorated in 1984 and he recorded that he suffered a heart attack, developed ulcers and had high blood pressure. However, he recorded that he still managed to be scorekeeper at the World Super Heavyweight Weightlifting Championships held in Los Angeles. In 1986, he invited Ken Coffen to co-host a television talk show on Newton Cable Channel 10 for 16 weeks. This talk show revealed much about sub-altern narratives of black physical culture and weightlifting and Eland mentioned the influences of Milo Pillay and Sigmund Klein on South African weightlifting. On 27 March 1993, he was honoured by the Ontario Weightlifting Association with their first “Lifetime Achievement Award”.

1995 southern African tour After Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, Eland voiced a desire to return to South Africa to contribute to sports development in disadvantaged communities. 2  Shireen Daries competed under the auspices of the SAWLBF.

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Spurned by the white South African Olympic regime in 1948, Eland was requested in 1994 by the National Olympic Committee of South Africa (NOCSA) to assist with the training of South Africa’s and Zimbabwe’s weightlifters for the 1996 Olympic Games. In February 1995, he was made Canadian Representative on a Goodwill Ambassadorial Visit to South Africa in preparation for the Olympic Games in 1996. This was made possible with the help of the Commonwealth Sport Development Programme of the Commonwealth Games Association of Canada and Sam Ramsamy, president of the National Olympic Committee of South Africa. Ramsamy and NOCSA were later criticised by the president of the Farnese Recreation Club, Abraham (Ampie) Daries for “making it difficult for Ron to do what he really wanted to do in some much needed areas”. A descriptive account of Ron Eland’s tour (as found in his private archive) to South Africa and Zimbabwe from 16 February to 3 May 1995 provides historians with a window on the state of physical culture in socio-economically deprived regions of southern Africa during the last decade of the 20th century. In an official capacity as Canadian representative for the Olympic Games, he conducted coaching workshops, partially in Afrikaans, for powerlifters, weightlifters and body builders in the Border region in the Eastern Cape on 30 and 31 March. Daries reported that Eland visited them in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town to witness a “well-organised display of body-building” roundabout 7 April. Mitchells Plain is a predominately ‘coloured’ suburb about 32 km (20 mi) from the city of Cape Town. It is one of South Africa’s largest suburbs. Conceived as a ‘model suburb’ by the apartheid government, it was built during the 1970s to provide housing for coloured victims of forced removal due to the implementation of the Group Areas Act. According to a report of a regional sport coordinator of the Zimbabwean Sport and Recreation Commission, Eland gave lectures, visited schools, held meetings with sport officials and visited gyms in Bulawayo’s high-density suburbs between 19 and 21  April 1995. An undated letter states that Eland visited Colin’s Gym, owned by Colin Canary, in Harare. Here he was hosted by the Mashonaland Amateur Bodybuilding and Weightlifting Association, where he presented a two day workshop on weight training and weightlifting. Eland also attended the Junior and Senior Mr Mashonaland Bodybuilding Contest at Colin’s Gym on 29 April. He found the competition of a high standard, but was disturbed by the lack of equipment at the Zimbabwe University where the African Games were scheduled for September of that year. Eland wrote: Zimbabwe is a third world country in dire need of training equipment and coaching, especially at the university. The only equipment available was a bench, a home-made leg extension machine, home training weights of different makes, four training bars and various other loose equipment. Eland suggested that equipment be purchased from the Weider Store in Randburg, South Africa. After visiting the African Sports Centre in Gugulethu, Cape Town, Eland wrote to Joe Weider on 10 August, requesting assistance for weight training equipment for the University of Zimbabwe and the centre in Gugulethu. The Gugulethu township (the equivalent of the American ghetto) was established in the 1960s due to the overcrowding of the nearby township of Langa, which was the

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE only African residential area for Cape Town at the time. During the apartheid era, South Africans classified as African3 were not permitted to live in the city of Cape Town, and many people were removed from areas such as District Six and Retreat to Gugulethu, Nyanga and Langa (Cleophas, 2018a:654). Eland’s observation that the “same conditions prevail in the new South Africa as in Zimbabwe” reveals much about sport development in Zimbabwe, 15 years after independence.

Home in South Africa In 2002, the city of Port Elizabeth wrote to Eland, who was undergoing chemotherapy, informing him that it was establishing a sports hall of fame and wanted to induct him among the very first members. Prof. Bruce Kidd, a Canadian Olympian, academic and personal friend of Eland, wrote in a newspaper column (Globe & Mail, 2003:5): Although painfully ill with cancer he somehow brought himself to a point of health that would enable him to make the long journey back to South Africa. He knew it would be a one-way trip, but wanted the chance to share his dreams about South African sport one more time. Unfortunately, he died before the induction ceremony. Previously, Kidd had provided a testimonial to the effect that Eland coached Precious McKenzie, who subsequently followed in his footsteps, competing in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games for Britain, Jamaica and New Zealand and earned himself the award of Member of the Order of the British Empire from the British Queen. Eland passed away on 12 February 2003 in South Africa before receiving his award. Although Eland never met Mandela personally, he passed away in the same hospital (Constantiaberg) where Mandela was treated during his incarceration as a political prisoner.

Conclusion This chapter adds new epistemologies about the origins of weightlifting in South Africa. It differs from traditional narratives rooted in old South African nationalisms that view the past through narrow racist lenses. Black commentators who commented on the history of South African weightlifting often centred Greece as the cradle of origin and also viewed Egyptian history of the sport as an appendage of Western civilisation (Matthews, 1950:7). This chapter created new African physical culture ontologies by shifting subaltern experiences – left outside of the official colonial narrative – to the centre with the aim to foreground a black presence. In this regard, the private archival record of Ron Eland reveals how black physical culturalists made contributions towards South African weightlifting in international sport. It also shows how Eland was stunted from expressing desires of achievement – a situation shared by most black sportspeople. Although Eland cannot be described as a revolutionary in his resistance to such obstacles, for South Africans, he can become a symbol of the cruel racism of apartheid sport 3 This classification was absurd and left deep psychological scars. Individual cases of racial reclassification that confirm this are found in African Drum Magazine (1955c:20-21).

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and the resourcefulness and determination of black athletes who persevered. His impact was evident throughout all levels of South African sport, from community level to the highest level of participation in the Olympic Games. Such narratives as that of Ron Eland provide opportunities for revealing how during the 1940s until the 1970s and beyond, black sportspeople survived and carried on with daily life, experiencing human tragedy that is common to all people, but under extra difficult circumstances in apartheid South Africa. Such tragedies form the core of attempts at creating a decolonised South African physical culture archive at the edge of empire.

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Globe & Mail. 2003. Lives Lived. 9 June:5. Grundlingh, A. 2013. Potent pastimes: Sport and leisure practices in modern Afrikaner history. Pretoria: Protea Book House. Health & Strength. 1956. January balance contests, 85(6):n.p. Kirk, D. 1999. Physical culture, physical education and relational analysis. Sport, Education and Society, 4(1):63-73. Krüger, M. 2015. Global perspectives on sports and movement cultures: From past to present – modern sports between nationalism, internationalism and cultural imperialism. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(4):518-534. Lalu, P. 2008. Recalling community, refiguring archive. In: B. Bennet, C. Julius & C. Soudien (eds). City, Site Museum, Reviewing memory practices at the District Six Museum. Cape Town: District Six Museum, pp.158-165. Leach, M. & Wilkins, G. 1992. Olympic dream: The South African connection. Cape Town: Penguin. Le Grange, L. 2018. Decolonising sport: Some thoughts. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 15-21. Matthews, J. 1950. The Cinderella sport comes into its own. The Sun, 17 November:7. Odendaal, A. 2018. Reflections on writing a post-colonial history of a colonial game. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 1-8. Odendaal, A., Merret, C., Reddy, K. & Winch, J. 2016. Cricket and conquest: The history of South African cricket retold. Volume 1, 1795-1914. Cape Town: Human Sciences Research Council. Peck, C. & Seixas, P. 2008. Benchmarks of historical thinking: First steps. Canadian Journal of Education, 31(4):1015-1038. Penn, N. 1999. Rogues, rebels and runaways: Eighteenth-century Cape characters. Cape Town: David Phillip. Perrot, M. 1990. Introduction. In: M. Perrot (ed). A history of private life: From the fires of revolution to the Great War. London: Belknap, pp.1-5. Raad vir Geesteswetenskaplike Navorsing. 1982. Sportgeskiedskrywing en dokumentasie. Verslag van die Werkommittee: Sportgeskiedenis, Nommer 15. Pretoria. Rand Daily Mail. 1966. Muscle men may compete in Europe, 2 April:29. Rand Daily Mail. 1968. Champions to meet, 24 September:5. Rand Daily Mail. 1975. Botha wrong – Asian Bok, 27 March:3. Rand Daily Mail. 1976. Springbok controversy 1976, January 24:1. SAOBEGA (South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association). 1946a. Minutes of Special General Meeting of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association held in the Carlton Hotel, Johannesburg, Thursday 3 October.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE SAOBEGA (South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association). 1946b. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association held in the Carlton Hotel, Johannesburg on Tuesday 4 June. SAOBEGA (South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association). 1947a. Annual report of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association. In Minutes of the meeting of the Executive Committee of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association held in the Carlton Hotel, Johannesburg on Monday 13 January. SAOBEGA (South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association). 1947b. Minutes of meeting of the Council of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association held at the Langham Hotel on Monday 15 December. SAOBEGA (South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association). 1948. Minutes of the Council of the South African Olympic and British Empire Games Association held at the Langham Hotel on Thursday 27 May. Slamat, J. 2018. Celebrating the freedom of the slaves symposium. Panel discussion. Pniël: Pniël Congregational Church Hall, 1 December. Snyders, H. 2018. Degenerative sports and dirty tactics: Race and professional wrestling in Cape Town, South Africa, c.1880–1988. In: A.D. Horton (ed). Essays on nationality, race and gender. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 56‑75. Steinmair, D. 2014. Eietydse ‘Herinnering se wei’ saamgestel, Netwerk24. TEPA Educational News. 1957. Members of standing committees, 11(3):46. The Cape Herald. 1970. Attack on Pearl is sour grapes, 28 November:1. The Claremont A.P.O. Mutual Building Society. 1920. African Political Organisation. (A.P.O). Official organ of the African People’s Organisation, 3 April:4. The Sun. 1954a. Trafalgar Amateur Wrestling Club, 23 April:5. The Sun. 1954b. Wynberg Weightlifter Weds, 31 December:2. Thomas, C. 2012. Time with Dennis Brutus: Conversations, quotations and snapshots 2005-2009. East London: Wendy’s Book Lounge. Van der Merwe, F.J.G. 1978. Suid-Afrikaanse deelname aan die Olimpiese spele: 19081960. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Potchefstroom: Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. Van der Merwe, I.R. 1960. Beginsels waarop ’n prinsipiële sisteem van liggaamlike opvoeding moet berus. Bloemfontein: SACUM. Van der Ross, R. 2008. The Black Countess: A biography. Newlands: Ampersand. Van der Ross, R. 2010. A blow to the hoop: The story of my life and times. Newlands: Ampersand. WCARS (Western Cape Archives and Records Services). MOOC 6/9/23747/5882/55. WCARS (Western Cape Archives and Records Services). MOOC 6/9/4370/40102.

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Creating a decolonising South African physical culture archive WCARS (Western Cape Archives and Records Services). MOOC 6/9/4457/42091. WCARS (Western Cape Archives and Records Services). MOOC 6/9/4666/47400. Wieder, A. 2008. Teacher and Comrade: Richard Dudley and the Fight for Democracy. New York, NY: The State University of New York.

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Chapter 2 The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa: David Isaacs and others Francois Cleophas Department of Sport Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Introduction This chapter is an account of a historically significant South African bodybuilder, David Isaacs, and his community. His life story is significant on three accounts. Firstly, although his life and times were and are rooted in community work among South Africa’s materially poor, he also competed at the highest level of international competition. Isaacs’s life experience therefore allows physical culture historians insight into the grassroots-level personal struggles of urban South African black bodybuilders for international recognition. It confirms the words of a learner from Isaacs’s neighbourhood, who stated: “Ordinary people also have a history that is worth telling and that gets an identity” (Prinsloo & Robinson, 1992:27). Secondly, his life story directs attention away from a black victim narrative by showing how materially poor sportspeople resisted racist oppression through non-collaboration practices. Thirdly, Isaacs was active on the outer margins of mainstream bodybuilding during apartheid and has remained so under the new post-apartheid regime. These are spaces about which sport historians have remained silent during the post-apartheid period. The silence is broken in this chapter through a series of informal interviews that triggered archival research. The somewhat lengthy interview extracts are presented in their original format and are needed so as not to lose the thrust of Isaacs’s narration of his own life, as well as to avoid undue interference by the researcher. Isaacs is a South African bodybuilder who can claim to have competed in the company of international figures such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, George Paine and Albert Beckles (The Cape Mirror, 1969:11) while working in materially poor communities in the 20th and 21st centuries at the same time. At age 80, he is still committed to his community-centred gymnasium in the economically depressed part of Cape Town known as the Cape Flats, while having to deal with the normal challenges associated with old age. He still follows a strongman-culture lifestyle and advocates the life view of “Professor” Attila, the coach of Eugen Sandow. Attila held that the strongman “must follow a clean and wholesome life to withstand physical strain” (Isaacs, 2018; Rand Daily Mail, 1912:7). Isaacs’s life is therefore entwined with politics, community work and bodybuilding. In his life he is, as the South African critic Louis Leipoldt (2006:151–152) would have it, “[s]ufficient in himself … [where] money is of no consequence”.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Isaacs’s lifestyle represents what B.D. Lombard (1951:21) refers to as a post-World War I physical culture system, whose adherents “were particular about what they ate, were non-smokers, non-drinkers and abstained from tea and coffee”. In this regard, Isaacs (2018) says: “I never went to bioscopes, I rather trained … I still instill these values in my gym members …. Nobody can pin my character … I have self-respect”. These early physical culturists later specialised in weight training and afterwards became known as bodybuilders. David Isaacs’s historical account reveals him to be more than simply an international bodybuilder; he is also a role model for youths who are at risk the world over, in particular in Cape Town, as he is also a physical culturalist with political-historical significance. In the 21st century, Isaacs operates a community gymnasium on the principle of what Dana Snyman (2017:188) calls “creativity and the courage to be original as compared to the forceful discipline displayed by South African sport coaches prior to 1994” [translated]. Hence, the award-winning poet, James Matthews described him as “a man whose name is known and is idolised amongst the body-building fraternity to the extent that teeny-boppers flip over” (The Cape Mirror, 1969:11). Isaacs admits that his life story is entwined with other physical culturalists who are brushed out of 21st‑century Figure 2.1 David Isaacs with Arnold Schwarzenegger mainstream history, but whose and Franco Colombu experiences reveal much about Source: David Isaacs private archive South Africa’s legacy of racism perpetuated against black people.

Childhood and youth David Isaacs’s childhood was shaped by influences of church, community and material poverty. He was born in 1938 in Cape Town when the inner city living quarters for the materially poor, known as District Six, was characterised by overcrowding. A former District Six resident, Linda Fortune, described her childhood house as “a semi-detached house … where 11 people lived” (Fortune, 1996:1). Another resident, Noor Ebrahim, claimed: “District Six and its people shaped me, showed me who I was and how I should be if I wanted to get on in life” (Ebrahim, 2007:15). Isaacs’s professional life was shaped by the daily experience of direct engagement with people under these circumstances. As he recalls: I worked for the Cape Times for 40½ years but was a freelance photographer for the Sunday Times Extra,1 Rapport Ekstra2 and Burger Ekstra. These were newspapers that were published in coloured townships. I mostly 1 The Sunday Times Extra was a newspaper with a circulation of 100 000 in 1977 (see Switzer & Switzer, 1979:127). 2 For commentary on these Ekstra newspapers, see Beukes (2018:110).

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa focused on social pictures and sports. I covered a lot of rugby events and soccer events as a photographer (Isaacs, 2018). David Johannes Isaacs was born on 26 May 1938 and baptised in the Congregational Church in Cape Town in 1941. From there the family moved to Newlands, and he remembers those days as follows: It was humble beginnings. I come from a very poor family, we had no money, you know. It was a struggle. My mother, Magdelena Isaacs (born April)3 was born in Uniondale and moved to Cape Town in her forties … she polished the floors of white people … my father was a gardener … white people called him a garden boy (Isaacs, 2018). His early life was also shaped by religious influences, as mentioned earlier, and he states the following: I was confirmed in the St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Newlands and I got married there too. I was involved in church activities … The Church of the Holy Spirit is now in Heideveld since the Group Areas Act … I joined the Young Guiding Stars Christmas Band at age 13 and became drum major the following year … we competed in the City and Suburban Christmas Band Union and I won the title of best drum major for [the] next 20 years (Isaacs, 2018). Unknown to Isaacs, the St Andrew’s Church, Newlands, has a legacy of black physical culture that predates him. A media report (Gymnasium display on Robben Island, 1916:12) reported: Recently, by invitation of the Commissioner, Mr Fred Ingram took a team of 20, mostly coloured lads from Newlands, to give a gymnasium display on Robben Island. The events on the trapeze, the parallel bars, the vaulting horse (which, by-the-by, was made by the boys themselves, and was 5ft. high) was watched for two hours by an eager crowd. It was wonderful proof of what patient and sympathetic training can do, and by a busy man in his spare time. Mr Ingram is brimful of enthusiasm for the gymnasium for coloured lads and has fired others with something of his spirit, with the result that several parishes in the Peninsula are following his lead. The fact that several of his boys were chosen for the Cape Corps and are now fighting in German East Africa, tells its own story. In the 1940s, Newlands was a semi-rural area where rich and poor lived side by side. Initially, the Isaacs family lived in “a small house in Palmboom Street, where the dining room was divided from the bedroom by a curtain and the children slept on the floor” (Isaacs, 2018). Dr Richard Dudley, later a founder member of the socialist-orientated New Unity Movement (NUM) and the son of a school principal, lived in the same road as the Isaacs family. Both the Dudley and the Isaacs families were evicted from Newlands under the notorious Group Areas Act. Today, the Dudleys’ house still stands at the corner of Palmboom Road and Dudley Lane in what is now a plush suburb (Wieder, 2003:19).

3 The surname April originates from the 17th and 18th century when Cape slaves were given the names of the months (see Van der Ross, 2005:75).

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Isaacs’s childhood neighbourhood was one where families lived together and some “lived with their grandparents because there was a shortage of houses, it was cheap and everyone could share the rent” (Prinsloo & Robinson, 1992:28). He recalled: “We stayed in eight places in one year … a dining room here, a kitchen there … one year, I remember, on New Year’s Day, we were evicted from our rented lodgings in Kent Road by the drunk landlord … we moved in by Mr Jefta, my future father-in-law, in Oak Avenue … ten children slept in the same room” (Isaacs, 2018). Coloured children in the 1940s attended church mission schools, as public schooling was largely reserved for white children. Isaacs states: I started at the Dutch Reformed Mission School in Claremont. They only went up to Grade 5. If you passed Grade 5, then they moved you over to Steven Reagan Primary, also in Claremont. That went up to Grade 7. If you passed Grade 7, they moved you over to Livingstone High School in Lansdowne. I was about fourteen years old then (Isaacs, 2018). In the economically depressed and segregated environment of Cape Town society, sport provided Isaacs with opportunities for success and an escape from daily reality. He recalls: Despite economic hardships in a segregated society, I was an athlete. You know Cecil Blows? I ran the 100, 220 and 440 yards against him. My first sport was gymnastics … with the Roslyns Club in Newlands … I won the overall title in the gymnastics competition. I played first team rugby for Universals in the competitions of the City and Suburban Rugby Union. I also played soccer for Livingstone High School. I did all sports (Isaacs, 2018). Livingstone High School was established in 1926 and Isaacs can remember his teachers, Allie Fataar and Ray Carlier. Fataar’s life as a political activist was captured in Yunus Omar’s (2015) PhD dissertation, while Carlier was a South African tennis champion in 1937 (The Sun, 1937b:12). The gymnastic competitions in which Isaacs participated were organised under the auspices of the Western Province Association of Physical Education Clubs, which was established  in 1943 and started courses for the training of club leaders the following year (WPAPEC, 1965:5). The City and Suburban Rugby Union dates back to 1898. By the 1950s the following clubs, among others, had played in its various leagues at different times: California (1888), Wanderers (1886), Temperance (1895), Retreat (1898), Thistles (1891), Riverstones, Oaks, Africans and Progress (1906), Perseverance (1889), Primroses (1896) and Woodstock Rangers (1892) (Booley, 1998:155, 163, 167, 169, 170; Nauright, 1995:5; The Cape Standard, 1936:12). However, Isaacs made his mark in bodybuilding.

40

The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa

Black bodybuilding history in South Africa The presence of various physical culture clubs and the efforts of men such as Matt October4 and Coomeasamy Gauesa (Milo) Pillay5 resulted in bodybuilding gaining popularity in Cape Town after World War II (The Sun, 1950:7). The first South African Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation (SAWBF) championship (non-racial) was held in 1950 (WPNBU, n.d.) without media coverage. That same year, according to a media report, Pillay negotiated with physical culture clubs in Ethiopia, Sudan, Liberia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika, French Equatorial Africa, Nyassaland, Belgian Congo, the Portuguese East and West Africa to hold a conference in Lorenço Marques in June 1951 with the object of forming a PanAfrican Federation of Physical Education. The Federation’s aim was to promote and encourage “bodybuilding among the individuals of the African continent for their physical, mental and moral upliftment” (The Sun, 1950a:6). In 1952, according to a report in The Sun, this national body devised an ambitious plan for a coloured Olympiad in 1953 in Port Elizabeth. Milo Pillay claimed that he had contacted the Olympic Councils of Denmark, France, India, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina and Pakistan, which all indicated that they supported the venture and would support South African non-white weightlifters and bodybuilders6 to seek representation as a team at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne (The Sun, 1952a:2). The Western Province Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Association (WPWLBBA) was established in November 1952. The first bodybuilding champion was Paul Abrahams (The Sun, 1952b:5). There was also interest in the sport in coloured communities in Kimberley, as George Williams started the Scientific Club in Galeshewe Village. Williams trained boys “free of charge … [with the hope] of seeing them take an interest in the sport” (Golden City Post, 1957a:20). In the Transvaal, black bodybuilding was directed by the formation of the Johannesburg and District Amateur Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Association in 1957. The Association was open to clubs in the Rand, Pretoria and Vereeniging regions, where the early officials were Johannes “Skipper” Molusi and Canon Nqandela. This Association was supported by the Native Affairs Department (NAD) (Golden City Post, 1957b:20). The NAD was an outcome of the 1936 Representation of Natives Act, which removed African people from the voters’ roll and through which African people had been represented by white people in Parliament and in the provincial councils (Van Schoor, 1986:28). David Isaacs remembers competing against bodybuilders from this association in Johannesburg. Although bodybuilding was a popular sport by the 1960s and 1970s in Cape Town (Isaacs, 2018), the standard of competition of the WPWLBBA initially varied from excellent to very poor. The inaugural competition of the WPWLBBA was dubbed 4 Matt October first made a name for himself when he won the featherweight title at the South African Non-European Sports Pageant in 1937, dubbed the Olympics of the Slaves (The Sun, 1937a:8). See also Cleophas (2019). 5 For a sport-historical narrative of Coomeasamy Gauesa (Milo) Pillay, see Cleophas (2019). 6 Bodybuilding was not an Olympic sport code.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE the “Physical Excellence” competition and was held in the Salt River Railway Institute on 12 December, with Tromp van Diggelen as one of the five judges. The Sun newspaper described the programme as the dullest presented to a Cape Town audience for a long time. The compère was boring, items ran late, there were long delays between items and several changes were made to the programme. The audience also booed decisions made by the judges (The Sun, 1952b:5). On 24 March 1954, John Geduld, a 20-year-old bodybuilder, won the Mr Cape Peninsula title at a contest staged by the WPWLBBA at the Woodstock Town Hall. In the process, he defeated bodybuilders such as Ron Eland, Eddie Palm, Eric Meyer (third place), Ralph Warrin and John Oliver (second place) (The Sun, 1954d:5). The following bodybuilding clubs participated in this contest: Accro, Eoan, Lion and Farnese (The Sun, 1954b:7). Accro Club was established in 1933 in an old sand floor garage that belonged to Ismail Brown in District Six. Here young men, most of whom had left school between grades 4 and 8, trained with home-made weights and ropes tied to the ceiling (Cleophas, 2009:208). The Eoan Group was established in District Six, Cape Town in 1933 and from its early years brought physical culture initiatives to Capetonians (Cleophas, 2009:223–229). Nothing is known about the Lion Club, but the Farnese Club was associated with the work of Ron Eland. The judges at the Mr Cape Peninsula championship included Jackie  Luntz, T. Assaro, J. Wahl and Mr Healy, all prominent white weightlifters (The Sun, 1954d:5). In the same year, the WPWLBBA planned a bodybuilding contest for novices on 27 April in the Wynberg Town Hall. The definition of a novice was given as any person who had neither won a contest of a similar nature, nor was placed in such competitions, including height-class competitions (The Sun, 1954c:8). The Boland Amateur Bodybuilding and Weightlifting Board (for coloured South Africans) was also established that year, with its headquarters in Wellington and Charles Daniels as its first secretary (The Sun, 1954a:8). By 1954, black South Africans7 were competing in international bodybuilding competitions and Reuben Govender, an Indian South African, entered the Mr Universe competition in France that year (Mendes, 1954:n.p.). All of this drew the attention of advertisers who saw opportunities for marketing their products. In South Africa, black bodybuilders such as Pat Graham (Mr  South  Africa runner-up in 1964 and winner in 1965), Sam Ordeson and Willy  Matthys (a deaf bodybuilder) were established names in the black media (The Cape Herald, 1966a:4; 1966g:10). Bodybuilding in the Western Cape got a boost in 1966 when Reg Park and Larry Scott visited South Africa. Park was Mr Universe in 1951, 1958 and 1965, and a renowned film star. His other successes included being Mr Britain, Mr Europe and Mr World. Scott was Mr  Universe, Mr California, Mr America and Mr Olympia. They were scheduled to appear at the Luxurama Theatre,8 Wynberg on 26 July 1966 (The Cape Herald, 1966b:1; 1966h:3). On 12 September 1966 the Western Province Bodybuilders’ Union (as it was called 7 This study uses the term ‘black’ to refer to all people classified as non-white under the apartheid regime. The official classification rested on the categories African, Coloured and Indian. 8 The Luxurama was opened in 1965 in the coloured living quarters of the suburb of Wynberg. It was under the proprietorship of R.S. Quibell with the intention of “promoting stage shows … that would encourage coloured playwrights and promoters” (The Cape Herald, 1965:5).

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa in the press) staged an exhibition show in the Woodstock Town Hall. Included in the exhibition were David Isaacs, Pat Graham and Tommy Minnord with his acrobatic team, the Daredevils (The Cape Herald, 1966a:4). That same year, Dennis Wyngaard left Cape Town to compete in the World Physique Championship in East Berlin on 22 October. Wyngaard was a member of the Ferndale Bodybuilding Club based in the segregated suburb of Heathfield (The Cape Herald, 1966d:6). At the pre-competition meeting, after a failed attempt by Eastern Bloc countries to expel South Africa from the international federation, delegates voted in favour of sending a delegation to investigate the race policies of the South African Weightlifting Association (Rand  Daily Mail, 1966b). Bodybuilding clubs also branched off into other sports. For example, in 1966 the Jaroba Bodybuilding Club of Elsies River9 opened a judo section (The Cape Herald, 1966b:6; 1966e:1). Several community centres in Cape Town’s local black neighbourhood also had bodybuilding clubs. In 1966, for example, Ralph Palm of the Bridgetown Community Centre won the Mr Apollo bodybuilding title. Palm was also a wrestling champion, a provincial cyclist and City and Suburban Rugby Union prop forward (The Cape Herald, 1966f:9). The black bodybuilding scene in South Africa was, however, dominated by David Isaacs and Pat Graham (The Cape Herald, 1966c:7).

Bodybuilding career Isaacs laid out his career as follows: I started training in Newlands at the age of eighteen, a very young age, and I only weighed 112 pounds (that’s 50 kilograms). I was very thin and we started training in the back yard with very few weights … Can you imagine weighing 50 kilograms at the age of eighteen? When I competed I was 246 kilograms, it can be done … We were about 12 youngsters together. I started the Oakdale Bodybuilding Club in 1956 in Newlands … We clubbed some money together and bought one set of weights. Twelve guys had to train with that one set of weights. It was difficult … but we produced champions … Edward Isaacs won the Mr Junior South Africa for three years in succession. We also had Gerald Lawrence, who won Mr Junior Western Province. We had Johnny Benson, who won Mr Junior South Africa. We were the best club in South Africa because we won all the senior and junior titles. We started from humble beginnings in that backyard. The Western Province Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Union had been established by 1956. Farnese, Oakdale, Olympic clubs were affiliated members … Farnese, that’s where Ron Eland and Precious McKenzie come from. [I remember] Ampie Darries from Farnese … He also passed way. In later years he was chairman of the Western Province Union. His daughter was Shireen Darries, [who] also won Ms Western Province. My daughter, Amanda, also won this title two years in a row and was runner-up Ms South Africa. 9 This was a sub-economic area, inhabited mainly by coloured people (see Weeder, 2006).

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Most of the people died who started the club with me. We were school kids at the time, very young … [However] we joined up with the union and we won all the provincial titles, juniors and seniors, and we succeeded in becoming the best club in South Africa. … My first Mr Western Province title I won in 1963, and I won it twelve years in succession. After that I took some time off to spend with my family. I initially planned it to be one year, but it ended up being five years. I then made a comeback and won the Mr Western Province title after a five-year layoff, winning it for the thirteenth time. I competed in London at the Mr Universe competition in 1966. That’s the year I competed against Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 1969 I competed again in the Mr Universe in London and Mr World in Belgium. In 1996 was my last international competition in Italy, where I competed in the Mr World competition. I competed in the Masters’ division. I was fifty-eight years old, the oldest competitor. Isaacs shared a similar health condition as a child to that of Eugen Sandow, namely being very thin (Rand Daily Mail, 1925:13). At the age of 27, Isaacs weighed 190 pounds (86 kg), with a bicep circumference of 17½ inches (44.5 cm) (The Cape Herald, 1966a:1). Isaacs was also a powerlifter, stating: “I competed in powerlifting competitions as a bodybuilder. I bench-pressed 380 [kilograms], deadlifted 500, and squatted 400.” He says: All the gyms were for the other side [the white people], and we had to train in garages and backyards, but we made the best of it. … in the back yard of Fred Jeftha’s [stalwart of the Temperance Rugby Club]10 house, my father-in-law. All those years we trained in garages and backyards. … I also read a lot of books but I went with my own ideas … I ate a lot of eggs … 24 eggs a day, 8 pints of milk a day, 20 slices of wholewheat bread a day, 30 bananas a day. I did not use any protein supplements, just natural food. That was my personal approach (The Cape Mirror, 1969:11; Isaacs, 2018; see Booley, 1998:168, for a pen sketch of Fred Jeptha).

Isaacs, bodybuilding and politics During apartheid, black sportspeople in South Africa, such as David Isaacs, had limited opportunities for international competition. Initially they formed their own organisations, which were independent of the official state-sanctioned units. After World War II, pressure mounted about South Africa’s racist sport practices. Eventually, government responded by introducing multiracial reforms to appease its opponents, but also to avoid losing local conservative voter support. By 1975, South Africa had four national bodybuilding organisations: the non-racial South African Amateur Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation (SAAWLBF), the official and multiracial South African Amateur Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Union (SAAWBU), the South African Bodybuilding and Beauty Promotion and the South African Bodybuilding Association (Rand Daily Mail, 1975b:4). 10 The Temperance Rugby Club was one of the early members of the City and Suburban Rugby Football Union. Typical of most coloured rugby clubs, meetings were held in school halls – in the case of Temperance, it held meetings in a mission school in Main Road, Claremont (S.A. Clarion, 1919:6; 1920:15).

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa Isaacs located himself in the SAAWLBF, which was present at the first Conference of National Non-Racial Sports Organisations (NNRSOs, 1970:5). This was the first of a series of preliminary meetings that led to the formation of the South African Council on Sport (SACOS), the custodian of the anti-apartheid sport movement in South Africa, in 1973. SACOS became a non-sectarian sport-political home for all anti-apartheid movements. During its existence, SACOS accommodated a wide range of political trends, and also held official talks with the organised trade union movement and the internal wing of the banned African National Congress (ANC), the United Democratic Front (UDF) (Buthelezi, 1973; SACOS Bulletin, 1987:2). In 1985, SACOS held meetings with most of the political organisations within the broad liberation movement that were not banned: the UDF, the Azanian People’s Organisation, the National Forum, (NF), NUM and the African People’s Democratic Union of Southern Africa (Brown, 2006:139). In 1966, the SAAWLBF, which was not recognised by the official SAAWBU, was invited by the National Amateur Bodybuilding Association and the Indian Ocean Amateur Bodybuilding and Weightlifting Association to send athletes to the Mr Universe competition in London, and to another competition in Port Louis, Mauritius (Rand Daily Mail, 1966a). David Isaacs and Pat Graham were selected as representatives of the SAAWLBF in 1966 for the Mr Universe competition. They did not escape the usual state harassment that went along with such ventures. Government withdrew the passport of their manager, Arthur Jacobs (Rand Daily Mail, 1966c:33). The financial predicament of the SAWLBF also made it difficult to send athletes to international competitions. Therefore, in 1969, when Isaacs won the national championships, the SAAWLBF could not raise R1 000 for both him and the runner-up, Sipho Mashinini11 (Rand Daily Mail, 1969:5). Early in the existence of SACOS, the SAAWLBF was amenable to dialogue with the SAAWBU. So when Oscar State, the secretary of the International Weightlifting Federation, expressed a desire for discussions between the two organisations, the SAAWLBF agreed (Pather, 1973).

Figure 2.2 David Isaacs Source: David Isaacs private archive 11 According to Isaacs, Mashinini won the South African bodybuilding title one year.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE

Table 2.1

David Isaacs’ career record

Year

Competition record

1962-1975

Mr Western Province 13 times

1962-1963

Mr Cape Province twice

1963–1975

Mr South Africa 12 times

1966

South Africa’s Most Muscular Man

1966

Participated in Tall Man class in Mr Universe competition

1969

Finished fourth in Mr Universe

1969

Participated in Mr World (Belgium)

1969

Participated in Mr International

1996

Participated in veteran category in World Bodybuilding Champions

Source: (The Cape Mirror, 1969:11; Lawrence, 2001:3)

Official Springbok The earliest record of a black physical culturalist to boast Springbok status points to Milo Pillay in the 1930s. The apartheid regime, however, regarded the Springbok symbol as an exclusive image for white sportspeople. In 1975, the Minister of Bantu Administration, M.C. Botha, declared, “If there was a black with a Springbok blazer, he must have stolen it” (Rand Daily Mail, 1975a:3). The circumstances surrounding Pillay’s official Springbok status remain unresolved (Rand Daily Mail, 1976:1). The minutes from a meeting of the South African Olympic and National Games Association in 1965 state the following: “… the South African Rugby Board had registered its Springbok badge in 1938, the SAONGA did so in 1957 and the South African Golf Union did so in 1958 … for true amateurs … and not to professionals” (SAONGA, 1965:4). The president of the SAWLBF in 1975, Ernest  Clark, stated: “Milo Pillay was awarded Springbok colours (prior to 1957) when he represented South Africa in an Olympic team” (Rand Daily Mail, 1975a:3). However, the minutes of the official South African Olympic and Empire Games Association meeting do not reflect this. Either way, Pillay used his ‘Springbok status’ when he communicated with an International Olympic Committee delegation that visited Port Elizabeth in 1967 in order to present his version of the state of physical culture and sport in South Africa (Rand Daily Mail, 1968:6). There is, however, no uncertainty that David Isaacs was part of an official Springbok bodybuilding team, the first such team across the colour line. Yet, this inclusion was not unconditional: Isaacs and Graham were only allowed to compete with half of the Springbok emblem, the head. This account is part of an ongoing historical narrative of black physical culturalists’ struggle for official recognition.

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa

Community legacy All black South Africans were made vulnerable by the dreaded Group Areas Act that was passed in 1950. Although a few white people were also subjected to forced removals, black people were in most cases moved to desolate areas that disrupted established community life and family lives. It was a dehumanising deed that is remembered and described in depressing terms by its victims. The Isaacs family was evicted from Newlands in the 1960s. David Isaacs (2018) recalls: “We moved to Heideveld … the first group of people were moved from Newlands to Steenberg, then the second lot were moved to Heideveld. We carried on with life even during the forced removals.” Heideveld was the quintessential dormitory living quarters that the apartheid regime imposed upon the victims of forced removals, and by 1992 there were 14 gangs in the area (Prinsloo & Robinson, 1992:33). The provision of social, cultural and recreational facilities was inadequate in these areas. Furthermore, the complicated administrative procedures made it difficult to process applications (Bloch & Putterill, 1978:107). A forced removal victim from Newlands to Heideveld shared her memories of the early years in the township in the work of Prinsloo and Robinson (1992:30): Lots of people didn’t want to move here … There were no shops and no schools – children had to go out of the area to go to school. Some of the children had to go to Bonteheuwel. They had to be placed again because of the gangster elements in Bonteheuwel – they used to beat up the youngsters going to the senior secondary school. They had to be placed in schools right outside of our area, like in Claremont and Athlone, and they had to travel. For people here, travelling was the hard part, because where we stayed in Newlands, we were near to everything, within walking distance. Here in Heideveld we had to travel. Life was very hard. We couldn’t even pay the 80 cents rent per week. Heideveld caused a lot of problems. It was only after about six years when we started getting shops nearer to us and when the bus-route started, [that] things became easier. But we still had to pay for everything. Heideveld is far from our work, far from everything. The neighbouring areas of Bonteheuwel and Gugulethu were not much different. Gugulethu residents included people classified as African, who were forcibly moved from Windermere when it was declared a coloured area. An estimated 735 families were moved from Windermere to Gugulethu. By 1960, the number of people evicted from Windermere, including those from Retreat and Athlone, had increased to 3 128 families. By October 1963, Gugulethu’s population had expanded to over 27 000 inhabitants (SAHistory, 2017). A newspaper reporter described Bonteheuwel in 1973 as a place where “poverty and lack of public amenities are the two main ingredients in a concoction of crime and violence labelled ‘social frustration’, usually found in South African townships” (The Cape Herald, 1973b:13). Many whites were oblivious to life in Bonteheuwel. When a city councillor, Tom Walters, described the poor living conditions of Bonteheuwel to a predominantly white audience in 1973, “some gasped and even laughed” (The Cape Herald, 1973a:13). Isaacs’s career is filled with examples of him assisting physical culturalists from areas such as these in establishing themselves in the field of physical

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE culture, much the same as Fred Ingram did in his day. Physical culturalists helped by Isaacs included Pearl Jansen (Ms Africa South 1970 and Ms World runner-up) (Long Island Press, 1970:n.p.) as well as Daiyaan Ford. Both came from vulnerable spaces: Jansen from Bonteheuwel and Ford from Bokmakierie. The following data about Ford comes from a newspaper article (Daily Voice, 2018:7): This young man from Bokmakierie says he wants to show the youth that anyone can be an “Alpha male” if your head’s in the right place. Daiyaan Ford, 22, chose fitness to escape the gangs and drugs in the area he grew up in and says he fought to become one of the top names in fitness in the Western Cape. Currently a personal fitness trainer at Zone Fitness, Daiyaan made his name in the fitness scene by winning bodybuilding competitions at both provincial and national level in 2015 and never looked back. He comes from a humble home and was raised with whatever resources his family could spare. “It was a tough life. I went to school at Spes Bona High12 and worked as hard as I could. The elements around my friends and me were real,” he says. “The drugs and the flashy life which was offered by the gangs was a big thing in our area, but I also saw my friends become slaves to drugs. I watched them die in shootings. I fought to stay out of it and managed to complete my matric year, without becoming a statistic.” He could eventually join the gym and started working on his body, soon taking part in competitions by the Western Province Natural Bodybuilding Association. “I made provincial [level] and got an opportunity to participate nationally, too. I later got a bursary to study for a diploma in personal training from Trifocus Fitness Academy and started teaching classes as well as doing fitness videos,” he says. “It has been such a journey. I made a choice that I will never wear a handme-down again and I will change the world. I am doing that every day now, by helping people reach their health potential. I have classes at the gym every day and love helping people become a healthier version of themselves. It was not easy. But I am an Alpha male, I lead from the front.”

The profile and history of the Western Province Natural Bodybuilding Union13 A profile and history of the Western Province Natural Bodybuilding Union (WPNBU) is in essence a narrative of non-racial bodybuilding and weightlifting struggles against apartheid. Such a history profile allows readers some insight into the changing nature of non-racial sport struggles from the mid-20th to early 21st centuries. The Union owes its formation to coloured and African weightlifting athletes who were side-lined by the apartheid government when it came to selecting representative teams for international competitions. Grand apartheid was still in the process of establishing itself and athletes of all backgrounds still competed together in the early 1950s. When it came to the selection of teams, however, 12 For a history of another Spes Bona High School athlete, see Alexander (2018:131-136). 13 Data about this union was drawn from WPNBU (n.d.).

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa coloured, Indian and African competitors were side-lined in favour of white competitors who often placed lower than third. After the 1950 Weightlifting and Bodybuilding South African Championships, athletes and administrators, among them R.D. Naidoo, Ron Eland, Ernest Clark, G.K.“Chief” Rangasamy, Eric Lutchman and E.H. Ismael, came together in Port Elizabeth and formed the South African Amateur Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation (SAAWLBF). This led to the formation of provincial units and the establishment of the Western Province Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Union (WPWBU) in 1951. As mentioned earlier, the early clubs were the Farnese Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Club, the Oakdale Bodybuilding Club, the Ferndale Bodybuilding Club and the Silver Star Bodybuilding Club in townships of Cape Town reserved for people classified as Indian and coloured. A few athletes from the white community also joined as individuals. Because of the pass laws, the movement of African people in and out of townships, or, as they were called, locations, was restricted. Individual athletes from these communities who were brave enough to take the risk of arrest affiliated to the WPWBU. From the WPWBBU came athletes who participated nationally and internationally in both bodybuilding and weightlifting. These athletes included Ron Eland (weightlifting and bodybuilding), Matt October, Christy Liner, Johnny Geduldt, Edgar Williams, Allan Plaatjies, Tommy Minnords, David Isaacs, Pat Graham, Eddie Davids, Precious McKenzie (weightlifting – O.B.E) and Tommy Williams. Before women bodybuilding emerged in South Africa, the WPWBBU also staged beauty competitions. The woman mostly remembered is Pearl Jansen, who had to enter the Miss World Championships as Miss Africa South because the apartheid regime would not allow the SAAWLBF to enter her as Miss South Africa. The administrators who would be remembered for furthering the WPWBBU and the SAAWLBF were Ron Eland, Fred Japhta, Ernest Clark, Allan Plaatjies, Edgar Williams, Abraham (Ampie) Darries, Edmund Hellenberg, Gerald Sobotker, Tommy Williams and Pat Peters. Powerlifting was added as a sport code during the early 1970s and the Union came to be known as the Western Province Weightlifting, Bodybuilding and Powerlifting Union (WPWBU). Because the apartheid government refused to recognise black sport organisations that opposed racism, those organisations formed alternative structures. In this way, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) was established on 13 January 1963 in Fordsburg, Johannesburg (Rand Daily Mail, 1963:1). The WPBBU played an important role in the decision of the SAAWLBF to align itself with SANROC. Then the SACOS was established on 17 March 1973 (SACOS, 1973), and delegates from the WPBBU played a major part in this movement. The WPBBU struggled from its birth with funding and with no support from the apartheid government. Funding of its projects and administration was left in the hands of its executive committee, affiliated clubs’ fundraising functions and a few

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE sympathetic sponsors. But it was the executive committee who often had to put their hands deep into their own pockets to provide the funds needed to ensure that the Union achieved its objectives. The formation of the short-lived (c. 1988-c. 1993) National Sports Congress (NSC) under the influence of the ANC required national sport codes to function as individual federations and SACOS to disband. Basil Brown (2006:141), president of the NUM, argued that individuals within SACOS established the NSC clandestinely. Weightlifting and powerlifting became a federation on their own, and some of the provincial units, of which the WPWBBPF was one, adjusted their names accordingly. The WPWBU became known as the Western Province Bodybuilding Union (WPBU). It was also during this period that the national officials of the SAAWBBF engaged the South African Natural Bodybuilding Association (SANBA), a white Durban‑based bodybuilding federation, to discuss unification of the two organisations. While other physical culture federations refused to adopt measures to curb the use of doping by athletes and to disband their structures in order to establish a new national federation, these two federations unified through the mediation of the NSC. The term, Natural, was added to the WPBU. Pat Peters from SANBA became chairman of WPNBU and the secretary was William Meyer. From then on, a number of African clubs as well as white individuals affiliated with the WPNBU. Efforts to gain access to more and better sponsorship and funding improved, while limited funding was also accessed from government through the Western Cape Department of Culture and Sport. In 2005, Hoosain Bester, a Bonteheuwel resident and gymnasium owner in Elsies River since 2000, was elected chairperson of the WPNBU (Tyger Burger, 2018:20). Meyer was once again elected to become the longest-serving secretary of the Union. Bester was introduced to bodybuilding by Ralph Piers and Nelson Benjamin. Piers, in turn, won the 1981 lightweight division in the Mr Olympia Competition (Hansen, 2013). Starting as a 32-year-old bodybuilder in 1996, Bester was placed third at the world championships in France in 2013 and claimed a sixth place in Spain in 2015. During the second decade of the 21st century, WPNBU membership increased, the quality of competition and incentives for athletes improved, and more white bodybuilders and residents from African townships affiliated to the WPNBU. Bester was selected as coach of the national team to Italy and received his international judging card in 2007, the same year he was elected president of SANBA. In 2008, he was selected vice-president of the Union Internationale de Bodybuilding Naturel for Africa. This probably facilitated the process whereby the WPNBU and the Boland Natural Bodybuilding Union could host the first World Natural Bodybuilding Championships in Cape Town on behalf of SANBA in 2009. Bester retired from bodybuilding administration in 2018 in order to coach and promote the sport in his community gymnasium in Elsies River.

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa

Conclusion This chapter explored the participation experiences of South African bodybuilders who were marginalised by the apartheid government. They were committed to principles of non-racialism and self-sacrifice. David Isaacs, in particular, represents a class of black bodybuilders who, despite facing institutionalised racism, overcame a victim mentality during and after apartheid. Having traversed the contours of poverty and international success, he opted to remain on the side of the marginalised and oppressed in South Africa. The author interviewed many ‘successful’ sportspeople who had achieved fame and fortune. Isaacs left our interview with the question: ”Was this life worth it?” In his case, he has not amassed great wealth or fame; it was a life sufficient in itself in which he became what he wished. This remains his attitude, which is passed down to a new generation of community-based bodybuilders, grounded in non-racialism. The chapter also highlighted the inherited degrading social and economic environment that Cape Town’s black bodybuilding community endures. Past racism has left deep scars on bodybuilding communities in Cape Town. Through the life story of David Isaacs, and others who come from such communities, it was shown how individuals have shaped non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa, despite imposed limitations.

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References Alexander, A. 2018. My changing and continual life story in non-racial sport. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 131-136. Beukes, C. 2018. Post-apartheid cycling history: Race, personal memory and challenges of commemoration. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, 107-117. Bloch, C. & Putterill, M.S. 1978. Providing for leisure for the city dweller: A review of needs and processes with guidelines for change. Cape Town: Urban Problems Research Unit, University of Cape Town. Booley, M. 1998. Forgotten heroes: A history of black rugby, 1882-1992. Cape Town: M. Booley. Brown, B. 2006. The destruction of non-racial sport: A consequence of the negotiated political settlement. In: C. Thomas (ed). Sport and liberation: Reflections and suggestions. Alice: National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre, University of Fort Hare, pp.138-150. Buthelezi, G. 1973. Opening address delivered at the Conference of the National Nonracial Sports Organisation. Verdic Hall, Durban, 17 March. Cleophas, F.J. 2009. Physical education and physical culture in the coloured community of the Western Cape, 1837-1966. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University. Cleophas, F.J. 2018. An Overview of Cultural Capital in Blouvlei. South African Historical Journal, 70(4):654-673. Cleophas, F.J. 2020. Black physical culture and weight-lifting in South Africa. In: T. Cleveland, G. Akindes & T. Kaur (eds). More than just games: Sports in Africa, past and present. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. 207-218. Daily Voice. 2018. Witness the fitness. 17 April:7. Ebrahim, N. 2007. Noor’s story: My life in District Six. Cape Town: District Six Museum. Fortune, L. 1996. The house in Tyne Street: Childhood memories of District Six. Cape Town: Kwela. Golden City Post. 1957a. Kimberley weightlifter. 14 April:20. Golden City Post. 1957b. Muscle men get organised. 28 April:20. Gymnasium display on Robben Island. 1916. The Educational Journal, 2(5):12. Hansen, J. 2013. 1981 Mr Olympia Report – Part 2. [Online]. Available: https://bit.ly/3cNyy2B (Accessed 28 January 2019). Isaacs, D. 2018. Personal interview. 19 December. Lawrence, J. 2001. Total recall as Arnie remembers SA chum. Sunday Times, 15 July:3. Leipoldt, C.L. 2006. The mask. Kenilworth: Cedarberg. Lombard, B.D. 1951. Liggaamskultuur? Vigor, 5(1):19-24.

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa Long Island Press. 1970. Cool Beauty. 21 November:n.p. Mendes, J. 1954. Show us your muscles. Health and Strength, 83(16):n.p. Nauright, J. 1995. Masculinity and popular culture: “Coloured” rugby’s cultural symbolism in Cape Town c. 1930 -1970. Unpublished paper presented at the International Society for the History of Physical Education and Sport Conference. Cape Town, 2-8 July. NNRSOs (National Non-Racial Sports Organisations). 1970. First Conference of National Non-Racial Sports Organisations. Himalaya Hotel, Durban, 6 September. Omar, Y. 2015. “In my stride”: A life-history of Alie Fataar, teacher. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Pather, M.N. 1973. Unpublished report of proposed meeting between the officials of the South African Amateur Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation and the South African Amateur Weightlifting Union. Prinsloo, R. & Robinson, M. 1992. Our community in our classrooms: How a school in Cape Town brought local history alive. Bellville: University of the Western Cape. Rand Daily Mail. 1912. Secret of a long life. 19 August:7. Rand Daily Mail. 1925. When Sandow fought a lion. 12 November:13. Rand Daily Mail. 1963. New sport body plans to crush S.A. group. 14 January:1. Rand Daily Mail. 1966a. Muscle men may compete in Europe. 2 April:29. Rand Daily Mail. 1966b. Sport bid to expel S.A. fails. 15 October:24. Rand Daily Mail. 1966c. Universe men are without a manager. 16 September:33. Rand Daily Mail. 1968. Weight-lifting pioneer in S.A. 6 March:6. Rand Daily Mail. 1969. Potential champs need cash. 26 August:5. Rand Daily Mail. 1975a. Botha in Bok blazer row. 26 March:3. Rand Daily Mail. 1975b. Harold Pongolo checks the stopwatch. 6 May:4. Rand Daily Mail. 1976. Springbok controversy. 24 January:1. S.A. Clarion. 1919. Sport. 12 April:16. S.A. Clarion. 1920. Club notices. 28 February:15. SACOS (South African Council on Sport). 1973. Minutes of a general meeting of SACOS. Verdic Hall, Durban, 17 March. SACOS Bulletin. 1987. SACOS meets trade union leaders. 2 June. SAHistory. 2017. Gugulethu township. [Online]. Available: https://bit.ly/36dtjHc (Accessed 19 January 2019). SAONGA (South African Olympic and National Games Association). 1965. Minutes of Council Meeting held at the Wanderers Club, Johannesburg, 16 November. Snyman, D. 2017. Op pad. Cape Town: Tafelberg.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Switzer, D. & Switzer, L. 1979. The Black press in South Africa and Lesotho: A descriptive bibliographic guide to African, Coloured and Indian newspapers, newsletters and magazines, 1836-1976. Boston: G.K. Hall. The Cape Herald. 1965. Luxurama: Coloured culture centre? 15 May:5. The Cape Herald. 1966a. Body builders to perform. 10 September:4. The Cape Herald. 1966b. Cape Town model. 6 August:1. The Cape Herald. 1966c. David Isaacs. 17 September:7. The Cape Herald. 1966d. Dennis Wyngaard. 15 October:6. The Cape Herald. 1966e. Mr Muscles for London. 23 July:1. The Cape Herald. 1966f. Ralph “Cyclops” Palm. 19 November:9. The Cape Herald. 1966g. The Jaroba Bodybuilding Club. 9 July:10. The Cape Herald. 1966h. World’s strongest men at Luxurama. 16 July:3. The Cape Herald. 1973a. Councillor tells of weekend on the other side. 20 October:13. The Cape Herald. 1973b. Fear has died in Bonteheuwel. 28 April:13 The Cape Mirror. 1969. David Isaacs: The gentle giant. 20 December:11. The Cape Standard. 1936. Wanderers celebrate fifty years of rugby. 14 September:12. The Sun. 1937a. South African non-European sports pageant. 8 January:8. The Sun. 1937b. South African tennis championships. 8 January:12. The Sun. 1950a. Pan-African Federation of Physical Education. 3 November:6. The Sun. 1950b. The Cinderella sport comes into its own. 17 November:7. The Sun. 1952a. Coloured Olympiad. 14 November:2. The Sun. 1952b. Paul Abrahams wins another physique contest. 19 December:5. The Sun. 1954a. Bodybuilding board formed. 3 September:8. The Sun. 1954b. “Mr Cape Peninsula contest” - outstanding success. 2 April:7. The Sun. 1954c. Novice physique contest. 16 April:8. The Sun. 1954d. Ron Eland & H. Walbrugh excel in weightlifting. 10 September:5. Tyger Burger. 2018. Bester looks back on bodybuilding career. 7 November:20. Van der Ross, R.E. 2005. Slaves at the Cape: Their origins, treatment and contribution. Cape Town: Ampersand. Van Schoor, W.P. 1986. The origin and development of segregation in South Africa. Unity Movement series. Cumberwood: APDUSA. Weeder, M.I. 2006. The palaces of memory: A reconstruction of District One, Cape Town, before and after the Group Areas Act. Unpublished mini-MA thesis. Bellville: University of the Western Cape. WPAPEC (Western Province Association of Physical Education Clubs). 1965. Unpublished brochure.

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The shaping of non-racial bodybuilding in South Africa WPNBU (Western Province Natural Bodybuilding Union). N.d. Profile and history of the Western Province Natural Bodybuilding Union. [Online]. Available: https://bit.ly/2Xdpduy (Accessed 27 January 2019). Wieder, A. 2003. Teacher and comrade: Richard Dudley and the fight for democracy in South Africa. NY: The State University of New York.

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Chapter 3 Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions: On gender and the limits of female emancipation in the Sokol gymnastic movement Martin Klement

Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Science, Prague, Czech Republic ([email protected])

Jan Pezda

University of Ostrava, Department of History, Ostrava, Czech Republic ([email protected]).

Introduction Inculcation of gender stereotypes, based on traditional European perceptions of masculinity and femininity, was exported to non-European countries from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. In colonial territories, physical culture and sports activities served an important tool for raising awareness of ‘typical’ masculinity and femininity. As Vivian Bickford-Smith aptly describes in the publication on the formation of Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town (South Africa), the sports imported into the areas by English colonists at the beginning of the 20th century helped to “inculcate desirable national values” and also “transmitted appropriate gender behaviour and identity” (Bickford-Smith, 2016:57). The aim of this chapter is not to focus on the problem of gender stereotyping in its new “home”, but in one of its initial places of origin. On the example of the Czech Sokol gymnastic movement, which was powerful in Central Europe from the second half of the 19th century to the end of the first half of the 20th century, we aim to show how essential ideas about what was ‘typically’ feminine and masculine were created, naturalised and popularised inside physical culture. Our approach and consequential findings can be helpful for follow-up postcolonial research about masculinity and femininity within physical education, physical culture and sports in former colonial settings. Now, let us go back in time to Prague at the beginning of the 20th century. It is said that from June 28 to July 1901, the city had an aura of “something glorious, mighty (Anonymous. 1901c:1), which filled people’s chests and enthused them with a sacred passion for this noble thing of the Czech nation” (Anonymous, 1901c). This tremendous spirit in the capital of what was then known as the Kingdom of Bohemia, was brought about by the Sokol organisation as it was during these four summer days when the members organised one of their spectacular gymnastic

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE festivals – slet (flocking of birds). At that time, Sokol was the largest Czech association within the Habsburg Monarchy, comprising over 570 clubs, almost 40 000 non-training members, and nearly 10 000 trainees. According to official numbers, around 14  000 people from the Sokol movement attended the 1901 Prague festivities; more than half of them performed gymnastics in a colossal temporary stadium built at the Letná Plain, watched by 22 000 spectators (Kukaň, 1901:10; Čížek, 1901:30; Anonymous, 1901b:181). Although Prague had already hosted three other slets, in 1882, 1891 and 1895, the fourth festival overshadowed all of them in terms of size as well as a breakthrough novelty – it marked the first appearance of a performance given solely by women, “the youngest Sokol offspring” (Anonymous, 1901a:94) (see Figure 3.1), that gradually grew to be a stable part of any subsequent Sokol festival in Prague. What is more, their numbers rose with each event, as did the complexity of the individual performances. At the tenth slet in 1938, for example, 30 000 female trainees presented a much complex and “revolutionary” whirl, which “provoked profound admiration” that  “best expressed [their] intelligence, readiFigure 3.1 An iconic, repeatedly reproduced ness, and mental and moral maturity” photo taken during the first female slet (Anonymous, 1938). performance in 1901. Source: Anonymous. 1901a:96.

The growing influence of women in the Sokol organisation was mani-fested by their active participation in Prague festivals and gradually led to them having equal status with the male trainees, has received positive appraisal in selected publications dealing with the history of Sokol (Kozáková, 1998:20‑21; Schůtová, 2003:88). Parts of the contemporary historical and popular-historical literature adopt the perspective of older Sokol writings, in which texts and accompanying photographs promoted the idea of Sokol, and gymnastics in general, as key contributors to female emancipation. However, features of Sokol discourse on female issues cannot be denied as being discriminatory. For example, this contradicted on Sokol official commentary on the performance of the sixth slet in 1912: “The Czech woman has achieved a great victory today. Showing an enormous amount of discipline and effort, quite unusual for a woman, she pursued her mission without so much as a trait of despondency” (Očenášek, 1919a:280). The quote seems to adopt the assumption that females are basically a weak, unstable and unruly gender, which can only succeed when disciplined according to male principles. The tensions in the 1912 text, as well as in many other sources, which often lays between proclaimed support for female emancipation on the one hand and the patriarchal perspective of leading union officials on the other, constitute the main impetus for the present critical investigation of women’s status in Sokol.

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions During the exploration of source material for this chapter, it became clear that the gymnastic method employed in female training, and the way in which women were discussed and treated in Sokol, reveal much about their position within the organisation and their perception by male trainees. Figuratively speaking, females served as a mirror reflecting men’s conceptions of femininity and their own masculinity. Since we believe that research on women in Sokol cannot be separated from research on men, the present contribution will pay equal attention to both sexes. The primary goal of the study was to find out what gender roles were attributed to men and women in Sokol, and how the awareness of this gender dichotomy was disseminated. It is only by this approach that the limits of female emancipation in Sokol can be determined. We are convinced that awareness of the Sokol organisation remains confined mainly to the Central European region. Thus, drawing on information obtained from scientific articles and Sokol’s historiographical works, the first part of the study aims to introduce the spatial and temporal context; it outlines the historical background and conditions of Sokol’s emergence as well as the values it promoted. The second section of the study focuses on the concepts of masculinity and femininity within the Sokol environment. With the help of printed ‘educational’ writings from leading Sokol officials, we intend to present the basic stereotypes associated in Sokol with the ‘typically’ masculine and feminine. All trainees were expected to fully identify with created gender differences, and ‘educational’ literature played an important role in this identification process. However, there were other methods by which trainees were brought to know what might make a ‘real’ man and a ‘real’ woman. As illustrated later in the text, gender roles were created and instilled in Sokol members through social practice, public productions, and various printed sources. Gender discourse in Sokol was not a time-and-space-isolated phenomenon. We not only aim to summarise and rethink the ‘emancipation’ of women in Sokol, but also to view the whole issue from a global and contemporary perspective. This is why our research may be useful to historians, sports scientists, sociologists and gender experts worldwide.

Sokol in the Czech lands The revolutionary European events of 1848 were a major stimulus to the nationalisation of Czech society within a multi-ethnic Habsburg Monarchy. As in the case of German gymnastic unions, in the Czech lands, a strong political instrumentalisation of the body emerged during this process. The most important Czech organisation who transformed physical training into a political emblem was the Sokol gymnastics association who transformed physical training into a political emblem, its origins dating back to 1862 when Miroslav Tyrš, a doctor of philosophy, together with Jindřich Fügner, the director of the Prague branch of an Italian insurance company, initiated the foundation of the Sokol Gymnastic Club in Prague (Figure 3.2). ‘Sokol’ stands for the English ‘falcon’, and this was how early members referred to themselves – the sokols. While Fügner promoted the club as patron and organiser, Tyrš added a nationalist ideological

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE focus; his idea was inspired by social Darwinism, Hegel’s early philosophy, and ancient history (Scheiner, 1887:18-23, 27-30; Sak, 2012:32-38, 61‑80; Hejmová, 2015:63-64). In the spirit of the ancient Greek concept of kalokagathia, which combined physical beauty with mental goodness, he attributed the following four meanings to gymnastics: health, education, aesthetics and militarism. The good bodies of Greek athletes became the Sokols’ ideal of the individual’s physical and moral transformation. Through the bodies of the Sokol trainees, ancient sculptures were to showcase the differences between a noble, trained, morally cultivated body and its common form with a weak musculature and unhealthy mind. The combination of athletic vitality and defined muscles was a convincing manifestation of social authority not only in the society of Czech patriots – all over Europe the ‘athlete’ as a key figure of ancient physical idealism had been playing an increasingly important role in the epochal transformation of human self-perception.1 However, Tyrš presented physical training of the body as a moral commitment and a means of the emotionally urgent need for national unification. According to Tyrš, a harmonious development of an individual’s bodily and mental qualities was to become a precondition for strength, nobility, bravery and valour for the Czech nation. Thus, the beauty of Sokols’ firm bodies was not to remain an exclusive commodity, meant only for admirable observation, but, on the contrary, it was to serve as an example to all Czechs. In the spirit of egalitarianism, the organisation aimed to become a transparty, supra-confessional and supra-class community open to all men. The idea was represented in Sokol greeting “Hello!” Figure 3.2 Relief of Miroslav Tyrš (“Nazdar!”), and further promoted by (1832‑1884; in the foreground) and the use of the informal “thou” (“ty”) and Jindřich Fügner (1822‑1865; in the addressing each other as “brothers”. Tyrš’s background) on the obelisk raised on their common grave at the Olšany words “Unity before individuality!” (Tyrš, Cemetery in Prague. 1871:2), quoted in various forms, aptly Photo by Martin Klement described the most pervasive idea of the entire Sokol programme, that is, “denial of gross selfishness and inferiority of the simpler whole to the interests of the higher (more complex) one” (Pelikán, 1927:7). This was how Tyrš subordinated self-discipline, pursuit of muscular gains and the improvement of mental capabilities of the individual to the political goals of the 1 The idea that the human body is a self-referential work which one can self-help (without God’s intervention) transform through repeated de-spiritualized austerities – training – in order to become an object of admiration found the most visible reflection in the cult of competitive sport that exploded around 1900 (Sloterdijk, 2013:27, 335).

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions whole nation. Thus, the individual Sokol body became a prism in the perception of homeland, human valour and strength, embodying a developed nation in the spirit of Tyrš’s motto “Country in the mind, boldness in the heart, power in the arm” (Anonymous. 1872:684). Following the establishment of the Sokol Gymnastic Club in Prague, clubs emerged throughout the country, also bearing the name Sokol. Seven of them were already established in 1862, and by 1875 there were over 70 clubs comprising more than 7  000 members (Havlíček, 1920:36; Nolte, 1986:138). Initially, Tyrš sought their organisational interconnection, this was however hindered by Austrian authorities. It was not until 1904, 20 years after his death, that the umbrella organisation Czech Sokol Community was established, which became the largest of all Czech organisations in terms of assets and number of members – there were over 100  000 by 1914 (Glettler, 1970:35; Waic, 2004:529). Tyrš’s ideas penetrated other Slavic countries as well, and so from the 1860s onwards, Sokols also emerged in Slovenia, Croatia and Poland (Havlíček, 1948:29‑32). In addition, Sokol ideas spread across the ocean by Czechs immigrating to the United States, where the National Sokol Union of the United States was founded, later becoming the central body in helping Czechs maintain their national identity (Nolte, 1993b:15‑37). However, in terms of member numbers, the American Sokol significantly lagged behind the Czech Sokol Community in the Habsburg Monarchy. The Czech Sokol Community grew rapidly after 1918 when the Czechoslovak Republic was established as one of the successor states of the fallen Monarchy. It was renamed the Czechoslovak Sokol Community and reached more than one million members in 1948 (Kozáková, 1998:39). In the same year, however, the communist coup took place in Czechoslovakia, and the Community was dissolved in the early 1950s (Uhlíř & Waic, 2001:157-158). Since we are aware that many readers may find the changes in the name of the organisation confusing, especially the distinction between ‘Czech’ and ‘Czechoslovak’, the organisation will hereinafter be referred to simply as Sokol, by which we mean a group of ethnically Czech gymnastic clubs existing in the Czech lands before 1904 which merged first into the Czech Sokol Community and later, after the events of 1918, into the Czechoslovak Sokol Community. The term ‘sokol’, spelled with a minuscule ‘s’, will be used to refer to the community members. Although Sokol strived to become a unifying element of the whole nation, it remained attractive only for a certain grouping in Czech society. In 1909, in response to Sokol’s anti-cleric attitudes, some gymnastic clubs merged into a rival Catholic gymnast association called Orel (“Eagle”). However, the idea of unified physical education in the Czech lands started falling apart already in 1897 when social-democratic activists were purged from Sokol, founding their own Workers’ Gymnastics Association. Due to conflicts between its radical and moderate wings, the Association split in 1921 and the Workers’ Gymnastics Federation emerged and existed parallel to it. Both Orel and the two leftist organisations successfully copied the Sokol gymnastic method, but they were much weaker compared to Sokol, and indoctrinated their trainees with completely different ideas (Roubal, 2016:88-95). 61

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Initially, the nationalistic Sokol, the Catholic Orel, and the socialist Workers’ Gymnastics Association were exclusively male organisations, only slowly patronaged by women. In the case of Sokol, women had been involved since the beginning, however, their roles had been linked to the positions of mothers and housewives, and their activities in Sokol were limited to fundraising campaigns and organisation of festivities (Nolte, 1993a:83-85). Nevertheless, over the next few years, the above-mentioned traditional definitions of women’s gender roles shifted and expanded to other areas connected with education and general physical development. In the words of the German philosopher, Peter Sloterdijk, shortly after the Sokol foundation, “somatic and athletic renaissance” also had an impact on women, who tried to prove that even they “are not indifferent to the difference between perfect and imperfect” (Sloterdijk, 2013:27-28). This became most apparent in 1869 when the Gymnastic Club of the Ladies and Girls of Prague was founded, developed in close contact with the Sokol Gymnastic Club in Prague, whose gym they used for their own trainings. Critical conservative voices about the detrimental effects of gymnastics on the female organism eventually quietened down. In 1897, in response to women’s ever-increasing interest in exercise, Sokol’s senior officials formally approved the formation of female divisions in clubs. In fact, women had already been practising in clubs for many years, and their confidence increased after the success of their joint public performance at the gym of the Sokol Gymnastic Club in Prague. Once they had been officially granted access to Sokol physical education, ‘the woman question’ became the subject of long discussions and heated public speeches at Sokol General Meetings. Thus, at the beginning of the 20th century, female trainees had become fully-fledged Sokol members paying the same fees as male trainees, however, their voting rights in the management of the organisation were still limited. The legislative status of women in Sokol remained unclear, and attitudes towards them, their rights and duties varied from club to club until the First World War (Nolte, 1993a:79-100; Schůtová, 2003:80-98). The fundamental organisational changes which brought women closer to having equal status with men started in the interwar period. The following subsections will focus on the details of gender stereotypes tied to both male and female trainees within the Sokol organisation.

Sokol ideas of masculinity and femininity As pointed out above, Czech Sokol clubs were formed abroad, especially in the United States of America. There, the “Sokol Boom” is connected especially with the name of Josef Čermák from Starý Kolín, who had arrived in America in the 1860s to become an influential physical education teacher and chief official of the American Sokol community (Anonymous, 1933b:212). Čermák had a keen interest in female gymnastics, and in 1914 his booklet dedicated to women’s gymnastics was published in Prague. Referring to the American expert on physical education, Dudley Allen Sargent, Čermák claimed in his book that looking at Native Americans, one can hardly distinguish between males and females, on the contrary “the difference is striking among white peoples, and all the more conspicuous the more advanced the given race is” (Čermák, 1914:18).

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions It is without a doubt that Čermák’s work might have influenced the perception of gender dichotomy in Sokol. But even if it had never been published, the Sokol environment would still have been influenced by a firm conviction of the existence of two antagonistic sexes through the ‘educational’ works produced by numerous literary gifted individuals among Sokol functionaries. Čermák, conveyed a simplistic image of gender binarity: the man with his ‘typically masculine’ mental and physical traits on the one hand, and the woman with her different, ‘typically feminine’ attributes on the other. These gender reflections mostly related only to Sokol members, however, following from the motto that every good Czech had to enter the Sokol community. These ‘educational’ writings de facto suggested what the ideal gender constellation should look like across the entire Czech nation. None of the authors pondered the societal division in terms of gender. The ‘men’ and ‘women’ categories were accepted as given, irrefutable facts, together with numerous preconceptions that accompanied thoughts of masculinity and femininity in Western society for centuries. Crucial in the imagination of Sokol masculinity was Tyrš’s programmatic essay, Our Task, Direction and Goal (1871), where he outlined the fundamental principles of the Sokol mission. Tyrš saw organised physical education as a tool for strengthening the Czech nation and maintaining its “physical, mental and moral health” (Tyrš, 1871:3), since only a nation with these qualities stood a chance to fight internal degradation and external danger, as in the event of war they would provide the “undaunted soldiers” (ibid) with “a shield to intercept the attack of the enemy’s murderous sword” (ibid:4). Tyrš’s conception of struggle for national emancipation was gender-construed into the form of military masculinity. A good male sokol was therefore supposed to be a warrior ready to defend his nation. The archetype of the ‘man as a warrior and protector’ is amongst the most dominant and persistent residual elements within ideas of ‘proper’ masculinity in European culture (Tosh, 2004:47-49, 54-55; Forth & Taithe, 2007:4-5). Before the establishment of Czechoslavakia, it was the Sokol movement that kept this military notion of masculinity alive in Czech lands. It was not by chance that before the First World War, when Czech lands did not have their own armies, Sokol members were symbolically nicknamed, “national troops” (Anonymous, 1895:102; Vaníček, 1895:5; Vaníček, 1897:149). The most vocal Sokol publicist and ‘recruiter’ Karel Vaníček likened the internal rules of Sokol to army principles, and each new Sokol member was to undergo “a masculinity drill”, which was “more valuable than military exercise” (Vaníček, 1897:149). Thus, anyone who entered Sokol, the “school of manliness and perseverance” (Vaníček, 1912:187), was to acquire skills potentially usable in a prospective war. The archetypal, nationalised vision of a male warrior and protector was closely connected with the corresponding concepts of prototypically masculine appearance (Randák & Nečasová, 2009:143-144). For example, František Urban, the author of Sokol ‘educational’ books, considered a genuinely ‘manly’ body to be one that was “equipped with strong muscles” (UrbanVodolský, 1903:11), healthy, agile and graceful (Figure 3.3). Furthermore, a sokol’s soul was that of a knightly warrior, but not one like the “sad character of Don Quixote de la Mancha” (Vaníček, 1910:21). A sokol should be following the example

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE of the Renaissance nobleman, Lev of Rožmitál (Vaníček, 1910:21), who, sent by George of Poděbrady, led the famous 15th century mission around European royal courts (Šašek z Bířkova, 1951). The frequently repeated attributes in connection with ideal sokol-like behaviour, according to Sokol ‘educational’ writings, were obedience, nobility, modesty, discipline, respect and gallantry (Urban-Vodolský, 1903:11, 13, 18, 22; Vaníček, 1910:18, 21, 23; Holubec, 1922:92-94; Lipan, 1923:18-24). In one of his speeches that was included in 1920 in the collection of model speeches delivered in front of the Sokol array and at member meetings, the writer Jan Hořejší used an apt simile, comparing the Sokol ‘brothers’ to the “mighty, heroic soldiers of the Přemyslid army, alive with wisdom and holy enthusiasm” (Hořejší, 1920:54). Hořejší referred to the first Bohemian chronicle from the 12th century, where Přemysl the Ploughman was the founder of the famous House of Přemysl (or the Přemyslid dynasty) (Cosmas of Prague 2009:43-52). It was this mythical figure that Hořejší saw as the perfect allegory of Czech masculinity, and a suitable starting point for the definition of Sokol Figure 3.3 Reversal films capturing femininity as its absolute opposite. prototypes of Sokol masculinity published The chronicle informs readers that in the proceedings from the 1912 slet. Source: Očenášek, 1919b: between pp. 84-85. Přemysl obtained the ruler’s throne Archives of the Czech Sokol Community. from his wife, Princess Libuše (Cosmas of Prague, 2009:43-52), which is also the origin of Hořejší’s metaphor of the Sokol women being “the respectable and admirable companions of Libuše” (Hořejší, 1920:54). Unlike the Sokol man, the female sokol was not expected to become a soldier nor a protector; instead, her body was meant to be “beautiful, symmetrical and curvaceous” (Čermák, 1914:18) just like the statues of Greek women, whom Čermák saw as the “ideal of female beauty” (ibid). Placing an emphasis on Hellenstic beauty, Čermák, as well as other ‘educational’ Sokol writers, presented women as erotic objects, whose primary role was childbearing and rearing for nationalistic purposes in line with the principles of nationalism (Táborská, 1913:65; Čermák, 1914:238). Women were projected to be mentally predisposed for mother and carer as opposed to male ‘wisdom’, and were governed predominantly by emotions (Krausová, 1920:71). Additionally, Sokol texts describe a number of other ‘typically female’ qualities; a 1920s booklet claims, for example, that “women are fond of seductive and deceitful behaviour” (Krausová, 1920:72), another from 1913 declares that “superficiality is the worst, yet most characteristic female personality trait” (Táborská, 1913:67). The Sokol women, however, were seen as different from

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions ordinary ones, having adopted some of the primarily ‘male’ character traits such as modesty, honesty, morality, endurance or discipline (Táborská, 1913:67‑68; Krausová, 1920:71-72; Vrabcová, 1922:12; Pelikán 1932:20-21). Therefore, they were examples of the ‘new Czech woman’, and were compared to “Hussite females” (Táborská, 1913:69) – women who participated in the Hussite religious movement in the Middle Ages. Despite being portrayed as “unrestrained and free from prejudice (…), modelling their lives according to internal laws of their own being” (Táborská, 1913:70), the ‘new’ Sokol women remained traditional and uncomparable to the ‘new’ women of interwar Germany. For instance, Sokol women started to smoke, wear trousers, live independently, of men and dispose freely of their sexuality (Kessemeier, 2000). The polarity between ‘male sokol as the powerful and knightly defender of the nation’ and ‘female sokol as beautiful and conscious mother’, necessarily resulted in a gender notional hierarchy, symbolised in the above-mentioned Hořejší’s metaphor about the army of the ‘leader’ Prince Přemysl and the companions of the ‘submissive’ Princess Libuše.2 The historically legitimised masculine hegemony fit perfectly into the patriarchal mindset of late 19th and early 20th century Czech society. The ‘natural’ male dominance was supported by ‘scientific’ argumentation. Detailed exploration of exploration of genderised bodies constantly revealed both real and presumed differences, presenting women as inferior (Pfister, 1993:161‑162). Sokol likely adopted these ideas becuase many of its high-ranking officials were physicians. What is more, Čermák’s book on female gymnastics offered a detailed description of biological differences between men and women. It read, for example, that compared to men, women have shorter, lower and smaller chests, softer and lower shoulders, more delicate and finer muscles or fewer red bloodcells. Čermák thus concluded that, as a result, women were uncertain in their movement, clumsy, and “unable to ever boast the desired performance similar to men” (Čermák, 1914:15-17). It should be emphasised that there were also voices agitating for gender equality in Sokol’s educational literature (Taborska, 1913:65, 70). In 1932, when 100 years had passed since Tyrš’s birth, the Sokol Board demanded that a text be written to serve the educators as a model for the obligatory lecture entitled Tyrš’s Legacy, which would state explicitly that “there is no superiority of men over women, neither rational nor moral or physical, at least not concerning the neural system, although [men may have] more developed muscles” (Jandásek, 1932:53). Nonetheless, the considerations of gender equality were rather problematic because they did not question the a priori thesis of different characteristics of ‘true’ masculinity and ‘true’ femininity. Since men were above all associated with a fighting spirit, strength and creativity, while women were seen as motherly, beautiful and sensitive, the underlying idea of a ‘natural’ male hegemony prevailed. The internal mechanisms in Sokol, as well as its public productions and the official press encouraged members to accept the promoted gender roles as their own and identify with the notion of the dominant position of men. The following sections will focus on the identification process in more detail. 2 “Since that time, after the death of Prince Libuše, the women of our people are under the power of men” (Cosmas of Prague, 2009:52).

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The ever-present gender dichotomy in the Sokol clubs Once trainees became Sokol members, they were encouraged to remain aware of gender duality and corresponding ‘typical’ features of masculinity and femininity, as well as the percieved hierarchical relationship between men and women. Especially the firm male-female dichotomy had a significant impact on everyday life within the organisation. Certain administrative positions within the Sokol organisational structure existed in two separated forms: the female positions of union, regional and club officials existed parallel to males. Similar diversification occurred also at a member level. During the 1890s, the concept of sokol-sisters emerged as a counterpart to the existing brothers, and all newcomers were categorised correspondingly. This gender-based segregation led to gender-based behaviour. According to a ruling of 1913, members were only allowed to use the familiar “thou” in interactions with other members of the same gender, otherwise they were requested to opt for the more formal form of address - “you”, as was common practice in everyday life outside Sokol (Anonymous. 1913b:49). It is also recorded that, as late as the 1920s, sokols would use the phrase “rukulíbám” (a Czech archaism in a formal-style greeting used by man to a woman, which developed from the tradition of kissing the woman’s hand) instead of the previously mentioned “Hello!”, and that men would address women with the titles “Miss” or “Ma’am” (Vrabcová, 1922:13). A noticeable thing about the Sokol environment was attributing gender characteristics as ‘typical’. Firstly, they would learn that from their educators, who emphasised on the contrast between men as active, wise creators, and women as mothers and carers. Sokol members obtained first-hand experience of this in practical matters such as gymnasium construction. For example, during the construction of the Nymburk Sokol gym, men volunteered as builders, turning rolled iron into gym equipment and assembling it, while the women’s role was merely to assist them in “carrying wood and bricks and other kinds of lighter work” (Štafl, 1922:39). Their main task was to “cultivate the surroundings by pruning and watering bushes and trees in the orchard so they would not suffer from drought” (Štafl, 1922:39). What’s more, notions of masculinity and femininity were also visualised in some gyms. Tyrš himself recommended that portraits of brave Czech male heroes be hung on gym walls (Tyrš, 1873a:26). Some club buildings, where gymnasiums also served as theaters, often had curtains with historical and allegorical motives, sending clear gender-related messages (Strotzer, 2016:5-9). The men in such paintings were portrayed as central historical figures, warriors and homesteaders, while the women symbolised religiousness, motherhood, or “joy, affectionateness and poetry” (Strotzer, 2016:4). What cannot be overlooked is the clear gender hierarchy encoded in both the division of labour during the Nymburk gym construction – the hard constructive work delivered by men, and the light, decorative jobs performed by women – and in the themes and conceptual arrangement of the curtains. In spite of attempts to instigate an atmosphere of equality, attitudes of superiority and inferiority between Sokol men and women was highly conspicuous, and new members knew immediately what their position was. Especially at the turn of the

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions 20th century when the number of female sokols was low and they were given almost no member rights. Although the number of women in Sokol increased over the following years, eventually attaining equal rights to men, the organisation retained its patriarchal character. This was due to the outbreak of the First World War when men participated in the ‘liberation’ of the country. The unmistakable authority and dominance of the Sokol men was embodied in the charismatic chief officials such as Jindřich Fügner, Jan Podlipný and Jiří Scheiner together with the training leaders Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Vaníček (Řezníček, 1924; Procházka, 1932), but it was also perceptible in such unobtrusive details as the disproportion in the size of the male and female changing rooms. Access to showers and pools only possible through the male changing room in the Pilsen Sokol gym (Anonymous. 1913a:62-63). Their affiliation to the Sokol community, mutual interactions as well as gym equipment forced Sokol members to take for granted the fact the nation could be clear-cut divided into genderised groups, each of which had a certain social role and impact. These ideas were reinforced during actual gym classes, as men’s and women’s training was strictly separate. Initially, this seems to have stemmed from the generally accepted moral views of the given period. Later, however, it appeared very practical to have men train separately because, of the officially proclaimed Sokol notions of masculinity and femininity. As aptly summarised in 1928 by Karel Weigner, a leading Czech interwar anatomist and a high-ranking Sokol official, “the purpose of men’s education is the development of strength; each young boy strives to become strong, to have great goals, and to conquer” (Weigner, 1928:VII). The form of exercise outlined in Tyrš’s paradigmatic handbook from 1873 entitled Basics of Physical Training (Tyrš, 1873b) was indeed designed to achieve just that (Randák & Nečasová, 2009:145). As seen on the illustrations in Sokol Exercise in Pictures by František Kožíšek, a former training leader of the Sokol Gymnastic Club in Prague, exercising with weights and equipment, mostly the horizontal and parallel bars, rings and horse allowed the trainees to experience immense muscle growth in arms, chest, back and abdomen (Anonymous, 1915) (Figure 3.4). Additionally, some sokols incorporated boxing and fencing into their training, as also suggested by Tyrš (Tyrš, 1873b:122-159), which made them both muscular and fighting fit, thus perfectly fulfilling the Sokol idea of man as a skilful defender of the nation. While men had to “grow healthier and stronger” in the gymnasiums, the women were expected to become “healthy and beautiful” (Čermák, 1914:19), as postulated by Josef Čermák in 1914 and later developed by Weigner, who claimed that “exercise should prepare women for their most difficult, yet most noble task – motherhood” (Weigner, 1928:VII). This could hardly be achieved by “strength-developing exercise” (Anonymous.1915:67) using rings, “practising bar gymnastics” (ibid:30), or any other kinds of exercise employed in men’s gym classes. Josef Čermák expressed the concern about women training in the same manner as men, they would “become too muscular and man-like” (Čermák, 1914:18). What exercises were then suitable to obtain the desired feminine character? Čermák outlined the basics in his Female Physical Training published in 1914, introducing not only such exercises that were “purposeful, (…), adequate, and (…) accessible” (Čermák,

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE 1914:236-237) to women, but also a routine of rhythmical, music-accompanied “elegant steps” and “gymnastic dances”, which were designed to provide women with “beauty and gracefulness” (ibid:112). Čermák’s “new gymnastic elements” (Klíma, 1928:36), inspired by the contemporary American trend (Čermák, 1914:112), became popular among Czech female sokols. Other sources of inspiration for ‘female’ physical training were the teachings of George Demenÿ, a “leading expert in the area of physical training physiology” (Anonymous.1914:51), and a Swiss music teacher Émil Jacques‑Dalcroz, who, unlike Čermák, expressed “the need for the perfect match of musical and motoric rhythms” (Pospíšil, 1928:46), as documented by the Sokol composer Karel Pospíšil. Pospíšil, together with his ‘brother’ from the Prague Žižkov Sokol Club, Augustin Očenášek, took a passion for Čermák’s, Demenÿ’s and Dalcroz’s ideas as well as many other gymnastic innovations, which they used to develop their own Sokol rhythmic gymnastics (Očenášek, 1914:92-94; Pospíšil, 1928:46-47). They both contributed to its ‘national character’: Pospíšil incorporated the “fundamental principles of old folk dances” (Klíma, 1928:34), Očenášek created choreographies based on Tyrš’s gymnastics system, while taking into account the anatomical knowledge of Karel Weinger (ibid). The Sokol rhythmic gymnastics was also recommended for men, but it was probably due to the “gracefulness of postures and movements” (Pospíšil, 1928:48) that it attracted mainly women. Following this path, Figure 3.4 František Kožíšek’s female sokols set out on a “journey separate illustration shows how the “perfect” male body can be obtained through from men’s” (Provazníková, 1948:43), and parallel bars exercise. later achieved great success at the Sokol Source: Anonymous. 1915:33. Archives slets, the topic of the following part of the of the Czech Sokol Community. present study.

Slets – the nation’s ‘theatre of gender’ The leading theoretician of the Sokol rhythmic gymnastics, Augustin Očenášek, was the perfect example of a proactive union official. Not only did he seek new gymnastic stimuli, trying to incorporate them into the tradition of Tyrš’s system, he also helped organise several Sokol festivities in Prague known as slets. He was also a very prolific writer, authoring the methodical manuals and slet proceedings. In 1938, he wrote the central text for the representative Sokol piece called The All-Sokol Slets (Očenášek, 1938:7-32). The publication informed readers of all previously organised slets, while the cover, designed by the Czech graphic designer Jaroslav Šváb, illustrated the regularity of intervals between individual

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions events. It showed how the first slet in 1882 and the second one in 1891 were separated by a nine-year gap, the period then shortened and varied from four to six years. The subsequent slets were held in 1895, 1901, 1907, and 1912. However, the period was interrupted by the First World War and the first post-war slet took place in 1920. After that, a six-year intermediate period stabilised, and the slets were organised in 1926, 1932 and 1938. Finally, the Second World War postponed the 11th slet from 1944 to 1948. Slets functioned beyond gymnastic shows; as proposed by Tyrš after the first one in 1882 which he himself co-organised. The events meant to demonstrate the power of Sokol, bolster the members’ morale, and, above all, serve as a national manifestation (Tyrš, 1882:73-74). Indisputably, the idea of nationhood accompanied and informed the following slets. Although, in Očenášek’s words, it was necessary to distinguish between the time before the First World War, when slets symbolised a “self-help effort for growth and strength development inside and out” (Očenášek, 1938:7), and after when they began to be directed “inwards” (ibid) to express the identity of the ‘liberated’ nation. Similarly, literature portrays the spectacular Sokol celebrations in Prague as manifestations of Czech national awareness (Nolte, 2012:49-54; Nolte, 2017:139‑144). However, experts have so far paid much less attention to the gender-related aspects of this ‘nation’s theatre’. We argue, in this chapter, that the slet festivities with their mass performances, opulent slet dramas and Prague parades, transmitted intensively the gender ideas that were formulated in the ‘educational’ Sokol writings and taught to the members in their clubs. Like the entire Sokol organisation, slets were initially masculine affairs, and it was not until the fourth celebration in 1901 that a female mass gymnastic performance was included. In line with the Sokol emphasis placed on the male-female dichotomy, women presented their collective gymnastic performances separately. At the same time, instead of the ‘typical’ traits of vanity, superficiality and insincerity, they were expected to demonstrate the sophisticated Sokol image of the ‘new Czech woman’. An opportunity to prove their ‘new female’ character arose during the 1907 slet, when “suddenly a rainstorm arrived, with bright flashes of lightning, but the women remained assembled. The panicking crowd settled, humbled by their impressive calmness and discipline” (Očenášková, 1932:148-149). Similarly, in 1912 “contrary to common expectations, not a single woman raised her hand to fix her hair or adjust a ribbon” (Očenášek, 1919b:391). The women’s rigorous discipline, uniform clothing, and tireless concentration on their shared goal, regardless of their individual images, were so stunning that reports did not hesitate to compare them to the “London suffragettes” (ibid:383). Reports and proceedings from the following slets (Anonymous, 1938) also confirm that the female sokols disproved the stereotypical image of a woman who threatens the successful course of collective sokol work with her “innate desire for tidiness” (Mašek, 1927b:142). Despite the females’ extraordinary discipline, there had to be no doubt that they continued to remain the biologically weaker, graceful gender, predestined to motherhood (Pechlátová, 1927:118). Their public shows had to differ from those of men. They had to be sufficiently feminine. This was the reason their 1901

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE and 1907 performances incorporated the cone in their routines. In the words of Marie Provazníková, the female union training leader of the time, “the circular movements of the cones were closer to women” (Provazníková, 1948:42). The “feminine” nature of female mass performances was strikingly accentuated during the following slets; in 1912, women wore unicoloured uniforms which “enhanced the slenderness and grace of the female figure, and added gentleness to its movement” (Roudná, 1919:135), and in the actual exercise, they had to demonstrate their femininity through “figural and dance” routines, “flaunting the beauty of the women’s fluent moves” (Malá, 1919:198). The first post-war slet in 1920 employed the principles of the Sokol rhythmic gymnastics, which transformed the formerly static character of the exercises. The tightness and abruptness of the previous routines was replaced with smooth transitions between individual exercises, resulting in one continuous movement matching the musical accompaniment (Burgerová-Dubová, 1927:106-107; Provazníková, 1948:43-45), all with the aim to dynamise the performance and create floating images where “the viewer does not see the individual [performers], but admires the finesse of the moving mass with its grace and softness” (Holečková, 1927:138). The men’s floor exercises were very different to the women’s and expressed, the Sokol thesis of masculinity as oppositional and superior to femininity. Thus, the choreographers of male floor exercises created routines full of fast, symmetrical and abrupt movements. Furthermore, they aimed to design them so that they would symbolise the trainees’ determination to fight for their nation’s freedom and independence. That is why, during the exercises, the sokols performed a variety of combat-like motions, fighting the invisible enemy (Kavalír, 1948:49). It is true, however, that elements of Očenášek’s rhythmic gymnastics were gradually introduced into their routines too so that those were becoming smoother and more fluent (Klíma, 1928:34; Kavalír, 1948:50-51). Nonetheless, their most pervasive motives were still “devotion to one’s country and readiness for combat” (Kavalír, 1948:52), which was reflected in the prescribed manner of changing one’s position. This became most evident in the legendary, highly symbolic performance in 1938, aptly named ‘Oath to the Republic’, when “each of the men’s movements resembled a powerful swing of flail” (Očenášek, 1939:165). Starting with the fifth slet in 1907 onwards, the slet gymnastic programme was enriched by the so-called slet drama – spectacular theatrical performances given by hundreds of male and female sokols in costumes. The themes of the visually stunning plays often included scenes from Czech history, which gained new political and symbolic meaning. The 1926 play named ‘Where Is My Home’, the title of the Czech national anthem, serves as a perfect example of how slet spectators were presented not only with the ideas of Sokol nationalism, but also rigid beliefs that confirmed gender roles because of early Czech history. In this particular play, for instance, men were dressed as Slavic farmers and soldiers, whereas women presented themselves as housewives. While the demonstration of this ‘natural’ division of labour may have had its origins in medieval historical sources, the portrayal of natural themes, solely by women, was an explicitly artificial gender construct. According to the organisers, the delicate, graceful

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions bodies of the female sokols dressed in colourful curly costumes were perfect for the depiction of the elements of nature (Klíma, 1927:67-68; Bratr Ruch, 1926:9-13). Thus, impersonating “the stream, the grass, the rye and the butterflies” (Klíma, 1927:68), once again reminded sokol women of their feminine roles (Figure 3.5). Their dramatic rendering of the motifs of crops, blooms and sprouting inherently associated with Mother Earth clearly emphasised the reproductive function of the female bodies. Whoever could not watch the collective performances and dramas directly at the stadium were given a chance to catch a glimpse of the sokols at their traditional Prague parades at the grand finale of each slet. Based on preserved texts and images, the parades were noisy and colourful events. A strong bond developed between participants and spectators due to a shared enthusiasm for nationalistic ideas. In the words of a 1923 Figure 3.5 Drawings of performers in the 1926 slet poem, the sokols had “only one drama Where Is My Home show the difference between costumes and roles designated to men and goal”: “may all march with us in women. Source: Bratr Ruch, 1926: between pp.8‑9. this array, our voices joining into Archives of the Czech Sokol Community. one, a mighty resonating sound” (Hlaváč, 1920:25). Poetic as it sounds, as late as 1912, it was only the Sokol men who marched through Prague as there was still a seventeen-year-old provision in effect, according to which “women were not allowed to participate in the Sokol parades” (Anonymous. 1913b:6). It was not until the first post-war slet in 1920 that the fears of Sokol officials, who were concerned that women’s “unruly” behaviour might degrade the event to a mere ‘fashion show’, were successfully dispelled. Naturally, thoughts about gender, which strongly influenced the character of performances and dramas, had an impact on the Sokol parades. Not only were all sokols assigned specific positions within unique formations, they were also told what clothes to wear and instructed in terms of ‘appropriate’ masculine or feminine behaviour. Men walked separately from women and wore Sokol uniforms; on the other hand, women, starting in 1926, were dressed in “nice new festive costumes” (Jedlička-Brodský, 1927:169) consisting of skirts, short-sleeved blazers and hats. Men and young boys marched in an orderly manner, demonstrating their awareness of their roles as potential warriors, while women and young girls were allowed to ‘let loose’, as evidenced by the official Jan Činčera who 1926 described the Sokol march in front of the president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk: “Flags were waving as the boys marched through streets in a vigorous manner worthy of future soldiers. Behind them girls came, full of incredible enthusiasm, waving their hands, chanting, and saluting the public with Sokol greetings. Sokol

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE boys emanated calmness even as the girls exulted over seeing brother president, ready to stop the procession and flock around their loved one!” (Činčera, 1927:96).

The Sokol ‘gender readings’ When stadium gates closed and sokols left Prague, the celebratory whirl faded, and the city returned to its everyday rhythm. However, slets immediately began to live their ‘second life’ through many souvenirs, such as postcards or badges, press reports and various commemorative publications. For example, the popular weekly magazine Seeing the World published pamphlets with photos from the slets (Anonymous, 1912), Sokol itself created large printed collections of reports, a kind of ‘memorials’, in which texts by leading Sokol officials were accompanied by rich photo documentation, drawing the readers who did not attend the Prague festivities into the course of preparatory events. Mass performances, parades, and informing them in great detail about the history of Sokol as well as the response slets became popular. Playing a key role in the organisation’s promotional efforts, the printed material reported on the events from the official Sokol point of view, including gender-related aspects. In the memorials, photographs offered a clear idea of how the Czech nation was genderised – rarely did the photos capture men and women together. For most part, they showed either men or groups of men, or women or groups of women, as if the strict gender separation had to be respected on the iconographic plane. Photographs of male sokols depicted exactly the type of men described in the Sokol ‘educational’ handbooks: men with solemn faces, which they maintained both during the strenuous, risky exercises, with the upper halves of their muscled bodies exposed, and in the close-packed lines of the costumed marches. As for the women in the photographs, it seems that the authors deliberately chose images which showed them during collective performances and parades as visuals of gracefulness of their joint movements and the beauty of their apparel. If shown in other situations, such as playing or resting, the women were always captured in a relaxed mood, smiling and cheerful, as expected from them (Mašek, 1927a:XXXII, XLI-XLV; Penninger, 1939:184-192; Provazníková, 1939:209-211). To emphasise the contrast and the hierarchical relationship between masculinity and femininity, the authors employed juxtaposition. In the 1932 slet memorial, for example, there is a series of photos showing semi-nude men during a ‘wrestling game’ on one page, while the opposite one has photos of women exercising with flower chaplets in their hands (Procházka, 1933:XXX–XXXI) (Figure 3.6). The messages communicated via photographs were further supported in text, as already seen above in Činčera’s commentary on the 1926 Sokol march in front of the president. When referring to males, he used words such as ‘vigorous’, ‘calmness’, or ‘future soldiers’, but ‘enthusiasm’, ‘chanting’ and ‘exult’ about women (Činčera, 1927:96).

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions As the most representative of the Sokol press, the memorials had great significance for the transfer of gender ideas, despite being published at several-year intervals. Another important source of Sokol ideology were various periodicals. There were different ones, each targeting their own group of readers; the Sokol club in Nové Město nad Metují in the northeast of Bohemia stated, for example, that in 1928 they received over ten different magazines (Voborník, 1930:21). This type of printed material published in the Sokol environment was iconographically poorer than the slet proceedings, and the male-female polarity was presented in far more subtle ways. Nevertheless, the ideas of gender elaborated in the ‘educational’ handbooks naturally made their way into individual contributions, leading readers to believe that a person’s affiliation to a particular gender predetermines their life role and position in society. Whereas the memorials were primarily intended for adult audience, among the periodicals there were magazines designed to inculcate the rigid gender principles in children. One of them was the magazine Revival subtitled The Sokol Youth Magazine, which regularly commemorated important Sokol officials or other historical figures, mostly men (Anonymous, 1932:12; Anonymous, 1933:109-111). In a 1932 issue, a poem was printed telling the children that the “right sokol brother” was “well-built, strong, healthy and honest” (Liška, 1932:101), able to guard and defend the country. Some pages later, The Tale of a Happy Life offered a clear image of the woman’s life tasks, narrating the story of a “happy mummy” (Stárek, 1932:14), who prepares breakfast and lunch for her family, cleans the house, spends the afternoon with children at the pool, and puts them to bed at night.

Figure 3.6 The spread published in the proceedings from the 1932 slet serves as a prime example of iconographic expression of two antagonistic sexes. Source: Procházka, 19:XXX-XXXI. Památník IX. Sletu všesokolského pořádaného na oslavu stých narozenin Dr Miroslava Tyrše za účasti svazu „Slovanské Sokolstvo“ [Proceedings from the 9th All-Sokol Slet Held to Commemorate Dr Miroslav Tyrš’s Centenary, Attended by the Slavic Sokol Union]. Praha, pp.XXX‑XXXI. Archives of the Czech Sokol Community.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE An important contributor to Revival was its editor, Jan Petrus. In the early issues of 1932, he published several articles which were excerpts from his biographical novel about Miroslav Tyrš (Petrus, 1932b:10-11; Petrus, 1932a). Later he wrote children’s and youth novels, falling into the category of gifted Sokol writers who created ideological books of fiction aimed at both young and old Sokol readers. Besides the above-mentioned memorials and periodicals, the Sokol fiction books presented a third type of ‘gender readings’, that provided artistic adaptations of gender stereotypes, presenting them as universally valid. The protagonists in these stories included famous historical figures such as Miroslav Tyrš, Alois Hudec, an Olympic winner from 1936 (Petrus, 1948), or the president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (Petrus, 1933), as well as fictional heroes, who embodied all Sokol male virtues: determination, ambition, loyalty, honesty, and bravery. The women in the books remain on the periphery of events, and their roles are limited to goodhearted, or fearful and lamenting mothers (Bratr Ruch, 1912). In two short stories, written by Josef Puchmajer in 1887, they are even presented in a very negative light and depicted as men’s enemies, as young countess Marie and the major’s wife infatuate the young male heroes and entice them away from their work for Sokol and the whole nation (Puchmajer, 1887:7-53). The literary tradition of positive male heroes and peripheral or negative female characters was broken in 1937 by Marie Mervartová and her girls’ novel Sokol Věra, in which a young girl named Věra exudes confidence and courage. This notwithstanding, she eventually shows her ‘true’ femininity when Karel, the leader of a youth party offers her his post and she rejects it with the words: “The party can only work with you as the head. I wanted it, I admit it, but you make a better leader, so I give it up” (Mervartová, 1937:171). It appears as if Mervartová was paraphrasing the moment when the mythical Princess Libuše voluntarily renounced the throne, yielding completely to her husband and leader, Prince Přemysl.

Conclusion We conclude with three theses. Firstly, it is undeniable that women’s emancipation took place in Sokol; females gradually became members whose rights and obligations were equal to those of men. Their numbers rose steadily, and their presence in Sokol’s public appearances, be it collective performances or slet parades, grew highly visible. Women’s membership in Sokol clubs contributed to their emancipation process in broader society as well. Regular training in clubs enabled them to gain self-esteem and trust in their own bodies, discover opportunities for social engagement, and above all, break widely held prejudices that exercise was dangerous or morally inappropriate for the female organism. Secondly, it cannot be denied that notions of gender stereotypes, promoted by Sokol, were highly discriminatory as seen from a present day perspective. It was typical of the Sokol community to place a great emphasis on the division of members, the society, or even the whole nation in terms of gender. With respect to historical tradition and medical knowledge, men and women were attributed ‘characteristic’ physical and mental qualities, which automatically asserted beliefs about the physical, intellectual, and social dominance of men. Thirdly, it follows from this axiom that there were clear boundaries in the scope of female emancipation

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions within Sokol, and, as a matter of fact, the whole Czech society. The Sokol officials believed that the emancipation of Czech women was permissible only to the extent that it allowed them to retain the ‘basic’ features of their femininity, that is, to remain the sexually attractive, obedient beings whose main task was to bear the nation’s offspring. The resilience and strength that women gained through Sokol training were to serve as a prerequisite for the health, beauty and strength of their future children − future members of the Czech nation. Findings obtained by means of careful analysis of Sokol handbooks, pamphlets, periodicals, and books of fiction show that the above-described, essentially very conservative ideas of gender were widely disseminated among Sokol members via subtle, often impenetrable mechanisms, such as the use of specific language, decorations of gym interiors, forms of exercise, slet performance choreographies and stories contained in Sokol short stories and novels. Future research tasks will be to discover whether the tools employed in consolidation of gender stereotypes were efficient, and whether the sokols truly identified with them. The sources referred to in this study mostly originate from high-ranking Sokol officials, whose points of view can hardly be generalised. It is beyond doubt that a number of male sokols in fact did identify with the role of the country’s knightly defender, and that many female sokols believed that they had to be gentle, modest creatures ready to bear descendants. At the same time, there were also those whose ideas of masculinity and femininity were utterly different, and who might have strived to refute the presented gender construct, such as Josef Slavík, a Sokol training leader and writer, who once “dressed himself in his sister’s costume” (Slavík, 1935:154) to see if it “became him” (Slavík, 1935:154). Slavík told his story in a humorous column, therefore it is not certain whether it really happened. However, the mere fact that a sokol instigated the image of a man dressed in a women’s costume, as well as the presence of numerous homoerotic photographs and texts in the Sokol press, indicate that one’s perception of their own sexuality, masculinity and femininity might have been far more complex than it seems and did not necessarily have to correspond with the officially proclaimed ideas. Physical culture and sports still contribute to the deepening polarities between hegemonic masculinity, whose main attributes are strength and roughness, and submissive femininity, best defined by ‘beauty’ and ‘grace’. In Sokol, which was restored in 1990, a few months after the communist regime collapsed in Czechoslovakia, this continuity is visible. In 2003 for instance, the union female training leader considered the motto “May women’s efforts be feminine” (Žitná, 2004:135) as a determining factor in the female Sokol gymnastics and found that while men leaned towards sports per se, women preferred “harmonious gymnastics” (ibid:136), which, combined with music, evoked in them the feelings of well-being and togetherness. The old gender stereotypes became particularly conspicuous during the 16th slet in 2018 in Prague: the women wore colourful costumes and their performance incorporated dancing as well as gymnastic elements, while some of the men performed with their chests showing and demonstrated exercises requiring considerable amounts of strength and courage. It is evident that the thoughts about gender formulated and disseminated by

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Sokol from the end of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century have accompanied sports and physical education in other parts of the world, and are still considered valid nowadays. The results of the present research can therefore serve as a source of inspiration to all researchers dealing with the issues of both the former and the contemporary relationship between gender and physical culture at the edges of empire.3 Tento výstup byl zpracován v rámci řešení projektu MSK s názvem “Podpora talentovaných studentů doktorského studia na Ostravské univerzitě”, financovaného z rozpočtu MSK (04544/2017/RRC), a s podporou na dlouhodobý koncepční rozvoj výzkumné organizace Masarykova ústavu a Archivu AV ČR, v.v.v., RVO:67985921.

3 We would like to extend our gratitude to Magdalena Hanusková, a scholar and good friend, for her work on the translation of the present paper, and the Archives of the Czech Sokol Community for their permission to reproduce the figures.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Cosmas of Prague. 2009. The Chronicle of the Czechs. L. Wolverton (trans.), Washington, D.C. Čermák, J. 1914. Ženský tělocvik. Příruční kniha pro ženské tělocvičné odbory [Female Physical Education. A Handbook for Female Physical Training Unions]. Praha. Činčera, J. 1927. Průvod dorostu sokolského 29. června 1926 [The Sokol Youth Parade of June 29, 1926]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, pp.95-96. Čížek, L. 1901. Slavnostní cvičiště na Letné [The Parade Ground at Letná]. In: J. Scheiner (ed). IV. slet všesokolský v Praze 1901 ve dnech 28., 29., 30. června a 1. července. Praha, pp.23-33. Forth, C.E. & Taithe, B. 2007. Introduction: French Manhood in the Modern World. In: C.E. Forth & B. Taithe (eds). French Masculinities. History, Culture and Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.1-14. Glettler, M. 1970. Sokol und Arbeiterturnvereine (D.T.J.) der Wiener Tschechen bis 1914. Zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der nationalen Bewegung in beiden Organisationen (Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum, Bd. 23). München-Wien: R. Oldenbourg. Havlíček, V. 1920. Dějiny Sokolstva. Zakládání prvních jednot do r. 1878 [The History of Sokol. Foundation of the First Clubs until 1878]. In: Předsednictvo Sokolské župy Rokycanovy (ed). Základy sokolského vzdělání. Díl I. Sbírka proslovů před šikem a ve schůzích členských. Hořovice, pp.33-37. Havlíček, V. 1948. Sokolstvo, jeho myšlenka, organizace a vývoj [The Sokol Thought and Its Development]. Praha. Hejmová, A. 2015. The National Body – the Body of the Nation. In: M. Bartlová and J. Vybíral (eds). Building a State. The Representation of Czechoslovakia in Art, Architecture and Design. D. Morgan (trans.). Prague: UMPRUM, pp.63-67. Hlaváč K. 1920. Když jsme táhli ulicemi… [Marching Down the Streets…]. In: J. Hiller (ed). Památník VII. sletu všesokolského v Praze 1920. Praha, p.25. Holečková, B. 1927. Ženy o VIII. Sletu [Women of the 8th All-Sokol Slet]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, pp.137-138. Holubec, F. 1922. Sokolský katechismus [The Sokol Catechism]. Obziny u Vyškova. Hořejší, J. 1920. Sokol – Sokolice. Význam sokolství [Male Sokol – Female Sokol. The Importance of Sokol Movement]. In: Předsednictvo Sokolské župy Rokycanovy (ed). Základy sokolského vzdělání. Díl I. Sbírka proslovů před šikem a ve schůzích členských. Rokycany, pp.52-57. Jandásek, L. 1932. Tyršův odkaz (Sbírka Sokolských přednášek, č. 38) [Tyrš’s Legacy (A Collection of Sokol Speeches, vol 38)]. Slavkov u Brna. Jedlička-Brodský, B. 1927. Průvod hostí a Sokolstva Prahou [The Parade of Guests and Sokol through Prague]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, pp.168-170. Kavalír, M. 1948. O vývoji prostných cvičení mužů [On the Development of Male Floor Exercise]. In: Deset sletů. Přednášky z mimořádné vzdělávací školy Československé obce sokolské o první desítce všesokolských sletů ve dnech 17. a 18. ledna 1948. Praha, pp.48-52.

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions Kessemeier, G. 2000. Sportlich, sachlich, mänlich. Das Bild der „Neuen Frau“ in den Zwanziger Jahren. Zur Konstruktion geschlechtsspezifischer Körperbilder in der Mode der Jahre 1920 bis 1929. Dortmund: Edition Ebersbach. Klíma, J.V. 1927. Alegorická scéna „Kde domov můj“ [The Allegorical Drama of “Kde domov můj”]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, pp.67-68. Klíma, J.V. 1928. Rytmus a rytmika. Jejich podstata a význam v životě i ve výchově [Rhythm, Rhytmics, and Their Importance in Life and Education]. In: K. Pospíšil and A. Očenášek (ed). Základy rytmického tělocviku sokolského. Svazek I. Praha, pp.3‑41. Kozáková, Z. 1998. Praha, pohyb, Sokol [Prague, Movement, Sokol]. Praha: Česká obec sokolská. Krausová, R. 1920. Žena v Sokole [The Woman in Sokol]. In: Předsednictvo Sokolské župy Rokycanovy (ed). Základy sokolského vzdělání. Díl I. Sbírka proslovů před šikem a ve schůzích členských. Rokycany, pp.69-72. Kukaň, V. 1901. Po čtyřiceti letech [Forty Years Later]. In: J. Scheiner (ed). IV. slet všesokolský v Praze 1901 ve dnech 28., 29., 30. června a 1. července. Praha, pp.5-10. Lipan, B. 1923. Sokolík. Sokolské mládeži [Young Sokol. To Sokol Youth]. Drnovice u Vyškova. Liška, J. 1932. Sokolská [Sokol poem]. Vzkříšení, 18(7):101. Malá, M. 1919. Prostná žen [Floor Exercise of the Women]. In: A. Očenášek (ed). Památník sletu slovanského sokolstva 1912 v Praze. Praha, pp.196-200. Mašek, F. 1927a. Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926 [Proceedings from the 8th All-Sokol Slet in Prague, 1926]. Praha. Mašek, F. 1927b. Veřejné cvičení žactva a dorostu sokolských žup pražských 3. července [The Public Performance of Sokol Youth on 3 July]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, p.142. Mervartová, M. 1937. Sokolka Věra. Příběh sokolské družiny [Sokol Věra. The Tale of a Sokol Crew]. Praha. Nolte, C.E. 1986. “Our Task, Direction and Goal”. The Development of the Sokol National Program to World War I. In: F. Seibt (Hrsg). Vereinswesen und Geschichtspflege in den böhmischen Ländern. Vorträge der Tagungen des Collegium Carolinum in Bad Wiessee vom 25. bis 27. November 1983 und vom 23. bis 25. November 1894 (Bad Wiesseer Tagungen des Collegium Carolinum). München: Oldenbourg, pp.123-138. Nolte, C.E. 1993a. “Every Czech a Sokol!” Feminism and Nationalism in the Czech Sokol Movement. Austrian History Yearbook XXIV, pp.79-100. Nolte C.E. 1993b. Our Brothers Across the Ocean. The Czech Sokol in America to 1914. Czechoslovak and Central European Journal, 11(2):15-37. Nolte, C.E. 2012. Celebrating Slavic Prague. Festivals and the Urban Environment, 1891–1912. Bohemia. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der böhmischen Länder, 52(1):37-54. Nolte, C.E. 2017. ‘A Magical Theatre of Strength and Beauty’: The 1912 Slet in Prague. Austrian Studies. Celebrations: Festkultur in Austria, 25:136-147.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Očenášek, A. 1914. Doslov [Afterword], in: Zdraví–síla–krása. Tělocvičný večer Sokola v Žižkově s ukázkami z cizích soustav tělocvičných po vzoru mezinárodního kongresu pro tělesnou výchovu v Paříži v březnu 1913. Provedeno 26. prosince 1913, 6. a 18. ledna 1914. Brno, pp.92-94. Očenášek, A. 1919a. 29. červen [June 29]. In: A. Očenášek (ed). Památník sletu slovanského sokolstva 1912 v Praze. Praha, pp.258-282. Očenášek, A. 1919b. Památník sletu slovanského sokolstva 1912 v Praze [Proceedings from the Slavic Sokol Slet in Prague, 1912]. Praha. Očenášek, A. 1927. Prostná cvičení dorostu [Floor Exercise of the Youth]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, pp.75-78. Očenášek, A. 1938. Význam všesokolských sletů [The Importance of All-Sokol Slets]. In: R. Procházka and V. Minářik (ed). Všesokolské slety. Praha, pp.7-32. Očenášek, A. 1939. Třetího července [July 3]. In: R. Procházka (ed). Památník X. Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1938. Praha, pp.148-168. Očenášková, F. 1932. Mé sletové vzpomínky na Jindru Vaníčka [My Slet Memories of Jindra Vaníček]. In: Procházka, R. (ed). Náš náčelník. Sborník prací o životě a díle slavného náčelníka Československé obce sokolské bratra Dr Jindřicha Vaníčka. Praha, pp.148-149. Pechlátová, Z. 1927. Rozestavný běh [The Relay Race]. In: F. Mašek (ed). Památník osmého Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1926. Praha, p.118. Pelikán, J. 1927. Sokolská myšlenka [The Sokol Thought]. Praha. Pelikán, J. 1932. Do Sokola! Příručka pro nové členy (Sokolská osvěta, sv. 23) [Every Czech a Sokol! The Newcomer’s Handbook (Sokol Teaching, vol 23)]. Praha. Penninger, E. 1939. XI. Závody mezinárodní tělocvičné federace [10th International Gymnastics Federation Race]. In: R. Procházka (ed). Památník X. Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1938. Praha, pp.184-192. Petrus, J. 1932a. A vyšel rozsévač. Život dra Miroslava Tyrše, zakladatele Sokola (Knihovna pro mládež SAD, sv. 32) [A Teacher Was Born. The Life of Miroslav Tyrš, Founder of Sokol (Library for the Youth SAD, vol. 32)]. Praha. Petrus, J. 1932b. Odhodlání [Determination]. Vzkříšení, 18(1):10-11. Petrus, J. 1933. Od piky. Román života velkého muže [From the Bottom. The Story of a Great Man’s Life]. Praha. Petrus, J. 1948. Jen výš a výš! (Knižnice české mládeže Oreb, sv. 28) [Higher, Higher! (Books of the Oreb, vol. 28)]. Třebechovice p. O. Pfister, G. 1993. Biologismus, Eugenik, Rassenhygiene. Zur Geschichte des Diskurses über den weiblichen Körper. In: Sportmuseum Berlin (Hrsg). Sportstadt Berlin in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Jahrbuch 1993 des Sportmuseum Berlin. Berlin: Sportmuseum Berlin, pp.160-177. Pospíšil, K. 1928. Vývoj rytmického tělocviku sokolského [The Development of the Sokol Rhythmic Gymnastics]. In: K. Pospíšil and A. Očenášek (ed). Základy rytmického tělocviku sokolského. Svazek I. Praha, pp.45–48.

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions Procházka, R. 1932. Náš náčelník. Sborník prací o životě a díle slavného náčelníka Československé obce sokolské bratra Dr Jindřicha Vaníčka [Our Leader. An Anthology of Works on the Life and Work of Doctor Jindřich Vaníček, a Great Leader of the Czechoslovak Sokol Community]. Praha. .

Procházka, R. 1933. Památník IX. Sletu všesokolského pořádaného na oslavu stých narozenin Dr Miroslava Tyrše za účasti svazu „Slovanské Sokolstvo [Proceedings from the 9th All-Sokol Slet Held to Commemorate Dr Miroslav Tyrš’s Centenary, Attended by the Slavic Sokol Union]. Praha. Provazníková, M. 1939. Mezinárodní tělocvičné závody žen [Women’s Gymnastics International Championship]. In: R. Procházka (ed). Památník X. Sletu všesokolského v Praze 1938. Praha, pp.209-211. Provazníková, M. 1948. Vývoj sletových společných cvičení žen [The Development of the Women´s Gymnastics at Slets]. In: Deset sletů. Přednášky z mimořádné vzdělávací školy Československé obce sokolské o první desítce všesokolských sletů ve dnech 17. a 18. ledna 1948, Praha, pp.42-47. Puchmajer, J. 1887. Sokolské povídky [The Sokol Tales]. Praha. Randák, J. and Nečasová, D. 2009. Genderové aspekty konstrukce reálného a symbolického těla [The Gender Aspects in the Construct of the Real and the Symbolic Body]. In: T. Petrasová and P. Machalíková (eds). Tělo a tělesnost v české kultuře 19. století. Sborník příspěvků z 29. ročníku sympozia k problematice 19. století Plzeň, 26.–28. února 2009, Praha: Academia, pp.139–148. Řezníček, V. 1924. JUDr Jan Podlipný. Jeho život a působení [The Life and Influence of JUDr Jan Podlipný]. Praha. Roubal, P. 2016. Československé spartakiády [The Czechoslovak Spartakiads]. Praha: Academia. Roudná, E. 1919, Cvičení žen župy středočeské 16. června 1912 [The Central Bohemian District Female Peformance of June 16, 1912], In: A. Očenášek (ed). Památník sletu slovanského sokolstva 1912 v Praze. Praha, p.135. Sak, R. 2012. Miroslav Tyrš. Praha: Vyšehrad. Šašek z Bířkova, V. 1951. Deník o putování pana Lva z Rožmitálu a z Blatné z Čech až na konec světa [The Wanderings of Lev, Lord of Rožmitál and Blatná, from the Czech Lands to the End of the World]. B. Mathesius (trans.). Praha. Scheiner, J.E. 1872. Dějiny Sokolstva v prvém jeho pětadvacetiletí [The First Twenty-Five Years in the History of Sokol], Praha. Schůtová, J. 2003. Frauen in der Sokolorganisation. In: J. Schůtová & M. Waic (Hg). Turnen und Sport der Frauen in den böhmischen und anderen mitteleuropäischen Ländern. Entstehung und Entwicklung bis zum zweiten Weltkrieg. Prag: Nationalmuseum, pp.80–98. Slavík, J. 1935. Kroj žen a přírodní filozofie. [Women’s Costumes and Natural Philosophy]. In: J. Slavík. Sokolské rolničky. Kniha feuilletonů od sokolského verpánku. I. Díl. Železný Brod, pp.154-157. Sloterdijk, P. 2013. You Must Change Your Life. On Anthropotechnics. W. Hoban (trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Štafl, J. 1922. Svépomoc sokolská [The Sokol Self-Help]. In: Pohyb, slunce, vzduch a voda. Vzorná letní cvičiště a tělocvična Sokola v Nymburce v Sadech Tyršových. Věstník ministerstva veřejného zdraví a tělesné výchovy Československé Republiky v Praze [Zvláštní číslo], 4(5):38-40. Stárek, J.S. 1932. Pohádka o šťastném životě [The Tale of a Happy Life]. Vzkříšení, 19(1):11-14. Strotzer, M. 2016a. Příklady některých dochovaných sokolských opon [Examples of Preserved Sokol Curtains]. Vzdělavatelské listy, 1:5-9. Strotzer, M. 2016b. Malované opony divadel českých zemí [The Painted Curtains of Czech Theatres]. Vzdělavatelské listy, 1:3-4. Táborská, O. 1913. Sokolstvo a ženy [Women in Sokol]. In: Komise vzdělávacího odboru Č. O. S. (ed). Podstata sokolské myšlenky (Příručky škol cvičitelských Č. O. S., sv. II.). Praha, pp.64-70. Tosh, J. 2004. Hegemonic masculinity and the history of gender. In: S. Dudink, K. Hagemann & J. Tosh (eds). Masculinities in Politics and War. Gendering Modern History. Manchester – New York: Manchester University Press, pp.41−58. Tyrš, M. 1871. Náš úkol směr a cíl [Our Task, Direction and Goal]. Sokol, 1(1):1-4. Tyrš, M. 1873a. Tělocvik v ohledu esthetickém [The Aesthetic of Physical Education]. Sokol, 3 (4):25-27. Tyrš, M. 1873b. Základové tělocviku [Basics of Physical Education]. Praha. Tyrš, M. 1882. Po slavnosti [In the Aftermath of the Festivities]. Sokol, 8(8):73-74. Uhlíř, J.B. & Waic, M. 2001. Sokol proti totalitě 1938–1952 [Sokol against Totality 1938– 1952]. Praha: Univerzita Karlova. Urban-Vodolský, F. 1903. Sokolstvo. Jeho úkol, směr a cíl (Epištoly lidu českého, IV.) [The Sokol Movement. Its Task, Direction and Goal (Letters of the Czechs, IV)]. Praha. Vaníček, K. 1895. Tužme se! [Stronger Still!]. In: Karel Hlaváček (ed). Zdar třetímu Sletu všesokolskému 1895. Praha, pp.2−5. Vaníček, K. 1897. Rádce sokolský [The Sokol Mentor]. Praha. Vaníček, K. 1910. Povinnosti sokolské [The Sokol Duties]. Praha. Vaníček, K. 1912. Budeš mužem! [A Man You Shall Become!] In: Sokolské epištoly I.−L. Praha. Voborník, J. 1930. Z dějin Sokola novoměstského n. Met. [The History of Sokol in Nové Město nad Metují] In: Redakční sbor (ed). Památník Tělocvičné jednoty Sokol v Novém Městě nad Metují, vydaný u příležitosti otevření nové sokolovny dne 1. června 1930. Nové Město nad Metují, pp.12–21. Vrabcová, M. 1922. Dějiny ženského sokolského tělocviku (Sbírka sokolských přednášek, č. 4) [History of Sokol Female Gymnastics (A Collection of Sokol Lectures, vol. 4)]. Blatná.

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Přemysl’s soldiers and Libuše’s companions Waic, M. 2004. Sokol in der tschechischen Gesellschaft. In: J. Schůtová & M. Waic (Hg). Turnen und Sport der Frauen in den böhmischen und anderen mitteleuropäischen Ländern. Entstehung und Entwicklung bis zum zweiten Weltkrieg. Prag: Nationalmuseum, pp.521−538. Weigner, K. 1928. Dílu na cestu [To the Work on Its Journey]. In: K. Pospíšil & A. Očenášek (ed). Základy rytmického tělocviku sokolského. Svazek I. Praha, pp.VII–IX. Žitná, J. 2004. Ženy v Sokole v době vstupu do EU – aneb v prvních letech třetího tisíciletí [The Sokol Women at the Time of the Accession to the EU – at the Beginning of the 3rd Millennium]. In: B. Hodaň (ed). „Sokolství – Občanská společnost – Sjednocující se Evropa“. Sborník sdělení přednesených na vědecké konferenci na Fakultě tělesné kultury UP v Olomouci ve dnech 5. a 6. prosince 2003. Olomouc, pp.133–137.

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Chapter 4 Steeplechase: personal reflections on Fit2Run’s race of life Tarminder Kaur

Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Department: Anthropology & Development Studies University of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Norman Ontong

Founder and Athletics coach, Fit2Run, Worcester, Western Cape, South Africa

Introduction Physical culture and sport are products of colonial encounters and shaped by constructions of race and racial differences that hold a significance for understanding contemporary South African society. Since the onset of apartheid, sport was used as much by white nationalists to stage their fantasies of racial superiority as by anti-apartheid activists to expose the exploits of a racist regime (Merrett, 2004; Grundlingh, 1994; Desai, 2010; Booth, 1992; 1998; Archer & Bouillon, 1982). Athletics, as Christopher Merrett argues, “was probably the most consistently literal and compliant” to apartheid policies of racial segregation (2004:240). “As a non-contact sport, athletics was able to accommodate multiracial training and competition to create an illusion of integration” (Merrett, 2004:247). At the same time, it was athletics that most explicitly exposed racist ideologues’ total disregard for merit.1 Athletics, therefore, offer a particularly potent lens to gain an understanding of the many and changing fragments and divisions that continue to shape contemporary South African society. In this chapter, we present a short history of an athletics organisation called Fit2Run. The athletics event of steeplechase, both literally and metaphorically, allows us to reflect on how historical construction of race take on new meanings in postapartheid South Africa. The steeplechase is an obstacle race in athletics. Each 400 metres lap includes four hurdles and a water-jump. The steeplechase event, as Norman Ontong reflects, has come to have a symbolic relevance to Fit2Run. At the time of writing, Fit2Run was operating as a non-profit company (NPC), run by a small group of 1 See in particular, Merrett’s (2004) historical analysis of ‘race’ in South African athletics. Among the examples he presents, the stories of Bennett Makgamathe and Humphrey Khosi, black runners whose recorded times were superior to their white counterparts at the time and were omitted from national official representative team to compete in the African and international events in the lead up to 1964 Olympics (2004:239-241).

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE volunteers who train children and youth in track and field, cross-country and road running. Not only do Fit2Run athletes hold regional and national records in steeplechase events, but also the everyday off-the-athletics-track lives of the athletes and the operations of the organisation are constantly challenged with many hurdles. We discuss the usefulness and limitations of the metaphor of steeplechase in presenting this short history of Fit2Run. However, the primary goal of this chapter is to heed the call, as articulated by Francois Cleophas, to write history that “bridges the span between the historical actors and those who write about them” (2018:9). We attend to the different ways of knowing, making sense of, and presenting sport history by employing a polyphonic narrative style, used by collaborative anthropologists (see Kurzwelly, 2019; Gatt, 2017; Ferguson, 1999, among others). The history of Fit2Run unfolds in the everyday articulations of practices and experiences of members of this organisation. In this chapter, a version of this history is presented from the perspective of Norman Ontong, the founding member and middle-distance coach of Fit2Run. Ethnographer, Tarminder Kaur, provides everyday unfoldings of history with a textual structure and coherence. In so doing we also wish to hold onto the relevance of this story for a non-academic readership. Consequently, the collaborative process of writing this chapter emerges from a long-term and on-going engagement since 2012 between the two authors. This work is not a one-dimensional recording of Fit2Run’s history from Ontong’s perspective. Rather, it results from many on-going and unfinished conversations, including joining Fit2Run athletes during training, engaging with them in different contexts, observing them compete, and reading and discussing selected texts on South African athletics history and deciding collectively on what themes of the story to tell. With a constant back-and-forth of drafts between authors, we agreed on presenting our stories and arguments in individual first-person voices. Thus, both authors take turns to present and analyse Fit2Run’s story within the broader history of South African athletics. The main body of the text is therefore presented in Ontong’s voice, while the introduction, discussion and conclusion are in Kaur’s. This distinction in voices is important to hold on to the sentiment that inspires Ontong’s work with, and commitment to, Fit2Run without sacrificing demands of academic rigour and critical reflections. The story of Fit2Run unfolds in the town of Worcester, 120 Kilometres north-east of Cape Town and with a population of about 128 000. Worcester is one of the largest towns in the interior of the Western Cape province. It serves as an administrative hub for local and district municipalities, and an economic hub for surrounding rural towns of Rawsonville (20 km south of Worcester) and De Doorns (35 km north of Worcester) as well as the sparsely populated farming areas. Shaped by the histories of slavery, colonialism, the two world wars, and apartheid, the most enduring feature of Worcester remains its extreme economic and class inequality. The end of slavery in the Cape Colony paved the way for new social and political struggles, the context in which coloured identities first take shape (Erasmus & Pieterse, 1999; Watson, 2012). Over the course of history, coloured identities would take on many permutations, one of which was classification of coloured as a racial category in the social and spatial architecture of segregationist policies (Erasmus

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& Pieterse, 1999). While anti-apartheid activism rearticulated the political position of ‘so called coloureds’ as part of the broader black and African experience under white rule, in post-apartheid South Africa, scholars of critical race studies argue for attending to the complex dynamics and specificities of coloured identities (Erasmus, 2001). Even the census continues to record the make-up of the South African population in old racial classifications. For example, in the 2011 Census, just under 60% of Worcester’s population was recorded as coloured. Norman Ontong’s social experiences and political articulations are entangled in such self-identifications as colored and black. To this end, Zimriti Erasmus’s thesis of “Coloured by history, shaped by place” (2001) succinctly brings out the sentiment with which we refer to coloured in this chapter. Presenting how aspiring highperformance athletes and coaches negotiate their historical and social identities as coloured and African in post-apartheid South Africa, the chapter proceeds with Ontong’s reflections on the making and remaking of the Fit2Run.

Norman Ontong’s Reflections on Fit2Run’s race of life … [A]lthough talent feels and looks predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over what skills we develop, and we each have more potential than we might ever presume to guess. Coyle, 2009:79 Having observed many talented athletes never achieve their potential, Daniel Coyle’s words ring too true to me, but for different reasons. I grew up in Worcester in an area demarcated for people classified as coloured by the Population Registration Act of 1950. I was raised in a family of sportspeople who excelled in their respective sports. Naturally, I was drawn to sports, first as a rugby player, then a track and field athlete, and later a distance runner. While we were not in leadership positions, my family and I were among the large and strong supportbase of the South African Council on Sports (SACOS) in the struggle against apartheid. In post-apartheid South Africa, legal structures no longer separate and exclude anyone from competing at the highest levels. However, despite the unification of racially and politically divided sport governing bodies and promises of equal opportunities, the social and sporting realities of coloured and African young athletes remain compromised. I was confronted with these harsh realities during my role as a teacher at a rural school. Year after year, my colleagues and I (school teachers and support staff from rural and urban schools) observed how primary school athletics competitions were dominated by coloured and African athletes from underprivileged backgrounds, whereas secondary school competitions were dominated by white athletes from privileged backgrounds. Despite showing exceptional athletic talent at an early age, young children from my school were lost to the competition by the time they reached their teens. It was in response to these observations that Fit2Run was established in August 2008. I am one of the founding members and the middle-distance running coach of Fit2Run. Fit2Run is a small, non-profit initiative run entirely by volunteers like myself who have been involved in education, community development and

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE sports both in our professional and personal lives. With a sense of responsibility towards our community, especially the youth, Fit2Run was launched with an aim to engage children at an early age, as young as 10 years old, into a meaningful life pursuit through athletics. Over the past twelve years, Fit2Run athletes have been particularly successful in athletic events like hurdles, high jump and steeplechase. Embroiled in the legacies of apartheid in the form of poverty, gang violence, crime and broken families, the everyday off-the-athletics-track lives of our athletes are also metaphorically like a steeplechase, where they are jumping over all kinds of hurdles that can knock them out of the race towards a decent and fulfilling life. Here, I reflect on my involvement in Fit2Run, the challenges we faced as an organisation and key achievements of our athletes, as well as the impact of the programme on their lives beyond the track and how their lives are simultaneously (re)shaping Fit2Run.

The (re)making of the Fit2Run The initial response of the group of educators and runners who teamed up to establish Fit2Run was to identify and introduce talented juniors to the Worcester Athletics Club (WAC) where many of us were active members at the time (see Van Der Merwe, 2010:161-172 for more details on WAC). We soon realised that WAC had no programmes for junior athletes, and there was little effort to make these juniors (who arrived without an accompanying guardian) feel welcome. Therefore, we had to rethink our strategy. This is when the brand name of Fit2Run was introduced, which was to serve as a feeder-athletics club to the more established WAC. We started recruiting and training a small select group of young athletes for the club. WAC’s reception to our athletes still remained cold. Although only subtly expressed, the impoverished backgrounds of our athletes seemed to concern many of WAC members. This discomfort was most explicitly expressed in their interactions with a local track and field athletic coach, Rodney Booysen. In 2010, Rodney contacted WAC to request a complimentary membership for his athletes, Taylia Visagie (who eventually became the secondbest high jumper in South Africa), Cartlon Soldaat and Chanice Klink, all of whom were selected to compete at the South African School Athletics Nationals (SA Nationals) for the Boland region that year. At the time, Rodney was neither part of Fit2Run, nor WAC. As a schoolteacher, he had been training children from his school in athletics for a number of years. He wrote to the regional governing body, Boland Athletics, requesting a sponsor for his three athletes to participate at the SA Nationals. Considering the financial constraints and athletic performances of these athletes, Boland Athletics agreed to support them and instructed Rodney to obtain a letter of affiliation for the three athletes with the local athletics club. Rodney approached WAC expecting an enthusiastic response for bringing local athletes to the club, all set to represent the club at national level. Instead, WAC management turned down his request, fearing that Boland Athletics will pass these athletes’ sponsorship bills onto the club. Despite repeated explanations that WAC was only responsible for granting a complimentary affiliation, the club refused, and his athletes were forced to miss the opportunity to compete at SA Nationals that year.

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Fit2Run took note of this affair, and considering our own, mild but constant disagreements with WAC on several issues, we decided to register another entity, Fit2Run Athletics Club, in addition to the NPC. While the NPC status allowed us to continue to raise funds for our athletics training programme, the Athletics Club was to ease compliance with Boland Athletics’ administrative requirements for participation in their competitions. In 2011, with a membership of 60 athletes, Fit2Run Athletics Club was officially accepted by Boland Athletics. Rodney and his athletes also joined and have remained committed members of Fit2Run since then. We dominated junior and senior Road Running events, 10 and 21.1 kilometres races in the Boland region in 2011. With Rodney on our team, and his proven expertise in track and field events, we also earned local and regional titles in track and field. At the same time, my athletes continued to improve their performances in cross country. Our success drew much attention, but not all positive. The WAC remained antagonistic towards us. Based on Boland Athletics’ policy of “one club per town or municipal area” (Boland Athletics, 2012:sec.31.4.7), ostensibly put in place to unify racially separated athletics clubs in each town under apartheid, WAC filed an objection against Fit2Run Athletics Club. We soon found ourselves in a legal battle with Boland Athletics, who won the case. By the end of 2012, they retracted our club status. The lawsuit also caused tensions among the Fit2Run volunteer-members, with some returning to WAC and others registering with corporate running clubs, severely damaging our support-base. Beyond losing the benefits of being an autonomous athletics club, we also suffered serious strategic and material losses. Due to our early successes, we were able to garner enough support from the local business community to build a safe house for after-school training. Worcester is surrounded by vast farmlands, and we were catering for athletes from farming areas. Two founding member-volunteers, Derick Adams and myself, were educators at rural/farm schools. Given our interaction with learners, we were familiar with the particular challenges they faced. Unlike those living in Worcester, learner-athletes from rural areas were marginalised due to lack of access to regular training, mentorship, distance, and resources. As Justin van der Merwe recounted in his case study, WAC members report the benefits of drawing together athletic clubs from rural areas in and around Rawsonville (where Derick continues to teach) and De Doorns (where I was a teacher until 2004), to strengthen their chances for securing government funding (2010:163). Van der Merwe also notes that “Boland Athletics prescribes that 50 per cent of members of its affiliate clubs must be juniors” (2010:172). Despite these aims of WAC and transformation prescriptions by Boland Athletics, there have been no systematic and sustained efforts to draw junior athletes from rural and farming regions. For example, one of the major obstacles to regular training and participation in regular competitions for juniors, particularly from underprivileged backgrounds, is transport. The building of a safe house in Worcester was Fit2Run’s solution to extend opportunities to such promising junior athletes. This was to reduce travel time and costs and provide athletes with a safe haven so that they could focus on their training. Losing the lawsuit forced us to abandon the building of the safe house and reduce our programme for rural athletes. This also discouraged many of our sponsors.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE There are simply too many ironies in the way our altruistic efforts have been undermined by those responsible for encouraging or prescribing forms of active citizenry (Burnett, 2006). Despite proving successful at our primary aim and strategies to nurture young athletes, giving them fair opportunity to compete, our programme was undercut by a policy put in place to right the wrongs of the past. Caught up in interpersonal antagonisms and jealousies, those who opposed our work used a policy against us, which would end up hurting young people already bearing the brunt of the very past this policy intended to transform. Upholding SACOS’s principles of non-racialism, Fit2Run was established to support junior athletes from economically impoverished backgrounds. The junior membership of Fit2Run is close to 90%, well above the transformation measures prescribed by Boland Athletics. Apart from the coaches and volunteers, the adult members of Fit2Run are those who joined as juniors. However, Fit2Run’s efforts and achievements were not recognized by Boland Athletics’ transformation policy. Thus, we cannot make claims on their transformation funds because we were not accepted as an athletics club. To add insult to our injury, our most overt and vocal opposition came from coloured members of WAC. We remain perplexed by this. However, given the difference Fit2Run has made to the lives of our athletes, giving up on our programme and our athletes was not an option. As coaches and as members of the same community as our athletes, we are personally invested in their success, and therefore we continue to maintain the legal status of Fit2Run as a NPC. Given the bureaucratic structures and demands of Boland Athletics, competing independent of a club affiliation is expensive and has many other limitations. In our quest to give the best possible opportunities to the athletes, we have tirelessly worked to establish more supportive and conducive collaborations with athletics clubs outside Worcester. For the past seven years, our successful collaboration with Maties Athletics Club (the Athletics club based at Stellenbosch University) has allowed our athletes to run in Maties colours, when they are not running for their respective schools. In this way, they continue to excel at their respective competitions. Apart from our ideal of providing our athletes with the best athletics programme possible, managing Fit2Run has meant constantly dealing with changing conditions, such as rules and unpredictable obstacles created by those whom we expected to support us. Let me give you a glimpse into the programme and how we engage with our athletes.

The athletes: the lifeblood of Fit2Run From the start, our strategy was to focus on a small number of athletes (currently 62 juniors, 5 seniors and 6 alumni) in order to give the kind of attention an athlete would need to be successful. Athletics, particularly road running, may appear to be an inexpensive sport. However, due to professionalisation and commercialisation of the sport, it has become very expensive to train juniors into professional athletes. With our dual motto: Feed the Olympic Flame and The logical choice to a healthy lifestyle, we have never refused any athletes interested in training with Fit2Run. We plan for different abilities and stages of performance accordingly, and adjust the intensity of training according to athletes’ performance and goals. However, since training is very demanding – with early morning training sessions,

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weekend competitions, intensive holiday training camps – all of which require discipline, resilience and perseverance, those who are less committed drop-out at an early stage, contributing to keeping our numbers small. Most professional athletics coaches maintain a maximum number of athletes in order to get the right balance of individual attention and group competitiveness. The only difference is that our athletes are not charged any fees for their training. Rodney sums up our achievements and challenges succinctly: Coaches are currently charging R1200 per athlete per month. Parents of our athletes can’t afford that. If we had to charge, the athletes will be lost. Although I have the best results in the town and have at least 2 SA (national) medals per year, we don’t ask money for coaching.2 Booysen, 2019 Three of Rodney’s athletes have represented South Africa at youth and junior international competitions, namely: Taylia Visage, Peter John Waterboer and Rogail Joseph. Rodney’s athletes have been producing great results since 2005. The first 10 athletes who started with us in 2008 won regional races previously dominated by athletes from advantaged backgrounds. Two years later, our first significant achievement came in the form of winning medals at South African national competitions. Over the past 12 years, we have always had athletes represented at national meetings and winning medals. In Table 4.1, I list my athletes who have held Boland and South African records in their respective events and have won medals over the years. Given the success we have had over such a short period of time, we could reasonably expect athletes to pay for our services and time, but if we divert our energies towards earning from athletics coaching, we will lose most of our current athletes. While success on the athletics track certainly plays a part in keeping me motivated, there is a deeper sense of commitment and satisfaction that comes from seeing young people who are born into circumstances set up for failure succeed. Almost all of Fit2Run athletes come from single parent families, many raised by their grandparents. They have lived their entire lives in the areas of Worcester known for very high levels of gang-violence, crime, substance abuse, school dropouts and teenage pregnancies – all caused and perpetuated by material poverty. Already in their early teens, many have witnessed violence – live-ammunition shooting, knives, guns, gang-wars, murder and death. All these experiences have been normalised in their lives, and yet they have learned to negotiate and maintain a safe distance from such dangers. We acquired, through a generous sponsor, a vehicle that drives through these areas like a lifeboat, transporting athletes to and from their homes, training and competition. While we, as coaches and volunteers at Fit2Run, recognise the challenges of growing up in violent environments, our athletes do not always judge these spaces and activities with the same negativity 2 This is a translated extract from a WhatsApp exchange between Rodney Booysen and Norman Ontong. The original text in Afrikaans reads: Afrigters vra tans R1 200 per atleet per maand. Ons kan nie daardie geld vra nie. Dan gaan ons daardie arm briljante atleet verloor, alhoewel ek die afrigter met die beste resultate in die dorp is. Sedert 2006, het my atlete elke jaar ten minste 2 goue medaljes by die SA’S verower, en ek vra nie ‘n sent om atlete af te rig nie.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE or stigma. They know many of those involved in the gangs and many of the gangsters, who in turn know them as runners. If gang tensions are high at certain times, my athletes inform and advise me, and on rare occasions, are forced to miss training. I recount one of our encounters with a gang of five wanting to rob us. They attacked our transport and threatened us with knives, but upon recognising some of our athletes, they changed their minds and decided to let us go. The incident left us nervous, but it also showed the indirect impact we have had on the broader community. Some of my athletes have also shared with me that these gangsters encourage them to continue with athletics, perhaps out of a sense of pride. If there is any good news that has come out of these ghettos, it is in the form of the athletics achievements of these athletes.

Building Fit2Run athletics track, building autonomy As coaches, we consistently find ourselves playing the role of a parent and supporting the athletes through their educational, emotional, psychological, physical and social needs. Although the ideas of using sport as a tool for the development of young people has come to have real traction in South Africa, our experience shows that athletics training is just one small part of the whole programme that makes the difference. We know our athletes as individuals with unique life stories and aspirations, not simply as beneficiaries of a sports-fordevelopment programme. It is their life stories and struggles that inspire us to continue and which continues to reshape the aims and objectives of Fit2Run. There cannot be a single prescribed way of doing this kind of work, only constantly engaging with, and learning from, the changing circumstances. In the latter half of 2013, we were fortunate to secure a venue for the exclusive use of Fit2Run athletes. The venue includes rooms, which we use for education, physical, psychological and life-skills training. We have turned one of the rooms into an appropriately equipped gym. Right next to this building was an unused and overgrown open field that we are currently turning into a training home for Fit2Run, which includes a 300m athletics track and a professional water jump station. The rooms as well as the ground, belongs to the Uniting Reform Church. We pay a modest rent (R750 per month) to the church. We were already using the open space next to the rooms for training when the pastor took note and encouraged us to renovate an old athletics track buried under this unused and overgrown ground. Given the gradually growing number of Fit2Run athletes and over-crowding at the only professionally maintained athletics track in Worcester, we needed a specialised and more focused training space for our high-performance athletes. This is in order to maximise on the shorter daylight time during winter, and to avoid the risks of training on the road (including some unpleasant encounters we have had with the local gangs). When we started fixing the field, we recognised that the ground was not level and required a lot more than minimal repairs. This meant searching for sponsors to undertake a bigger construction project. We also sought out support from community members and athletes with the building of the athletics track. This opportunity to develop a space to train according to our

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Steeplechase own requirements brought with it a greater sense of belonging, ownership and security among the athletes and the community. The involvement of the broader community is the reason that the local church (of which I am not a member) offered us this very generous agreement. While we continue to pay a modest rent, they have allowed us to retain what we build on the ground. In addition, the suggestion to generate income from this facility is met with much encouragement. In a close-knit community like Worcester, news spreads fast. We provide our athletes with financial support and guidance in managing their prize-money from athletics success. We also manage a scholarship fund to support their tertiary education. Our primary school athletes regularly win academic scholarships from the former Model C (better resourced) schools for their secondary education. To-date, seven of our athletes have enrolled at different universities for undergraduate courses. We also support athletes through vocational training. These are also among the achievements that get noticed by the community, local newspapers, radio stations and church congregations. Thus, we see the building of the athletics track as part of our community service, but also a reward for the contributions we have made in the lives of young people. Setting a positive example, we are also training our athletes to be active and engaged community members. My life as coach and volunteer, as well as that of my family, have become intricately tied up with the Fit2Run athletes. Their circumstances call on me to play a role as supporter, mentor, motivator, teacher and pseudo-parent. Raising and nurturing athletes comes with all the pain and challenges of protecting them from all sorts of negative influences. Especially with the teenagers who are exposed to many social and material desires they cannot afford within their means. Therefore, we, as coaches, spend a lot of time and effort guarding, informing, conversing, negotiating and giving them enough space so they can make independent decisions for themselves. In the process, we have failed, at times. One of our promising athletes took to substance abuse. After much counselling and repeated chances to return to training, we eventually had to let her go. Of the more than 200 teen athletes who have been part of Fit2Run programme, only 2 have dropped out due to unplanned pregnancies. We acknowledge and try to learn from where we could have intervened differently. Our athletes are the lifeblood of Fit2Run and continue to reshape the journey that started with a narrow goal to assist junior athletes to achieve their athletics potential. Clearly, Fit2Run has become more than an athletics training programme, and so has my role become a lot more than a volunteer athletics coach. It is the words of Nelson Mandela that inspire me to remain committed to the cause of Fit2Run: “… after climbing a great hill, one only finds there are many more hills to climb” (2013:751). The great challenges, disappointments and prolonged antagonisms that we experienced in the process of establishing Fit2Run as an athletics club showed us that Fit2Run was indeed meant to be a lot more than just an athletics club. Today, Fit2Run is an organisation where youth from socioeconomically impoverished and disadvantaged backgrounds find refuge, receive nourishing adult attention, establish a sense of purpose and direction, both on and

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE beyond the athletics track. The training of steeplechase requires athletes to clear the hurdles at each station and continue running as fast as they can. Steeplechase is also known for being among the toughest technical and mental athletics events (Bale & Sang, 1996:182). Gangs- and poverty-ridden areas of Worcester are also known as among the toughest places in South Africa to survive untainted by violence. We cannot change what we have inherited from history, but we do what we can with our talents and understanding of the world as it is. In the process, we have cultivated our fair share of opponents and supporters. For example, we would not have developed our own athletics track had it not been for those who opposed us through interpersonal antagonisms and bureaucratic hurdles, and of course, those who selflessly supported us along the way.

Discussion and conclusion: reflecting on the ‘personal reflections’ The metaphor of steeplechase offers a sense for the challenges Fit2Run has been dealing with in pursuit of a noble cause. However, as Norman Ontong’s narrative shows, the hurdles they face in the everyday running of Fit2Run are more deceiving than a typical steeplechase race. The conditions of poverty, broken families and gang-violence are among the hurdles they recognised and planned to overcome in establishing the NPC that catered for athletes growing up in these conditions. However, the disappointments and discouragements they experienced from the Boland Athletics and Worcester Athletics Club could not have been pre-empted or prepared for. There is a long tradition of volunteerism to organise and manage community sports among those marginalised by apartheid’s segregationist policies. It is these principles and ideals that were to become the backbone of anti-apartheid sport movements. In the post-apartheid South Africa, these efforts have been overshadowed by the advents of international and wellfunded sports-for-development non-governmental organisations. Financially, Fit2Run cannot compete with such internationally supported efforts. However, even the production of scholarly as well as popular knowledge on the topic of sports-for-development fails to engage with the interpersonal negotiations, social histories, and relational complexities through which the human drama unfolds. As far as the metaphor goes, the concepts of ‘obstacles’ or ‘hurdles’ can only draw our attention to some obvious and seemingly predictable challenges, but the complexities of social and political realities had to be unearthed from the nittygritties of everyday. Ontong’s reflective narrative effectively surfaces this kind of detail, while adding an important dimension for sports researchers to consider. Specifically, it highlights the significance of learning from the accounts at coalface in advancing an understanding of history and politics of South African athletics. In 1982, the International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa, London, published Sam Ramsamy’s account on ‘Sport in South Africa and the International Boycott’ under the title: Apartheid: The real hurdle. Employing the metaphor of hurdle, Ramsamy records how state policies at the time made it impossible for black South Africans to have real opportunities to excel at sport (Ramsamy, 1982). In 2010, Ashwin Desai edited a volume entitled Race to Transformation

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to interrogate changes in South African sport since the end of apartheid (Desai, 2010). The chapter on South African athletics in Desai’s volume also used the metaphor of hurdles to offer an analysis of “transformation measures” (Van Der Merwe, 2010). Our historical interrogation of South African athletics through the example of Fit2Run and the metaphor of steeplechase adds the next chapter to histories recorded by Ramsamy and Van der Merwe. At the same time, the story of Fit2Run complicates and points to the limitations of examining histories by focusing on hurdles of the past and present. To elaborate on this point, I quote concluding remarks from van der Merwe’s chapter: Whilst the majority of hurdles placed in the way of transformation are likely to be overcome in time, South African politicians and administrators will have to be mindful that, in trying to attain their transformation goals, the intention should not be to ‘reinvent the wheel’, but rather to identify certain vantage points from which both sustainable and efficient progress could be made. These should include identifying areas that are already considered black, coloured and Indian sporting strongholds, and pumping resources into them, instead of trying to develop every area in the country evenly. The case study of the Worcester Athletics Club highlights the contribution that Boland could make to the national sporting scene as one such area, in which the infusion of the necessary resources could speed up the attainment of transformation goals. Van der Merwe, 2010:174 Given that the story of Fit2Run unfolds in the same geographical-local context as Van der Merwe’s case study, it is safe to argue that the ‘time’ failed to overcome the hurdles identified by the historical actors some 10 years ago. Instead, the case study of Fit2Run shows the limitations of placing faith in politicians and administrators, simply as agents of change. It is reasonable to argue for a shift from social or policy research designed to offer recommendations for politicians and administrators towards historically and politically grounded research that examines the state of power relations and struggles and the range of social actors involved in affecting change. It is further imperative to examine the robustness of democratic political engagement – how are those with less political clout and opposing views heard and received – within the structures that govern sports in South Africa. The political analysis that Douglas Booth offered on the extremely skewed reconciliation and unification of sports in post-apartheid South Africa suggests that there is nothing inevitable about the experiences of Fit2Run (1998:123-166; 1995). An organisation like Fit2Run suffers disappointments and lack of support not only because of the legacies of apartheid sport, but also due to the political compromises made over management of sport during the dying years of apartheid (ibid). The transformation goals and unification policies readily accepted the same racial markers for redress as administered by apartheid policies. While these racial markers continue to organise and divide post-apartheid South African society, race cannot be treated as a thing onto itself, but as a set of relationships lived and experienced in the mundaneness of the everyday. As Erasmus argues, it is about capturing what “lives behind race” (2012:2). The meanings racial markers

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE continue to have are neither coherent nor bound together by some essential characteristics. Instead, they rely on the social order that divides them into ruling and subordinate classes and dictates onto them the range of capabilities and actions (Bozzoli, 1991). Fit2Run’s efforts and objectives did align with Boland Athletics’ (and therefore, Athletics South Africa’s) transformation goals. However, it was in negotiating their relationship with politicians and administrators in Boland Athletics – and the “coloured members of WAC”, who turned out to be the “most overt and vocal” opponents of Fit2Run – that the project of transformation in or through sports was undermined. Referring to coach Wilf Paish, Merrett also discusses the “politics which prevailed at the expense of proven expertise and potential, particularly at grassroots level. Athletics was run as a corrupt private fiefdom and the independent enquiry called for by Paish took over a decade to materialise” (2014:145). Ironically, the span of poor and unethical administration of South African athletics seems to spread across racial and class divides, elite and grassroots levels, and apartheid and post-apartheid eras. The most important critique of the process of unification of South African sport was presented by Douglas Booth in his paper entitled United Sport: an alternative hegemony in South Africa? (1995). Booth argues for distinguishing “between structural reform and social reform - between empowerment and the de-racialization of elite privileges” (1995:119). He goes on to argue for “developing organizational capacities of the disempowered for further struggles and further victories” and warned against the kind of “unity and development [that] run the risk of simply improving the technical capabilities of a select group of highly competitive individuals partaking in an inherently conservative practice” (ibid). Twenty years down-the-line, a grassroots organisation like Fit2Run struggles to hold their own in a democratic and non-racial dispensation that remains in desperate need to depart from an unjust past. It is such failures of non-racial democracy that Booth’s argument to distinguish between structural and social reform are even more pressing. This social history of Fit2Run is also a political history of South African athletics. It calls for placing social reform efforts in critical political context and attend to on-going struggles for a just world (Booth, 1998; 1995; Ferguson, 1990). Through a first-person narrative of one athleteeducator-sports-coach from a marginalised section of the South African society, we presented a glimpse into changing social and political relations between and among racial and classed groups, as well as contradictions, specificities, and complexities, embedded in the processes of transformation in and through sports. With their “dual-moto to ‘Feed the Olympic Flame’ and ‘The logical choice to a healthy lifestyle’”, the story of Fit2Run is also a social history of physical culture. Fit2Run’s concern with displays of strength, health and fitness are in line with the activities central to physical culture. In line with broader goals of this volume, our experiment with collaborative anthropology allowed us to shift the focus away from the obvious key actors in history, such as politicians and administrators in dominant institutions, and their versions of how and what a transformed world should be. To better serve the cause of recording the kind of history that gives heed to those who are likely to be left out, it might be worth attending to relationships, particularly that of an interpersonal nature, between social actors, with different

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degrees of power and empowerment, as well as the intended and unintended consequences these relationships produce. This also means shedding light on the layers of micro-politics and the contradictions between ideals and actions of ruling elites, their political agendas, and foregrounding the experiences and voices of those that remain on the margins. To this end, Ashwin Desai’s concern “whether the changes in South African sport are reinforcing a form of class apartheid in sports, and whether the present trajectory will deepen inequalities rather than progressively mitigate them” – remains a guiding one in the project of decolonising South African sports history (2010:8).

Table 4.1

Fit2Run Athlete Performance Records (2010-2020)

Nr.

Name

Age Group

Event

Time (year)

1.

Ileana Dreyer

U 20

3000m Steeplechase

11.36 (2013) Bronze

Boland Record ASA (Nationals)

2.

Sharlan Boer

U 18

2000m Steeplechase

7.02.20 (2015) Gold

Boland Record SA Schools

3.

Vernoscha Abrahams

U 18

4 x 400m Relay

3:58.23 (2015) Bronze

SA Schools

4.

Meagan Swanepoel

U 16

1500m Steeplechase

5.04.34 (2016) Gold

Boland Record SA Schools

5.

Clairiese Slingers

U 16

3000m

10.50.40 (2010)

Boland Record

6.

Virgell-Lee Africa

U 16

3000m

10.43.09 (2018)

Boland Record

7.

Chenique Sas

U 16

3000m

10.42.00 (2019)

Boland Record

8.

Christolique McNeil

U 16

3000m

10.38.00 (2019)

Boland Record

9.

Veronique Visagie

U 16

1500m Steeplechase

5:20.97 (2017) Bronze

SA Schools

10.

Chenique Sas

U 16

1500m Steeplechase

5:11.08 (2018) Bronze

SA Schools

11.

Virgell-Lee Africa

U 18

2000m Steeplechase

7:08.06 (2019) Bronze

SA Schools

12.

Christolique McNeil

U 16

1500m Steeplechase

5:13.40 (2019) Bronze

SA Schools

13.

Christolique McNeil

U 16

4 x 100m Relay

49:66 (2019) Silver

SA Schools

14.

Virgell-Lee Africa

U 18

2000m Steeplechase

7:05.61 (2019) Silver

ASA (Nationals)

15.

Chenique Sass

U 15

Cross Country

14:55 (2019) Bronze

ASA (Nationals)

16.

Chenique Sass

U 18

2000m Steeplechase

7.04.38 (2020) Gold

WC Schools Record

17.

Chenique Sass

U 18

3000m

10.03.35 (2020) Gold

WC Schools Record

Medal

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References Archer, R. & Bouillon, A. 1982. The South African Game: Sport and Racism. London: Zed Press. Bale, J & Sang, J. 1996. Kenyan Running: Movement Culture, Geography and Global Change. London: Frank Cass. Boland Athletics. 2012. Constitution. Boland Athletics. Booth, D. 1992. Accommodating Race to Play the Game: South Africa’s Readmission to International Sport. Sporting Traditions, 8(2):182-209. Booth, D. 1995. United Sport: An Alternative Hegemony in South Africa? The International Journal of the History of Sport, 12(3):105-124. Booth, D. 1998. The Race Game: Sport and Politics in South Africa. Routledge. Bozzoli, B. 1991. Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy, and Migrancy in South Africa 1900-1983. Johannesburg: Ravan. Burnett, C. 2006. Building Social Capital Through an “Active Community Club.” International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 41(3-4):283-294. Cleophas, F.J. 2018. From the Editor. Exploring Decolonising Themes in SA Sport History: Issues and Challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, pp.9-12. Coyle, D. 2009. The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Maths, Art, Music, Sport, and Just about Everything Else. New York: Random House. Desai, A. 2010. The Race to Transform: Sport in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Erasmus, Z. & Pieterse, E. 1999. Conceptualising Coloured Identities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. In Palmber, M. ed., National identity and democracy in Africa, HSRC and Mayibuye Centre of the UWC, pp.167-187. Erasmus, Z. ed., 2001. Coloured by history, shaped by place: new perspectives on coloured identites in Cape Town. Kwela books. Erasmus, Z., 2012. Apartheid race categories: daring to question their continued use. Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa, 79(1), pp.1-11. Ferguson, J. 1990. The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ferguson, J. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. California: University of California Press. Gatt, C. 2017. Introduction: Collaborative Knowing: Considering onto/Epistemology in Collaboration. Collaborative Anthropologies, 10(1-2):1-19. Grundlingh, A. 1994. Playing for Power? Rugby, Afrikaner Nationalism and Masculinity in South Africa, c. 1900–70. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 11(3):408-430. Kurzwelly, J. 2019. Photographic Complementarity and the Story of Abel Pavon. Visual Anthropology, 32(5). Mandela, N.R. 2013. Long Walk to Freedom. UK: Hachette.

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Steeplechase Merrett, C. 2004. From the Outside Lans: Issues of “race” in South African Athletics in the Twentieth Century. Patterns of Prejudice, 38(3):233-251. Merrett, C. 2014. Perpetual Outsiders: Women in Athletics and Road Running in South Africa. In: J. Hargreaves & E. Anderson (eds). Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge, pp.139-147. Ramsamy, S. 1982. Apartheid, the Real Hurdle: Sport in South Africa & the International Boycott. London: International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. Van Der Merwe, J. 2010. Jumping over the Hurdles: A Political Analysis of Transformation Measures in South African Athletics. In: A. Desai (ed). The Race to Transformation. HSRC Press. pp.146-175. Watson, R.L., 2012. Slave emancipation and racial attitudes in nineteenth-century South Africa. Cambridge University Press.

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Chapter 5 Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses: Harry Crowe Buck and Charles Harold McCloy take the ‘Y’ to India and China in the early decades of the 20th century Patricia Vertinsky & Aishwarya Ramachandran School of Kinesiology, University of British Columbia, Canada

Introduction Early histories of the YMCA (often known simply as the ‘Y’) and the development of the physical education profession blend easily together with stories of dedicated men (and women, usually wives) travelling to the far corners of the earth to promote western views of physical education and sport. Among the many stories of early American ‘Y’ physical education recruits to foreign parts are two that resist the usual imperialistic physical education histories of well trained and dedicated evangelists recreating western sports and games rituals in foreign lands to promote Christian uplift, health and social support among the needy and less ‘civilised’. They thus contribute to a rich emerging literature focused on the transmission of physical cultures in colonial projects where the racial and cultural identities of those colonised were variously ignored or addressed in more sensitive ways. In the first decades of the 20th century, American physical educators Harry Crowe Buck, and Charles H. McCloy were unusually successful ‘Y’ physical educators who managed, in India and China respectively, to accommodate themselves in very different ways to local physical culture practices, winning respect and support. Buck learned to adopt local physical culture practices in Madras as part of his emporium while McCloy assiduously studied Mandarin in Shanghai as a way to make allies and promote productive paths to physical fitness and health in China. While Buck has been celebrated as “the father of Indian physical education” for the training college he established in Madras and the Olympic athletes he trained in India before independence, McCloy’s significant contributions to physical education in China have received less scrutiny despite their impact upon the development, and trajectory of physical education in China more broadly during recent years. More than an activist, innovator and promoter, McCloy, with his so-called contagious Christian character, was also a researcher

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE and a scholar probing deeply into Chinese views on physical culture at a time of serious civil unrest. This chapter will explore and compare the exploits and impacts of both YMCA recruits to foreign parts with a particular focus on their varying successes (and failures) in promoting the transnational circulation of physical cultural practices and the development of physical education programmes. In our discussion, we pay attention to Edward Said’s understanding of culture derived from his dedication to a contrapuntal method; reading a text with an understanding of what was “forcibly excluded” by drawing out, extending, giving emphasis and voice to what is silent or marginally present or ideologically represented (Wilson, 1994:265; Said, 1993:66). In particular, his anti-colonial interpretation of western canonical literature is aided by his adoption of “explanatory and evaluative frameworks that depart more or less radically from anything that the author or the intended audience could be expected to endorse” (Wilson, 1994:267). This chapter will similarly examine physical culture approaches organised and promoted by pioneers like Buck and McCloy as overlapping and interdependent entities, where patterns of power, domination and the infinity of imperial traces were also accompanied by resistance and subversion. Indeed, in his extensive work on physical cultures, Henning Eichberg consistently called for a more detailed focus on the interlacement between western histories of sport and physical culture and non-western histories over time with attention to the complex political dimensions of body culture (Eichberg, Bale, Philo & Brownell, 1998). Often glossed over in the comforting institutional histories of Buck’s and McCloy’s contributions to physical education in India and China respectively, is a deeper analysis of the historical and geopolitical contexts in the early decades of the 20th century within which they were embedded. Coloniality has been viewed as the underside of modernity given the formation of the United States as an imperialist project from its very foundation, first conquering indigenous lands through westward expansion and then joining the west’s race for colonial acquisition and exploitation. In many respects, the notion of imperial benevolence became closely tied to the almost religious faith in the democratic mission of America at that time, and the exportation of a well-organised physical education system was seen as both attractive and persuasive in spite of the colonial subjugation and control which lay at the underside of its civilising mission. For example, Michael Sadler highlighted what he calls “the secret workings of national life” which tend to be embedded in national educational systems and which might justify the kind of American views on physical training and character development generated at educational institutions such as Springfield College, Harvard and Johns Hopkins University (Sadler, 1964[1900]:310). As Harald Fischer-Tiné (2018:39) has nicely underscored, the YMCA’s supposedly emancipatory discourses and practices of physical fitness remained over-determined by the powerful influences of the colonial, racial discourses in spite of its representation as a school for democracy. “The program … continued to be rife with the imperial tropes of somatic Orientalism … the pervasive influence of deep-seated colonial ascriptions and stereotypes is ubiquitous” (Takayama, 2018:460; Kandel, 1954:9‑10). These wellknown organisations played an important role in forging the dominant discourses

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Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses around progressive education, which in turn were shaped by the prevailing logic of colonialism at the time.

The ‘Y’ takes its physical education programmes to India and China By the turn of the 20th century, physical work had taken on an increasing importance in the YMCA, including programmes focused on physical exercise, sport and sex education. Leaving behind older attitudes of Protestant asceticism, muscular secretaries of the ‘Y’ trained at Springfield College sought to provide physical education programmes which might address the problems caused by industrialisation and urbanisation. Early physical directors who viewed physical activity as an antidote to the woes of modernity, encouraged young men to seek God in the gymnasium since “a strong mind in a strong body makes a better Christian” (Putney, 2003:57). Thus, the early years of the 20th century saw a rapid proliferation of gymnasiums in YMCAs across North America, as well as a growing demand for physical educators to train for and export their ideas and projects overseas in a kind of international activism and civilising mission. Driven by the desire to provide the “accoutrements of Western civilization” to native populations in foreign parts, the YMCA increasingly used physical education and sport as useful agents of religious conversion and cultural propagation (Putney, 2003:127). According to Luther Gulick, credited for developing the ‘Y’s’ fourfold programme and the famous mind-body-spirit triangle, the “international secretary ought to be a sort of physical evangelist”, working for the “salvation, development and training of the whole man, complete as God made him” (Leonard & Affleck, 1947:322; Gustav-Wrathall, 1999:5). John Donald Gustav-Wrathall, for example, shows how the YMCA, with the aid of medical experts, coined the term scientific man-making to describe a strategy of moral and physical reform. “YMCA leaders believed they should bring Jesus Christ into the gymnasium and the doctor’s office” (Gustav-Wrathall, 1999:5). In the far east, a successful Christian leader might “influence the entire life of one hundred human beings to the one that would be susceptible to his efforts in America” (Kingman, 1916:5). The ‘Y’s’ particular drive for and success in overseas missionary work during these years was a reflection of the larger belief that foreign nations were weak, unhealthy and un-masculine – a view informed in part by 19th century racial stereotypes. “Great as are the opportunities of the association movement on this continent, John Mott would tell the secretaries of the International Committee in 1901, “a far greater conflict awaits us at the ends of the earth … There is a war … against violence, bigotry and sensuality … against dense superstition, cruelty and slavery … against false systems of religion … rationalism, infidelity … gross superstitions and still blacker ignorance” (Mott, 1901:239-240). As a result, YMCA missionaries took up this clarion call in earnest, bringing their particular brand of American physical education and Christian suasion to Asian countries including India and China. “As American YMCA secretaries”, says Fischer-Tiné (2018:1), “they stressed the scientific, liberal and egalitarian character of their ‘physical programme’ aiming at the training of responsible and self-controlled citizens”. How this was to take place

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE in far-away places would vary in person and environment depending upon how the relationships between nationalism and transnationalism were negotiated in embodied terms and affected by shifting colonial imperatives (Morris, 2004:xv‑xx).

Harry Crowe Buck: West meets East in the YMCA training college in Madras In 1919, American evangelist and physical educator Harry Crowe Buck finished his training at Springfield College and set out for Madras, India to take on the role of Physical Director at the Central YMCA. He found a variety of competing systems of physical education, culture and training embedded in an atmosphere of social and political turmoil surrounding nationalist efforts, anti-colonialism and abject poverty among the indigenous population (David, 1992:30). Buck acknowledged early the Indian tendency to see physical labour as degrading to the extent that many young Native Indian boys avoided physical exertion whenever possible (David, 1992:168‑169; Chandra, 1949: 22-24). In Physical Education in India, for instance, Abdus Salam of the Bengal Provincial Civil Service described how “Mussulman in India, especially in Bengal, prefer laying down to sitting, sitting to standing, standing to walking and walking to running” (Salam, 1896:20). On the other hand, Buck soon became aware of the growing discontent among Indians themselves about the burdens of colonialism and the possible ways they might organise forms of “muscular” resistance (Alter, 2006:759-760). Annoyance over images of languid Bengalis, unmanly Gurkhas, and morally corrupt Marathas fostered by British colonialists formed the basis for the construction of an alternative form of Hindu nationalism (Banerjee, 2005:32). In response to circulated beliefs that Indian men were weak and effeminate, one of several Indian freedom fighters, Lala Lajpat Rai, encouraged them to apply themselves to resist the colonials with “all the energy and force of soul they possess”. “A nation that is physically weak and degenerated”, he insisted, “can never achieve true freedom, and if freedom comes to such a nation it will never be able to preserve and maintain it” (Rai, 1920:255; Buck, 1921:1). Such views, of course, coloured those Buck carried with him from Springfield College, but he was soon pressed to define the elastic relationships among sport, athleticism and national identity more broadly while tacitly accepting orientalist views of Indian effeteness (Valiani, 2016:38). Indeed, notions concerning the effeminacy of Bengali men, particularly middle-class men doing clerical or administrative work, were common among the English in India and Hindu reformers as well as ‘Y’ officials. While Buck was not unaware of a rich traditional Indian physical culture, including archery, fighting with clubs, and various martial games, he fully believed that “steps should be taken to remove the defect in character training of Indian youth by providing compulsory physical training and games and drill” (Andrews, 1933:12). He lamented “there is none of the ‘hardy boy’ life which we know in America … students come to us with constitutions and habits which would cause grave anxiety if the same conditions prevailed among our student bodies at home”(David, 1992:169). Ever adaptable, however, Buck worked hard to cater to the interests and needs of those participating in local sports and

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Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses games rather than merely attempting to develop and build upon the work of his predecessors (Govindarajalu, 1945:248; Buck, 1936). At the same time he readily agreed that, “India and her needs could be best served by a conscious attempt to encourage scientific physical training thus raising the physical status of her people” (Buck, 1921:1). India needed the YMCA’s scientifically trained physical directors, Buck urged, “since the indigenous population lacked interest in exercise and sportsmanship, and were largely ignorant in matters of appropriate diet, sex and sanitation” (Govindarajulu, 1945:41). Impelled by these views, he worked diligently to set up the first training school for Indian physical directors at the Madras YMCA building where he developed a nine month programme for Indian “drillmasters” before sending them out to teach physical education in the city’s public schools (Johnson, 1979:254; Govindarajulu, 1945:21). In addition to these training activities, Buck carried out routine inspections of hygienic and sanitary features within schools, organising interschool athletic meets, introducing recreational programmes, creating standard physical tests for Indian boys and acting as advisor to the provincial government in physical education and training (1921:3). As his training school grew in importance and outreach, Buck sought out new and more spacious facilities, adding a boy’s hostel and a “gymnasium specially suited to Indian needs” (David, 1992:170). In 1932, supported with funds from the government of Madras, the campus shifted to a new site in Saidapet and was designated a YMCA College of Physical Education (Govindarajulu, 1945:255). According to David (1992:30), the Madras YMCA was “truly the first Indian YMCA because its membership was open to all Indians irrespective of race, caste or creed. As a result the Madras YMCA became a model for most other associations in India”. By this time, Buck was speaking openly of plans for a more diversified curriculum, having taken particular notice of Dewey and colleagues at Teachers College following his visit there to complete his Master’s degree in Physical Education. He hoped his students would become “emissaries of a new conception of life for the youth of India”, interpreting Dewey’s goal of physical education as “education of the whole man through the medium of physical activities” (Govindarajulu, 1945:229). He was particularly supportive of programmes that encouraged the intellectual and emotional development of its participants, criticising the purely physical programmes of drill, gymnastics and bodybuilding that could be found in most Indian schools and colleges. He felt that there was little in these programmes that appealed to intellect or emotions; “mere bodybuilding called for little imagination and resulted in educational institutions being satisfied with leadership in the form of illiterate drill masters or gymnastic instructors” (Govindarajulu, 1945:219). Promising to offer “the best physical exercise of West and East”, Buck adopted local games and exercises as integral aspects of the ‘Y’s’ physical education programme, even while acknowledging that some of them fit somewhat ambiguously into the discourse and practice of Muscular Christianity (David, 1992:177). He detailed a number of these indigenous systems in Vyayam – a quarterly journal of physical education he founded in 1924 and edited for many years. “If India was to be saved”, he noted often, “she must save herself through combining various indigenous exercises with western type exercises and games” (Buck, 1921:1).

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Charles H. McCloy becomes Mai Kele in China’s YMCA Charles McCloy’s introduction to China came through a rather different route than Harry Buck’s arrival in India, for he was neither a Springfield graduate, nor a trained missionary. Furthermore, he not only followed a very different path in his work with the YMCA in China than Harry Buck in Madras, but hued to a rather different philosophy of what the means and ends of physical education should be. Following his undergraduate studies at Marietta College, McCloy enrolled in Harvard’s Summer School for Physical Training in 1908 before moving on to spend 2 years at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine. It was a forced choice, he pointed out, since there was no PhD programme in physical education in North America at the time, and he used his time there to study muscular stiffness. In 1913, he discontinued his studies at Johns Hopkins to accept a position with the International committee of the YMCA as a Secretary in the Physical Department of the Chinese National Committee of the YMCA (Little, 1968:43). He soon arrived with his wife and family in Shanghai and immediately enrolled in language classes as was required by the Chinese National Committee. Well before McCloy’s arrival in Shanghai, however, Dr Max Exner’s short but fruitful visit from 1908 to 1911 as the ‘Y’s’ first National Physical Director for China (the same year as the establishment of the Republic of China), had initiated the apparatus for western based physical education training programmes and formal sports organisations. Shanghai thus became the main centre and model for programmes attempting to attract the Chinese population to the YMCA through sports competitions and various approaches to physical training. Indeed, the ‘Y’ became the de facto leader of Chinese physical education programmes of the time (including a programme of religious indoctrination where “physical training was viewed as playing an integral part in the development of the complete Christian man”) (Kolatch, 1972:10). McCloy would later admit to the YMCA’s “discreet preaching practices” in an Annual Report Letter from 1918: “We may address schools and other agencies where we are in a way tacitly pledged not to preach. And we may not do so, or we will not again have an opportunity. But we can and do mention that fact that we are Christians, or say somewhere in the speech, ‘We of the Christian Association’, or, ‘We Christians’, or something of the kind, and try to associate our message with the Christian Church. And as our message always has something in it of help for China, we try thus to tie up the idea of the salvation of China with the Christian ideal”. Zhang, 2015:157 As with India, western critiques of China and its people were often contemptuous, viewing the “effeminate intellectual Chinese” to be lacking enthusiasm in physical labour as well as the manliness and enthusiasm required for an interest in games and vigorous physical activity (Graham, 1994:31-32). The view of China as “the sick man of Asia” was the west’s pejorative assessment of China’s political and national health that lasted for much of the 20th century. Zhang, Hong and Huang (2017:1) point out that Chinese attitudes to physical activity were characterised

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Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses by an emphasis on “wen”, or the cultural and intellectual aspects of life, and a corresponding contempt of “wu”, referring to physical exercise usually engaged in by the military or manual labour. The incompatibility of the queue with modern sport (the long pigtail worn by men as an important cultural marker) was for example viewed with scorn, even as sport made its way into public life. Bound feet similarly constituted a major obstacle for Chinese women to participate in sport, and western missionaries worked assiduously to eliminate this custom in the early years of the 20th century. Nor did the association of physical activity with a lowerclass status go unnoticed by YMCA secretaries. Nevertheless, set in motion by the leadership of Exner and others, the Chinese government, in conjunction with the YMCA, decided to expand its reach in 1915 through departments of physical education in five Normal Universities (originally called Normal Institutes focussed upon the training of teachers). The first to be developed was in Nanking where McCloy was invited to lead the department. Once there, said McCloy: I went to the president [of the university] and asked him what system of physical education he wanted. He asked what systems there were. I told him of the German system, the Swedish system, the American system, etc. and he asked, which of these is the best? I said I didn’t think any was the best possible system and that we could do better for China. McCloy, 1960:87 Organisational difficulties soon arose given the persistent lack of sufficient man power to run the programmes. Indeed, “the YMCA, despite all its efforts to promote programs, was unable to develop the native physical education leadership it craved” (Kolatch, 1972:29). Such difficulties were partly mitigated when the School of Physical Education of the Association College of China opened in September 1918, promising to train a number of qualified Chinese candidates to become Directors of Physical Education for the various Association chapters and university departments. With McCloy playing a central role as faculty member, the purpose of the training school was to produce local “Instructors” and “Directors” of Physical Education, trained according to YMCA standards. In particular, it was McCloy’s deep interest in studying the language and his ensuing competency in speaking Mandarin that elevated his status among his Chinese YMCA colleagues and assisted in the translation of key American physical education texts that could be used to train Chinese physical directors (Little, 1968:48). In the light of economic scarcity and political instability resulting from World War I, further development of the training school was hindered. While buildings, facilities and equipment were desperately needed, the International Committee lacked the means of support. As a result, the training school shut its doors on June 1919, exacerbated by the fact that McCloy, along with his other American ‘Y’ colleagues, J.H. Crocker, A.H. Swan, and C.A. Siler, all left China to go on medical furlough at the same time. Pressed to return to America due to the poor health of his wife, McCloy’s influence nevertheless remained extremely important and soon after his return to China in 1920, he introduced reforms to the physical education systems he still viewed as “monstrously dull, lacking in educational value … passive … authoritarian … anti-

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE democratic”, even harmful to students’ health (Morris, 2004:55). He also became embroiled in a growing conflict with secretaries of the Chinese YMCA, centred on the decision to reinstitute the physical education training school. While McCloy favoured rebuilding the school, it became clear that other secretaries, including John H. Gray who had been transferred in 1920 from India to China to head the Physical Department of the National Committee in Shanghai, did not share his vision. Instead they preferred to institute a smaller-scale training center programme which would send Chinese physical directors for training at Springfield and immersion in American views on physical education. As a result of these differences in opinion, McCloy resigned from the YMCA in 1921, and accepted a position as Director and Professor in the Department of Physical Education and Hygiene at the National Southeastern University, where he remained until his departure from China in 1926 (Little, 1968:79). According to Morris in his excellent study of physical culture (tiyu) in China, McCloy (using his Chinese alias Mai Kele) became a veritable institution in the world of Chinese physical education during these years, most especially through his growing ability to communicate his ideas and teachings in Mandarin and his commitment to focus upon the cultivation of physical fitness. “Somewhere between Marietta and Nanking”, McCloy was reputed to say, “it occurred to me that I was involved in something important” (Thomas. 1997:136). He was referring, of course, to the effects of what was labelled the “battle of the systems” in the United States, a result of the growing shift and emphasis on the physical education curricula from gymnastics to sport and athletics. McCloy, (perhaps in a reaction to being called “spindle-shanks” by schoolmates during his childhood), advocated steadfastly for what was then popularly termed “education of the physical”, insisting on the primacy of “purposive exercise rather than competitive sport” (Vertinsky, 2017:144). On mind-body practices, he agreed that through the “leavening influence” of Thorndike’s psychology and Dewey’s philosophy, the profession had made real progress though made at the expense of the old model (McCloy, 1936:302). Ultimately, he leaned toward “a focus on muscle building and “adequate training of and development of the body itself” (McCloy, 1936:303). “Read into physical education everything you can of the slightest value”, he said, “but don’t read out of it the most fundamental thing of all – that is all-around muscular exercise” (Thomas, 1997:137).

Concluding remarks In Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said asserts that “because of empire, all cultures are involved in one another; none is single and pure, all are hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated and un-monolithic” (Said, 1993:xxv). Buck and McCloy exemplify this hybridity through the various endeavors they undertook as both physical educators and “muscular Christians”, albeit under rather different political and social circumstances. Activist, innovator, promoter, research and scholar were all descriptors attributed to Charles McCloy’s work in China during the early Republican period. Morris suggests admiringly that, by the 1920s, McCloy had become known almost exclusively by his Chinese name, Mai

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Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses Kele, and was in many respects an institution in the world of Chinese physical education. Mai’s readers, he continues, “would have found themselves in a fascinating, not gray but swirling black and white zone between China and the West … Early 1920s Chinese tiyu (physical culture), for all its engagement with the West, was more of a domain of acquiescence to hegemonic Western formulas of modernity” (Morris, 2004:57-60). Yet, McCloy’s influence was greatest when he had left behind his YMCA affiliation and position and taken on a professorial role at Southeastern University. It was one where he felt he could finally expound on his strong views about the appropriate “physical” focus of physical education research and training – a sentiment he would bring back to America within a few years and which would consume the rest of his lengthy career in American higher education. Indeed, in 1960 he reminisced that “he had persisted in believing that physical education should be rather largely physical education and not just education for democracy and character”, and that “research needed to be based upon facts not opinions” (McCloy, 1960:83). Buck adhered more closely and continuously to the ‘Y’ philosophy of physical education nurtured in Springfield College and spread by its students and supporters throughout the colonial world. He spent his entire career focused on the YMCA College he developed in Madras and the attention he gave to sporting activities in India. He died there, buried in a mausoleum at the entrance of the school, still in harness to the institution that had trained and supported him and his wife throughout his entire career. While Buck learned to adopt local physical culture practices in Madras as part of his emporium, McCloy industriously learned and used Mandarin in Shanghai as a way to make allies and promote productive paths to physical fitness and health in China as well as back home in the United States. Despite having successfully assimilated themselves in different ways to vastly different local contexts, their efforts and underlying values continued to be based on rather American ideals of health, exercise and education. Yet, each found his own way through the colonial thicket, and engaged directly or indirectly with physical education’s “battle of the systems” back home in the United States – with McCloy returning from China to set his distinctive mark upon the physical side of the argument.

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Imperial benevolence and emancipatory discourses McCloy, H.C. 1960. A Half-Century of Physical Education. The Physical Educator, 17(1):83. Morris, A. 2004. Marrow Of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mott, J. 1901. The Great Conflict before the Young Men’s Christian Associations. In: YMCA International Committee. The Jubilee of Work for Young Men in North America. New York: Association Press, pp.238-247. Putney, C. 2003. Muscular Christianity: Manhood and Sports in Protestant America, 1880-1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rai, L.L. 1920. The Problem of National Education in India. London: Allen and Unwin. Sadler, M. 1964 [1900]. How far can we learn anything of practical value from the study of foreign systems of education? Comparative Education Review, 7(2):307-314. (Reprinted from his 1900 speech delivered in Guildford). Said, E. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books. Salam, A. 1896. Physical Education in India. Calcutta: W. Newman. Takayama, K. 2018. Beyond Comforting Histories: Entanglements of the International Institute, Paul Monroe, and Isaac L. Kandel at Teachers College, Columbia University. Comparative Education Review, 62(4):459-481. Thomas, E. 1997. A Conversation With Charles H. McCloy And His Friends. The Physical Educator, 54(3). Valiani, A. 2016. Militant Publics in India: Physical Culture and Violence in the Making of a Modern Polity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Vertinsky, P. 2017. A Question of the Head and the Heart: From Physical Education to Kinesiology in the Gymnasium and the Laboratory. Kinesiology Review, 6:140-152. Wilson, M.G. 1994. Edward Said on Contrapuntal Reading. Philosophy and Literature, 18(2):265-273. Zhang, H. 2015. Missionary Schools, The YMCA and The Transformation of Physical Education and Sport in Modern China (1840–1937). PhD thesis. Perth: University of Western Australia. Zhang, H., Hong, F. & Huang F. 2017. Christianity and the Transformation of Physical Education and Sport in China. New York: Routledge.

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Chapter 6 Re-engaging non-racial sport: The Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) and the school sport movement in the Western Cape, 1956-1994 Paul Hendricks Independent researcher

Introduction “People always queried, why was it that Western Province became so powerful in sport?’ Or, ‘why was it that this [the Western Cape] became the heart of SACOS [South African Council on Sport] in fact?’ It was because of the influence of the Western Province Senior Schools’ Sports Union, because of the influence of the Teachers’ League, the teachers in the Western Province. And, no matter how many, how much, people would like to deny it that was the fact of the situation… the Teachers’ League was very much a powerful force… within the schools. Meyer 20051 The above assertion by Peter Meyer, a prominent school sport organiser and educator at Harold Cressy High in Cape Town, draws our attention to the undervalued if not unrecognised contributions of politically and socially conscious teachers within the non-racial school sport movement2 in the Western Cape during South Africa’s apartheid years. It also points to a much-neglected area of scholarship on how teacher activists sustained over a period of four decades massbased school sport in socio-economic poor and under resourced areas. Meyer’s comment, moreover, focuses our attention on the organisational and pedagogical work of a relatively small group of politically oriented Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA/League/Teachers’ League) educators who operated outside of the 1 Peter Meyer was the coordinator of the Western Province Senior Schools’ Sports Union (WPSSSU) from the 1980s until unity in school sport during the mid-1990s. He was neither a member of the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) nor the New Unity Movement. 2 The non-racial school sport movement emerged in the mid-1950s and encompassed primary and high schools servicing the disenfranchised communities. Its founding, history and significance in the Western Cape (and nationally) is central to this chapter and assessed in broad strokes hereafter.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE more mainstream anti-apartheid politics represented by the Congress Alliance or Congress Movement,3 specifically the African National Congress (ANC). In highlighting these issues, this chapter explores how a section of school teachers collectively established and shaped non-racial school sport and the broader antiestablishment sport movement over a lengthy period of time. The impact of the present day political, social and economic context on the writing of the history of sport education within South Africa (SA) cannot be down-played given the upheavals in academia since 2015, and in its wake the accompanying developments in resistance studies and therewith the growth of knowledge production in physical culture amongst other disciplines. These dynamic relationships have not only sharply foregrounded debates on decolonisation and post-colonialism, it has also generated renewed interest in the National Question4 (Webster & Pampallis, 2017; Cleophas, 2018:148-164). Crucial to these sometimesrobust debates has been the revisiting and retrieving of local, regional and national histories, which has to a large extent been neglected. Central to this oversight, has been sharp ideological differences and tensions that led to the misrepresentation and falsification of South African historiography (Alexander, 2013:20, 176-177). A casualty in this political discord, includes the contributions of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) and related organisations to the liberation struggle (Parry, 2004:192; Hendricks, 2010:3-4). These ideological disputes permeated SA’s transition of the 1990s with the dawn of the new democracy and continued into the new millennium where the ANC narrative on struggle has remained dominant (Alexander, 2012:41-46; Parry, 2004:190-193). While the hegemonic position of the ANC within the liberation movement has to a significant degree slanted the documenting and writing of SA history, it has in recent times been more openly challenged, notwithstanding earlier attempts to do so by the authors cited above, amongst other writers and scholars. The publication, The Unresolved National Question in South Africa: Left thought under apartheid (Webster & Pampallis, 2017), attempts to address the abovementioned proclivity towards the ANC by giving space to a range of left persuasions which had during and before the apartheid years engaged the vexing issue of the ‘National Question’. The re-emergence of rival ideological perspectives to that of the Congress Movement, particularly since the #FeesMustFall protests, attests to this defining moment in the reengagement and rewriting of SA’s multifarious history of organisations within the liberation movement. The TLSA, League or the Teachers’ League’s contribution to the development of resistance politics in school sport within the Western Cape and SA more generally is integral to this 3 The Congress Alliance (CA) or Congress Movement constituted those anti-apartheid organisations which subscribed to the Freedom Charter and a multiracial outlook. These organisations included, the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU), South African Indian Congress (SAIC), Coloured People’s Congress (CPC), South African Congress of Democrats (COD) and the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC was the leading organisation within the CA. 4 There are many perspectives within the liberation movement on the definition of the National Question. The author endorses the perspective that theoretically, at least, The National Question encompasses the endeavour to achieve the ‘basis of national unity’ (No Sizwe 2013:6). More specifically, that the emerging South African nation would need to be united on all levels of the social formation, including the economic, cultural and social (Vally, Ramadiro, Duncan 2012:10).

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Re-engaging non-racial sport hidden history.

A brief history of the TLSA Formed within the political milieu of the early 20th century, the TLSA was a product of the African Political Organisation (APO), founded in 1902. The APO (later renamed the African People’s Organisation) principally sought to eliminate the colour bar from the 1909 constitution and in doing so gain re-admittance of blacks into white parliamentary politics. It was from this political and strategic vision, concomitant with the franchise, that the TLSA was inaugurated on 23 June 1913 at the Training Institute in Queen Victoria Street, Cape Town (Adhikari, 1993:24, 25; Lewis, 1987:75). From the start, the TLSA was shaped by a mix of political and socio-economic factors that were not only uniquely South African, but also international. This multiprong influence becomes more evident later. An amalgam of factors would accordingly impact the organisation at different times in its historical development. Initially an accommodating and reformist organisation, the League published its official organ The Educational Journal from May 1915 onwards to keep members updated on developments in education. To further entrench its identity, the organisation adopted the aphorism ‘Let Us Live for Our Children’ in 1918, a motto that remained inscribed on the cover of its journal to encapsulate the vision and philosophy of the TLSA at different periods in its history. This distinct inscription, as with the organisation’s journal, remained a distinguishing feature of the League. From the late 1930s and into the early 1940s, a split developed within the TLSA when socialist elements of the New Era Fellowship (NEF), a leftist-oriented discussion group founded in 1937, and the Workers’ Party of South Africa (WPSA), formed in 1935, which had links to the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, became increasingly active in the TLSA. The upshot was that by 1945, with a national membership of 2,000, the TLSA united with a wider grouping of organisations that constituted the federated NEUM or Unity Movement.5 Thereafter, the League’s professional and political outlook would be tied to that of the Unity Movement and its Ten-Point Programme (TPP) of full democratic citizenship rights for all South Africans, as well as the policy of non-collaboration. The TPP included the right to the franchise, education (which encompassed free and compulsory schooling for all) as well as social equality (of ‘race’, class and gender), amongst a range of basic demands (see Hendricks, 2018:119). The strategy of non-collaboration, on the other hand, aimed to break the ‘slave mentality’ of the oppressed in order for them to politically assert their humanity (Drew, 1996:16‑17). Non-collaboration in this context meant unequivocally, ‘the refusal by the oppressed black population to work the instruments of their own oppression; that is, segregated and inferior political institutions’. An outflow of 5 The NEUM comprised the All African Convention (AAC), Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (AntiCAD), and the Anti-Segregatory Committee (ASC). These formations were established in 1935, 1943 and 1945 respectively. The TLSA formed a central part of the emergent Anti-CAD.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE this strategy was the political tactic of the boycott, a key method of struggle which the NEUM-TLSA deployed to expose perceived collaborators, and to make unworkable what they considered to be ‘bogus’ bodies and institutions, amongst other ruling class stratagems. Ambivalence around the definition of noncollaboration caused intense debate within left circles at the time as to what the differences and similarities were between the latter policy and the ‘boycott’, and what this uncertainty meant tactically and strategically for the struggle to liberate SA from racial oppression and class exploitation (Alexander, 1989:187-90; Davids, 1951:21‑51; Giyose, 1988: 13-14, 32, 34).

The dissemination of ideas Given the racial pattern of organising at the time,6 the NEUM organised itself along federal lines. As the AAC, Anti-CAD and the ASC represented mainly the ‘coloured’, ‘African’ and ‘Indian’ sections of the population, the NEUM embarked on the strategy of focusing on ‘political matters and common disabilities’ in an attempt to unite the separate ‘racial’ identities imposed on the black population by merging their struggles (Jaffe, 1953:19; Tabata, 1982:26). Furthermore, the federal structure provided a ready-made mass-based constituency. Its leadership sought through this coalescing process to fundamentally alter people’s racialised thinking. Here, political education was viewed as indispensable ‘practical work’ and integral to transforming people’s consciousness. The political and pedagogical role of the teacher within the NEUM’s emancipatory equation was deemed pivotal (Ramsdale, 1946:4), since, for the Unity Movement, teachers were the carriers – the ‘vectors’ of progressive anti-segregatory ideas. Although seemingly top-down, the teacher’s task was to ‘build the nation’ through the practise of eradicating prejudice that divided people, while concurrently instilling the notion that ‘all people belong to one human family and are of the same quality.’ (Kies, 1962:34). This universal nonracial worldview would remain a central tenet of the Teachers’ League. Within the NEUM, the League rapidly established fraternal relations with likeminded teacher organisations nationally, in particular the Cape African Teachers’ Association (CATA),7 a teacher affiliate of the AAC. The AAC, or the Convention, was established in 1935 in reaction to the Hertzog Bills,8 and constituted a broad front of African organisations that included the APO, ANC and South African Indian Congress (SAIC). By 1943, however, the AAC leadership had fallen under the influence of the left-wing WPSA elements, resulting in the radicalisation of

6 The NEUM comprised the All African Convention (AAC), Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (AntiCAD), and the Anti-Segregatory Committee (ASC). These formations were established in 1935, 1943 and 1945 respectively. The TLSA formed part of the emergent Anti-CAD. 7 The Cape African Teachers’ Association (CATA) was established in 1921. CATA was radicalised in the late 1940s by younger teachers when it affiliated to the NEUM. 8 The Hertzog’s Bills evoked widespread condemnation from sections of the black population, spurring opposition to the proposed legislation. It comprised two parliamentary bills, the Representation of Natives Bill and the Native Trust and Land Bill. The first bill halted the Cape African franchise and called into existence a Natives Representative Council (NRC) with advisory status on so-called Native issues. The second restricted African landholding rights to scheduled areas.

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Re-engaging non-racial sport the CATA leadership by 1948. The outcome of the alliance between the TLSA and CATA was the formation of the Cape Teachers’ Federal Council (CTFC) in 1951. These political realignments sought not only to undermine the racial sectionalism of the time, they opened new oppositional possibilities for the teaching corps in the 1950s. The aforementioned ground breaking developments would mark South African education, politics and cultural history in very distinctive ways at the time, resulting in the immediate dismissal and banning of leading TLSA and CATA teachers by the apartheid regime. The effect was the disintegration of the CTFC by the late 1950s. In the face of this onslaught, League teachers looked to alternative strategies to further their political and pedagogical goals, and many joined a range of similarly oriented civic bodies.9 These included the education fellowships, Parent, Teacher Associations (PTAs), the NEUM’s trade unions and the school sport movement. The result of these localised interventions was that in a short period, the ideas of the NEUM became markedly widespread in the Western Cape and further afield. By the 1950s, for example, it could be plausibly stated that the rudiments of a non-racial and non-collaborationist outlook had permeated many Western Cape schools and community structures reserved for the disenfranchised. This development was prompted by various forms of organised resistance to the raft of pre-1948 segregatory and later apartheid legislation. Indeed, the presence of the Anti-CAD, TLSA, CATA, PTAs, education fellowships, and other affiliates of the NEUM, such as the Society of Young Africa (SOYA)10 and the Cape Peninsula Students’ Union (CPSU),11 testified to the growing potential of the NEUM’s pedagogical and political ideas in the region, despite differences existing between and within these bodies (Hendricks, 2010:64-67). Considering the political atmosphere, fuelled as it was by debate and discussion, it was not coincidental that a counter-culture embedded in disenfranchised communities would arise. Frank van der Horst (2006), a prominent sports activist, recollected: This was the rich tradition where I came from. We stayed in Cape Town, interacted with the All African Convention, Society of Young Africa, lived in the milieu of the Anti-CAD and the TLSA in Cape Town, and were sustained ideologically by the All African Convention; it was virtually an interactive process all the time. And we got involved in debates and went to the New Era Fellowship every Saturday night, to go and engage in debate. To us who were new at the time, it was a tremendous learning experience … they really provided a stimulating intellectual and political climate…

9 By the latter half of the 1950s, the authors of The Educational Journal began to increasingly remain anonymous. They no longer penned their names to articles written for the journal or used pseudonyms for fear of government reprisal. 10 SOYA was formed in 1951 as a discussion and debating society for youth and migrant workers in the NEUM. For insight into SOYA, see Drew, 1991:483-492. 11 The CPSU was based in the Western Cape, with a handful of young NEUM activists its main driving force. It brought out The Student, which it published throughout the 1950s. Along with SOYA it folded by the early 1960s under state repression.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE The launch of the ANC’s Freedom Charter (1955) and the formation of the breakaway Pan African Congress (PAC) in 1959, added to the political ferment of the period, which penetrated, in turn, schools and parts of the teaching fraternity receptive to these ideas. School sports’, the fellowships or cultural societies and the civic movement were key areas where TLSA activists became increasingly prominent after the organisation went underground in the early 1960s; specifically in the wake of the Langa-Sharpeville12 upheavals, the subsequent state of emergency, and the banning of political organisations, as well as leading cadres, during the 1960s. Although the League was not overtly involved in these initiatives, its members were at the forefront of shaping the anti-establishment policies of these organisations. These teachers’ political work, specifically their non-racial and noncollaborationist worldview, extended well beyond the classroom, in keeping with TLSA thinking. More widely within SA sport, too, a discernible political voice had emerged by 1959  in the form of the South African Sports Association (SASA), which was followed in 1963 by the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC). While SASA campaigned for equal non-racial representation in sport and initiated the call for the isolation of South African sport (Archer & Bouillon, 1982:191), SANROC with Dennis Brutus at the forefront, a former teacher and TLSA member, profoundly unsettled white South African sport. SANROC’s central campaign encompassed isolating South African ‘white-only’ sport through an international boycott with the idea of having it expelled from the Olympic movement. It immediately drew the wrath of the state, and its leadership – facing banning orders, imprisonment and harassment – were forced into exile. In 1967, SANROC re-emerged in London. There it became the bane of South African establishment sport, as it quickly organised a strong anti-apartheid network in support of its objectives.13 By 1970, after an extended battle with the international sporting community (Archer & Bouillon, 1982:192-194; Booth, 2003:479, 480), SANROC, succeeded in having South Africa expelled from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) (Naughright, 1997: 138). Thereafter, the boycott of apartheid sport gathered immense worldwide support, headed by SANROC and later, from 17 March 1973, its internal wing, the South African Council on Sport (SACOS).

The emergence of non-racial primary and senior schools sports A product of the ferment of the 1950s and early 1960s was the formation of an 12 The PAC-led anti-pass law demonstrations of 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville resulted in the killing of 69 people and the injuring of 180 others. In Langa, Cape Town, violence erupted at the police station, with an undisclosed number of people killed and many others maimed and wounded when the police opened fire on the crowd. To stop the rebellion spreading, the apartheid regime declared a state of emergency and mass meetings were prohibited. In April of that year the ANC and PAC were banned, and many political activists arrested and banned. 13 Brutus was the chairperson of SANROC. Other members included Samba Ramsamy, Chris De Broglio, John Collins and other South African expatriates.

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Re-engaging non-racial sport independent school sport organisation, the Western Province Senior Schools’ Sports Union (WPSSSU) in 1956. Key sports organisers who had overlapping membership and links with the League pioneered the formation of the non-racial school sport movement under the banner of the WPSSSU.14 Western Province Schools’ Sports Board (WPSSB), which organised sport for primary schools, was also established in 1946.15 Similarly, in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape, League figures were instrumental in the formation of the Transvaal High Schools’ Sports Association (THSSA) and the Eastern Province Senior Schools’ Sports Union (EPSSSU), in 1959 and 1965 respectively16 (Rathinsamy, Braam, Thompson & Sallie, 2004:8; Cleophas & Van Der Merwe, 2009:708). Similar events were happening in Natal. These developments culminated early on in the formation of the South African Senior Schools’ Sports Association (SASSSA) in March 1961 (Rathinsamy et al., 2004:9), comprising units of the Western Province, Natal and Transvaal.17 The South African Primary Schools’ Sports Association (SAPSSA) was eventually also established in 1965, consisting of twelve affiliates (Wilson, 2004:17).18 Once established, SASSSA and SAPSSA grew exponentially, with other provincial units joining soon after, attracted by the success of organised school sport (South African Council on Sport [SACOS], 1988:4). At its height, SASSSA boasted a membership of twelve provincial units, offered its affiliates five multi-coded tournaments annually, and catered for 18 codes of sport (Rathinsamy et al., 2004:9). According to Archer and Bouillon (1982:230), by the 1970s, SAPSSA and SASSA represented, conservatively, 200,000 schoolchildren throughout the country and because of their multi-code (sport) character,19 promoted inter-school contact that ensured the survival of non-racial values. The TLSA’s influence within school sport was tangible, as a key aspect of SASSSA embodied challenging racist policies in education, consistent with the TLSA and CATA’s mission to capture the ‘minds’ of the youth (SACOS, 1988:4; Petersen, 2005:121). Not overtly political, given the repressive climate, the emergent sport movement adopted an implicit non-racial outlook and therewith rejected ‘racial’ categorisation (Van der Horst, 2006; Jethro, 2012). By the mid-1960s, in roughly a decade, the basis for an anti-establishment, non-racial mass-based schools sport movement had been established nationally.

14 Henry Hendricks, better known as Harry Hendricks, a member of the TLSA, was WPSSSU first president. Other TLSA members included Johnny de Bruyn, Richard Rive, Roland Palm and others (Cleophas & Van Der Merwe, 2009:708). 15 The first South African schools’ athletics championships was held in Kimberley in 1954. The success of the event motivated the high schools and primary schools to organise separately, resulting in the formation of the WPSSSU, and a year later the WPSSB (Blows, 2006; Jethro, 2012). Hendricks (2010:73) lists the founding high schools of WPSSSU. 16 Reggie Feldman and Harry Hendricks were two prominent TLSA members involved in organising schools sport in the Transvaal and Eastern Cape. 17 N. Rathinsamy from the Transvaal was SASSSA’s first president with Feldman the secretary. 18 Initially the SAPSSA consisted of four units: Natal Indian Schools’ Sports Board; Transvaal Primary Schools’ Sports Board; Western Province Schools’ Sports Board and the Northern Cape Schools’ Sports Union. 19 Multi-code meant there were many different sports affiliated or attached to SAPSSA and SASSSA, such as athletics, soccer, rugby, netball and so forth.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE These school sport bodies ultimately became leading affiliates of SACOS – the ‘sport-wing of the liberation movement’ (Feldman, 2005). Filling the political void following the ban on the major liberation organisations’, which were forced underground to evade detection by the security forces, SACOS adopted a nonaligned identity, catering for activists from across organisations in the liberation movement. The new coordinating body gained credibility over a short period of time and once it had secured sufficient groundswell support and international recognition, SACOS adopted the more uncompromising Double Standards Resolution (DSR), prohibiting sportspeople from participating in the government’s ‘race’-based ‘multi-racial’ or ‘multinational’ sport, as opposed to non-racial sport (Petersen, 2005:125-26).20 Through these means and by invoking the United Nations Glen Eagles Agreement of 1977, SACOS was able to effectively block international sportspersons from visiting South Africa (Richards, 1999:255-256). As with the formation of organised school sport, TLSA members were central to the formation of SACOS (Van der Horst, 2006; Hendricks, 2010:77). Considering education and politics were indivisible for the League, sport and politics were inseparable for those in SACOS. As a result, both entities were well aware that sport on its own could not eradicate apartheid, and that focusing on sport per se meant catering for a select group only, not the majority of people (Archer & Bouillon, 1982:313). In fact, apartheid policies in themselves, by ‘racially’ separating people, politicised sport. This factor was the chief reason why South African sport federations were isolated internationally. And, it was this political reality that enabled SACOS and SANROC to sustain the call for a moratorium on all tours to and from South Africa, and for the boycott of all official government institutions to be upheld until all apartheid statutes were removed. The Dutch slogan: ‘Speel Niet Met Apartheid [Do Not Play With Apartheid]’21 epitomised international support for SACOS and SANROC’s campaign to isolate South African sport.

Multinational Sport and the Double Standards Resolution (DSR): from apartheid to apartheid‑capitalism In an attempt to break the sports boycott, the apartheid regime introduced its multinational policy, termed ‘normal sport’, in 1970. This extended to local school and club levels by the mid-1970s in an effort to show the world South Africa’s commitment to change. To regulate this process, the government introduced a permit system to make sport facilities accessible to the disenfranchised, most of which were located in areas demarcated ‘white’. SACOS rejected this concession, and demanded all amenities and facilities be open to all citizens (SACOS, 1981). The WPSSSU and other SACOS affiliates declared bluntly that they ‘refuse to humiliate 20 SACOS gained recognition from and became an associate member of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa, the United Nations Committee Against Apartheid and the Federation Sportive & Gymnique Du Travail. SACOS thus became the sole representative for non-racial sport in South Africa. 21 A sticker circulated in non-racial sports ranks (Author’s personal collection).

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Re-engaging non-racial sport and degrade themselves’ by applying for a “racial permit to use a venue like the Green Point Stadium that is situated in a so-called ‘white’ group area” (SACOS, 1979:36). “Notwithstanding this firm stance, what appeared an anomaly was the WPSSSU use of the Green Point Track (also called ‘The Track’) for its athletics events, which at the time was covered by a permit given to the Western Province Rugby Union (WPRU), an affiliate of the non-racial South African Rugby Union (SARU).22 ‘The Track’ was the traditional track and field home of the WPSSSU from the late 1950s. The Figure 6.1 Badge of the Dutch antiWPSSSU continued using it when the apartheid sport movement. permit system was introduced in 1970, Source: Author’s Personal Collection as all available venues were segregated or required a permit. According to Blows (2009), it was a matter of ‘adapt and stay alive’ (Blows, 2009). From the early 1970s, the Athlone stadium became the official venue, even though it was designated for ‘coloureds’ only. SACOS received huge support for its position, and in certain cases communities went as far as building their own facilities rather than request permission to use segregated ones (Van der Horst, 2006; Petersen, 2009:127, 128). Where no feasible alternative existed, however, affiliates used segregated facilities under protest (Goodall, 2004:45). For SACOS, the government’s multinational policy was but a ruse, ‘a repackaging of all the sport policies that had gone before’ (Williams, 2005), in order to retain the fundamentals of apartheid – that South Africa comprised many nations which play sport separately (Roberts, 1988:18-21; Booth, 2003:481). It also saw the underlying dangers of the new policy, namely, to lure what it termed ‘black collaborators’ (SACOS, 1979:54) to participate in multinational sport in ‘white’ group areas in order to give legitimacy to separatist sport, and in this way make a case for breaking the sports boycott (SACOS, 1981). Throwing its weight behind non-racial sport, the League attacked the Coloured Affairs Department (CAD) for enforcing the prohibition of mixed sport in schools (Kies, 1970:1-3). It also condemned the ‘racially’ motivated 1972 rugby tour of Europe, and asserted: “few sporting events have shown such scant regard for dignity and humanity as the ‘Federation’23 rugby tour of England and Holland by ‘Coloured’ performers” (Allen, 1972:7). To nullify the threat multinationalism posed to non-racial sport, SACOS responded with its DSR. 22 Two rugby unions with identical names - the Western Province Rugby Union - co-existed from the 1960s: the pro-establishment multi-racial body and the anti-apartheid non-racial one. 23 The South African Rugby Football Federation (SARFF) was established in 1959 as the ‘coloured’ affiliate of the white South African Rugby Board (SARB) and stood in opposition to the SACOS affiliated South African Rugby Union (SARU).

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Formulated in 1977 in the aftermath of the 1976 student uprisings, a watershed moment in South African history of resistance that ended the relative political lull stretching from the 1960s, the DSR barred non-racial sportspersons from playing multinational sport. This policy immediately opened a more uncompromising phase in the non-racial sport movement’s quest to deracialise South African sport. Resonating in particular with the vociferous SACOS constituency in the Western Cape (Roberts, 1988:44; Booth, 2003:483), a region immersed in the tradition of non-collaboration, the DSR was viewed as largely the product of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and the Unity Movement’s non-collaborationist influence in the sport movement (Booth, 2003:483). The Resolution drew clear lines between multinational and non-racial sport in order to clarify confusion, since, for SACOS: “many black sportspersons were fooled into believing that their struggle for non-racial sport had finally borne fruit ... lured by offers of better facilities and sponsorship ... [whilst] the conditions in the ghettos of the oppressed worsened” (SACOS, 1983:4). Proponents of the DSR were unequivocal in their opposition to people that practised, perpetuated or condoned ‘racialism’ or multinationalism (Transvaal Council on Sport, 1977; Roberts 1988:27). The TLSA’s support in the late 1970s for the DSR, was clear: Multi-racialism, and multi-nationalism and all the other tricks inspired by the enemies of true progress must be dismissed with the loathing they deserve. There is no reason why we should be prepared to accept anything less than the only honourable basis for sports relationships between human beings. We must proclaim and emphasise our complete lack of interest in ‘gradually accustoming’ the citizens to change, in ‘working from within’ racial bodies, and all the other excuses of those who sell out, and treat them with contempt. Bath 1977:7 In keeping with this outlook, and within the heightened oppositional context that followed on the heels of 1976, when a range of organisations had been banned,24 SACOS coined its rallying slogan ‘No Normal Sport In An Abnormal Society’, condensing into one phrase its refusal to restrict its actions narrowly to the interests of SACOS members. Instead, it proclaimed the willingness of non-racial sportspeople to represent the silent majority of black South Africans, whose living conditions rendered them unable to play sport (SACOS, 1981; Archer & Bouillon, 1982:312). Connecting its agenda to the organised workers – trade union - movement, SACOS, via mainly WPSSSU and SASSSA in 1980, mobilised its constituency in solidarity with the burgeoning labour movement (Naidoo, 1983),25 and came out in support of the striking Red Meat and Wilson Rowntree workers’ by calling for a boycott of these products. Simba chips had experienced the same treatment

24 The Black Consciousness movement was banned in 1977, along with a range of affiliated organisations and persons in the liberation movement. 25 The author to the article ‘Sport and the Worker’, Derek Naidoo, was cited in The Eastern Province Herald, 24 August 1983. Neither his name nor any of the other authors appeared in the SACOS Conference booklet of 20-21 August 1983.

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Re-engaging non-racial sport the year before (SACOS, 1979:65). Williams affirmed the centrality of SASSSA to the worker solidarity campaign: “If you take the red meat boycott, you take the Simba boycott, and all the other boycotts that were being waged,26 it was initiated at senior school level, where those products were sold in abundance and then carried into the home” (Williams, 2005). Actions of this nature, and the fact that SACOS only accepted funding from companies which supported non-racial sport, demonstrated its radical if not leftist orientation. These factors, when translated in financial terms however, meant limited sponsorship for the sports movement, which in turn placed immense constraints on its activities, most of which were undertaken on extremely tight and at times inadequate budgets. Undeterred, SACOS pushed ahead with its principled agenda and intensified its politics. It amended the DSR in 1979 to include the isolation of persons serving on ‘racial’ organisations, most notably the Coloured Representative Council (CRC), Bantu Boards, Indian Councils, Local Management Boards and similar institutions established by the apartheid regime at local government level. SACOS branded those participating in these structures as ‘collaborators and opportunists’. Similarly, the Coloured Advisory Council and Native Representative Councils in the early 1940s were denigrated by the NEUM as ‘puppet’ organisations – bodies that had no real power and were simply the cat’s paw of government (Rensburg, 1982; Zinn, 1982). Because of its more radical stance, Norman Middleton, the SACOS president, was forced to resign owing to his membership of the CRC. The Cape Teachers’ Professional Association (CTPA)27 leadership who were seen to endorse ‘racially’ seperated bodies was also singled out by SACOS as ‘quislings’ (Petersen, 2005:126) or ‘uitverkopers’ (sellouts) (Jethro, 2012). Accusations that teachers advancing SACOS politics fell foul of their own principles by occupying posts in ‘racially’ separatist education departments, received a curt response: We said no, no that’s different. When I work for a boss, the boss pays me, I don’t have to follow the boss’s dictates ... I work as an independent person. When I go away, I’m not him, I stand my own political ground and for my own non-racial viewpoint. The same with a teacher: here you are working for a boss, but you don’t support and believe in the boss. Van der Horst, 2006 This type of oppositional discourse and practice gave sustenance to the nonracial sport movement, thereby purging it of elements aspiring to be or linked to establishment sport or the government. The DSR practice spread from 1979, infusing areas of social activity where the permit system applied. Members in the non-racial fold were thus forbidden from sending their children to private ‘white’ schools, visiting international hotels, slated for joining and forming clubs at universities promoting multinational sport (The role of the non-racial sports person in the liberation struggle, 1983:5), while those working within organs of the regime, such as the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) (ibid) or advocates of big 26 There were also the 1980 bus and schools’ boycotts. 27 The CTPA was formed in 1967 and claimed to represent the interests of ‘coloured’ teachers. It had as its central strategy to work for incremental reforms from within the Education Department as a recognised teacher organisation.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE capital – particularly the Urban Foundation (SACOS, 1981; Roberts, 1988:30), were heavily criticised. The non-racial sport movement no longer placed opposition to apartheid at the centre of its campaign but racial capitalism (Sport and the Nation, 1983; Van der Horst 2005:4-6). This emphasis on ‘class’ became an intricate part of SACOS’ policy from the early 1980s when the organisation engaged the government’s multi-faceted reformist programme (Kallaway, 1988:20; Cobbett, Glaser, Hindson & Swilling, 1985:182). The apartheid regime’s reforms constituted two central planks. The one sought to offset the rising concerns of big capital in its push to meet the needs of modern capitalism through privatisation and deregulation, the other aimed to thwart the rising expectations of the liberation movement and its allies inside and outside the country (Kallaway, 1991:517; Alexander, 1987:84, 85). The strategy embodied a ‘carrot and stick’ approach, using repressive measures to quell unrest internally, particularly after the 1976 and 1980 school unrests, and co-option to win over sections of the disenfranchised – the aspirant black middle class – who stood to benefit economically from the reforms (Molteno, 1987; Kallaway, 1991). In education, business successfully requested the apartheid government liberalise schooling and grant ‘white’ private schools permission to admit a select few black students. By 1986, private schools could open their doors to all ‘races’ and receive financial support from the state (Kallaway, 1989:156-157). The opening of private schools to black students was not viewed favourably by SACOS. Rather, it saw the move as a ploy to give credence to the government’s multiracial/multinational policies. The private Diocesan College (Bishops) 1982 rugby tour to Hong Kong and Taiwan confirmed for SACOS the government’s intention to use ‘mixed’ sport in private schools to break international isolation (Students at ‘White’ schools under racial permit, 1983:2). The sport organisation consequently decried parents who sent their children to these schools and declared them irresponsible ‘middle class types’ who had been taken in by the false concessions offered them at the expense of the vast majority of the poor who were denied basic human rights (Students at ‘White’ schools under racial permit, 1983:2-4). In circles outside of non-racial sport, Randall similarly contended that private schooling was intricately tied to the system of institutional inequality (Randall, 1982:205-207). He noted that from the late 1970s, these liberal schools helped expand the power base of the middle class through broadening admission policies to blacks. SACOS, through the DSR, would debar this ‘comprador’ constituency from its ranks. As Peter Meyer explained: It [the DSR] was mainly directed in fact at middle class parents ... because of the fact that they have a greater means [at their disposal] rather than at working class people. It was never directed at working class people, because working class people in any case would not have been able, for example, to send their children to these schools. Meyer 2006

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Re-engaging non-racial sport SACOS dubbed parents who sent their children to private schools ‘collaborators and lackeys’ of the ruling class who created the impression South Africa was an ‘open’ society, whilst condoning policies of divide and rule that perpetuated racism (Students at ‘White’ schools under racial permit, 1983:4). Snubbing private schools proved straightforward for SACOS; penetrating the African townships was another matter. In this mission, SASSSA’s attempts at organising African schools were continually foiled (Hendricks, 2010:84), and it struggled to bypass the Department of Education and Training (DET) separatist policies, especially its prohibition on mixed inter-school competitions (Powell, 1990:64). As the majority of SACOS affiliates refused to comply with the permit system, they remained hamstrung by state legislation. Robin April (2018:150-151), who was instrumental in organising amateur athletics under the SACOS, states that affiliated clubs often defied the apartheid laws by organising events and meetings in Gugulethu and Langa and did not apply for the required permit. Also, because of the shortage of athletic tracks, they used facilities such as the University of Cape Town’s athletics track in Pinelands. Notwithstanding its rejection of the permit system, SACOS was labelled a predominantly ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ sports organisation (Roberts, 1988:63; Gerwel, 1989:64). The ‘race-class’ tensions embedded in the DSR were clear indicators that the policy was a two-edged sword; on the one hand, it kept out comprador or collaborationist elements, but on the other it hindered the organising of non-racial sport. This dual feature of the DSR would eventually become SACOS’ Achilles heel.

A changing political landscape: the DSR challenged The shifting political environment within which the TLSA, SACOS and school sport operated in the 1980s was to prove central in shaping their politics and organisational capacities well into the 1990s. Hereafter follows a brief summary of the Western Cape’s changing political landscape during the decade after 1976. Swept along by the state’s strategy of reform and repression, the resistance movement crossed a major threshold at the start of the 1980s when a plethora of political formations cutting across ideological persuasions crystallised in the Western Cape (Lodge, 1991:199). While certain organisations emerged spontaneously after the 1976 revolts, others arose in response to the government’s Wiehahn and Riekert commissions,28 and the constitutional ‘New Deal’. The latter reform sought to accommodate the ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ sections of the disenfranchised in a tri-cameral arrangement,29 whilst the former was set up to regulate and control the expanding black working class. On the educational front, the 1976 and 1980 student uprisings shored up a politically diverse range of youth organisations in the townships. The trade union movement was also re-ignited, rooted as it was in the worker uprisings of the 28 The Wiehahn and Riekert Commissions’ reforms of 1979 granted statutory recognition to trade unions for African workers’ whereas the latter sanctioned the settlement of urban Africans. 29 The new constitution extended the franchise in a tri-cameral parliament to the ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ populations but not ‘Africans’. This qualified franchise the TLSA rejected. (Steep, 1984:16)

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE early 1970s (Hirson, 1979:122-143). By the 1980s, the organised labour movement was directed mainly through the Black Consciousness-aligned30 Council of Unions of South Africa (CUSA),31 as well as the independent Federation of South African Trade Unions (FOSATU).32 These events led in a short period to the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)33 in 1985, the National Council of Trade Unions’ (NACTU) of 1986,34 and a spread of independent trade unions. The launch of the socialist leaning National Forum (NF)35 and NUM36 in 1983 and 1985 respectively, the African National Congress (ANC)-oriented United Democratic Front (UDF)37 in 1983, and later the Mass Democratic Movement MDM in 1988, completed in broad strokes the liberation movement’s political make-up in the Western Cape by the late 1980s. Although the above organisations collectively opposed the apartheid regime, ideological tensions marked their political relations. Differences between socialist groupings such as the TLSA-New Unity Movement and the larger more popular UDF and MDM formations were sometimes sharp, in particular after the 1985 student uprisings,38 from which the UDF gained much mileage. By 1985-1986, for example, the latter had established a firm foothold amongst the youth, whose militant actions included the contentious slogans of ‘liberation before education’

30 Black Consciousness (BC) emerged in the late 1960s as a resistance movement of university students and intellectuals that rejected apartheid and white domination in all its forms. It covered many views and tendencies aligned to the liberation struggle. For the BC ‘black’ referred to all the oppressed people of colour; those classified African, Coloured and Indian. The BC movement was banned in 1977, along with a range of affiliated organisations and persons in the liberation movement. 31 CUSA was formed in 1979 and had as one of its largest affiliates the National Union of Mineworkers’ (NUM). NUM’s affiliation in 1985 to COSATU was a great loss to CUSA. 32 FOSATU was formed on 20 April 1979. At the end of 1984 the federation had a membership of 118.950 with 8, mostly industrial, unions affiliated to it. 33 The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) was established in November 1985, and constituted 34 unions with 450,000 paid-up members and 565,000 signed-up members. COSATU initially launched itself as an independent union but in July 1986 adopted the Freedom Charter, therewith indicating its political allegiance. 34 COSATU’s nearest rival was NACTU formed in October 1986 through the merger of CUSA and AZACTU (Azanian Confederation of Trade Unions). It claimed a membership of 450,000 signed-up members. NACTU subscribed broadly to the Black Consciousness Movement not the Congress Movement. 35 The National Forum (NF) was launched 11-12 June 1983 in Hammanskraal to oppose the ‘New Deal’. It comprised the Black Conscious orientated AZAPO (Azanian People’s Organisation) and the socialist inclined Cape Action League (CAL). The unifying document of the NF was the Manifesto of the Azanian People. 36 The NUM was launched in April 1985 in Cape Town. The NUM, like the NEUM, committed itself to the Ten-Point-Programme and the policy of non-collaboration. The TLSA aligned itself with the NUM, and R.O. Dudley a former deputy head at Livingstone High school and a prominent TLSA member became its first president. 37 The United Democratic Front (UDF) was established to oppose the new constitutional dispensation and was launched in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, on 20 August 1983 as a broad front of autonomous organisations. 38 The uprisings of 1985 came about in response to the imposition of the state of emergency in the Transvaal, Reef and Eastern Cape in 1985. The intensity of the conflict reached heights similar to 1976 and 1980. State of emergencies were imposed in 1985 and 1986.

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Re-engaging non-racial sport and calls to render the townships ‘ungovernable’. In exile and consistent with its history, however, the ANC made clear its intent to negotiate (Alexander, 2002:46; Lodge, 1989;47, 48). The politics of this period culminated in the unbanning of the organisations of the liberation movement and the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990, which set the scene for negotiations between the NP and ANC,39 elevating the latter to the pre-eminent position within the liberation movement. With increasing visibility and international support, the ANC experienced an unprecedented growth of membership by the late 1980s and early 1990s. Caught in the maelstrom of African Nationalism countrywide, the Western Cape, the once traditional locale of left-wing politics (Nasson, 1991:208), in particular of the Unity Movement (Nasson, 1989), had its politics eclipsed by that of the Congress Movement. These fluid political and ideological dynamics would seriously impact the TLSA and the non-racial sport movement. Owing to SACOS and therewith its schools sports affiliates (SAPSSA and SASSSA) non-alignment policy, it became mired in the political tensions of the liberation movement, since SACOS housed members from a cross-section of political formations. What specifically caused these tensions and what were its repercussions for the SACOS affiliates, particularly the WPSSSU and WPSSB? In terms of the first part of the question, sharp political differences surfaced within the non-racial sport movement from 1988, reaching a climax in the early 1990s around the boycott, DSR and non-alignment. At the one end, a vocal group within SACOS adhered firmly to the DSR, at the other, MDM (UDF, COSATU) members argued forcefully that the boycott of establishment facilities was stunting development in the sports organisation. Indeed, while people working in government institutions were branded ‘stooges’ by SACOS, the UDF declared that it wanted to ‘win them over’ (Booth, 2003:488). Regarding state institutions, the trade unionist Alec Erwin, delivering a paper at the SACOS second M.N. Pather Memorial Lecture in December 1987, provocatively argued that the organisation needed to become mass-based. For him, the use of multinational facilities was not the issue any longer, but rather and more pertinently, ‘how’ and not ‘where’ non-racial sport should be organised (Erwin, 1988:95). Usurping establishment institutions, not the boycott of them, would be far more effective, he suggested (Erwin, 1989:46). Roberts, (1988:42-45; 1989a:19-22) and others, such as Gerwel (1989:64), Carrim (1989) and the Natal Council on Sport [NACOS] (1989), thereafter unleashed a scathing attack on SACOS, accusing it of being inflexible, sectarian and confined to a small leadership of predominantly ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ members who resided mostly in the Western and Eastern Cape. Moreover, they declared SACOS policies dated, narrow, undemocratic and out of touch with developments in the workers’ movement (ibid). The DSR was viewed as NUM inspired (Brown, 2005:142), tantamount to ‘ultra-leftism’ and not in synchrony with the broad mass democratic movement they added (Natal Council on Sport [NACOS], 1989:32; Carrim, 1989:40-42). As the MDM appeared to be at the forefront of the liberation movement, and given the fact that the bulk of SACOS sport people belonged to it, they argued, SACOS should align itself with this tendency (Carrim, 1989). 39 Negotiations had been secretively underway from the mid-1980s.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Holding to its non-aligned position of ‘a broad coalition of pro-non-racial forces’ (Fortuin, 1989:4),40 SACOS received the support of political organisations outside of the Congress Movement (African People’s Democratic Youth Movement, 1989; Molala, 1992), particularly the New Unity Movement (NUM) (The Onslaught on SACOS and Non-Racial sport, 1988; Developments in non-racial sports, 1989; The Sports Sell-Out: Part of the Deal in the Negotiations Scam, 1990) and TLSA (Kies, 1988:9-10; Kies, 1990:12-13; Inred, 1990:6-7; Kies, 1991a:13-14). Forming loosely a united front, the pro-SACOS lobby opposed what they saw as a looming ‘sellout’ in non-racial sport, fomented by the NSC. For the pro-SACOS organisations,41 specifically the TLSA-NUM, the drive for unity with multinational sport was at the heart of the NSC’s formation. The NSC’s agenda within SACOS added up to nothing but ‘divisive white-anting’ the TLSA said (Inred, 1990b: 7), and for the NUM, ‘Trojan horse’ tactics (NUM, 1990). For both organisations, orchestrating unity in sport had as its main intent to strengthen the hand of the ANC in the negotiations process (Kies, 1991c:14; Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA), 1992; NUM, 1992:13). Notwithstanding the growing dissension in its ranks, SACOS maintained that conditions had not altered within the country to merit a change of strategy,42 a perspective that resonated with the League and like-minded organisations (Inred, 1990:7, 8; Kies, 1991b:14; Kies, 1991c:14). The second part of the question posed above is now pertinent, notably: ‘what were the repercussions of these tensions for SACOS and more particularly school sport?’

The demise of the DSR With negotiations for a political settlement underway, and a divided non-racial sports movement evident, establishment sports sought international readmission through forging unity with its erstwhile foe, and made overtures to the NSC, heralding it the new representatives of non-racial sport (Roberts, 1989c:4; SACOS: Western Cape 18th Annual General Meeting, 1991:15). The political climate favoured this conciliatory move, for although negotiations did not translate into fundamental change for the disenfranchised, it had altered perceptions and attitudes of people in the country. In fact, it signalled a victory for their struggles and actually raised expectations (Adam & Moodley, 1993:44-45, 219-222). The government’s repealing of the Population Registration Act in 1990 and the Group Areas Act in 1991, as well as the ANC’s suspension of the armed struggle, affirmed these perceptions. Political events rapidly overtook SACOS, as the unfolding reforms spurred the international community to review its moratorium. The fact that unity in sport was yet to be achieved and apartheid remained intact were no longer key criteria for 40 SACOS maintained that non-alignment was a pre-requisite of the IOC and not negotiable (South African Council on Sport, 1991:15). 41 SACOS had the support of the socialist oriented organisations such as the NF, NUM, Cape Action League (CAL) (later to become the Workers’ Organisation for Socialist Action [WOSA]), AZAPO and NACTU. 42 Not all of SACOS agreed with this perspective, and the Western Province Council on Sport (WEPCOS) executive stood down, as it believed one school of thought was dominant in the region (WEPCOS, 1991:17-18).

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Re-engaging non-racial sport isolating South African sport for international mediators such as the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa (ANOCA) (Memorandum from SACOS presented to the National Olympic Committee of South Africa, 1991; Goodall, 2004:92). Moreover, the National Olympic Sports Council (NOSC) (the former NSC) had aligned itself to the ANC and was seeking unity with Apartheid structures and SANROC’s representative, Sam Ramsamy, a former SAPSSA official, who had switched allegiance to the NSC by the late 1980s, was promoting unity in sport (Kies, 1990:12). Business, too, played an instrumental role in facilitating unity. The coincidence of the above factors clearly indicated to the international community that the intent to unify sport was assured and in accord with talks to end apartheid. These developments rendered the sport boycott, for them, passé. Jean-Claude Ganga, president of ANOCA, made this abundantly clear in his categorical message to SACOS when he stated: “… the train is leaving the station and you will either be on it ... or you will be left behind” (Kies, 1991a:13). SACOS disagreed, and attempted to stave off South Africa’s readmission to international sport based on what it called the need for ‘principled unity’ (Goodall, 2004:88)43 and de facto unity in sport. SACOS’s objections were however rendered obsolete when the IOC declared South Africa eligible to participate in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.44 By then, according to Booth (2003:491), most international federations declared the boycott had worked and sport had triumphed over racism.

School Sport – A compromised unity Unity proceeded on various fronts, and by 1993 nearly one hundred South African sports codes enjoyed international recognition (Booth, 2003:492). SACOS, along with the League and NUM, branded this unity ‘a sham’ (TLSA, 1992; NUM, 1992b:14). By then, however, most sport federations had rewritten their constitutions after making promises to assist disadvantaged sportspeople (Booth, 2003:492). The SASSSA held its last athletics event in 1994 (Mass-based school sport on its knees, 1999:28). The United School Sports Association of South Africa (USSASA), the successor to SASSSA and SAPSSA, abandoned the DSR and the multi-code massbased participation of its predecessors, replacing it with the single-code approach of organising sport (Petersen, 2005:131).45 Volunteerism in school sport ended, leaving many SACOS sportspeople disgruntled and embittered. The voice of a former sport teacher and WPSSSU administrator is worth noting: Unfortunately, they chose to go the way the whites had organised, and that seriously disadvantaged black kids, in that money was an issue.46 It 43 SACOS’ stance on principled unity was premised on the notion of principles such as total equality, merit selection, democracy and accountability. Only once all the vestiges of apartheid had been removed could unification proceed, it argued. 44 South Africa also hosted the Australian and New Zealand rugby teams in 1992. 45 School athletics, for example, no longer had entire schools supporting its events. Instead, schools sent only a handful of athletes to compete at inter-school athletics meetings. 46 Under the WPSSSU all costs of athletes representing the province for the year were subsidised from the income of the inter-schools’ athletics events at the start of the year, in which virtually every school participated. Students therefore did not have to pay to compete locally or interprovincially. See also April, 2018:152.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE was left to the schools; you have a township school, a township school can’t pay so you pull the kid [remove the child from participating] ... the people who had the power in USSASA were blacks who had sold out ... [we] nationalised the school ethic, [visiting athletes from other provinces stayed with families in the community]. When USSASA took over, kids were put into hotels ... the USSASA contingent were usually just white kids. Liebenberg, 2006 Clearly, unity in school sport did not bring significant social change. With the non-racial sport movement having forfeited the boycott – the main political instrument for exerting pressure (Booth, 2003:492; Archer & Bouillon, 1982:231) – transformation could no longer be enforced. Consequently, conflict in sport, as in education, would remain unresolved well beyond the inauguration of a new South Africa and sports unity.

Conclusion This chapter endeavoured to explore the much-neglected contribution of the TLSA as well as other anti-apartheid organisations who effectively wed sport and politics within the non-racial school sport movement. This distinctive history of sport and politics was traced from the late 1950s until the early 1990s when unity in sport was achieved as part of the country’s negotiated settlement. Specific focus was given to the politics of the DSR, a brand of sport politics which sought to draw a discernible line between racist and non-racial sport in an attempt to unmask the regime’s multinational sport policy that aimed to legitimise apartheid sport, particularly in the eyes of the international community. The chapter furthermore contends that while the DSR was formulated principally to unite the disenfranchised people against the apartheid regime and its sporting policies, the resolution also proved divisive for SACOS and school sport specifically by the late 1980s. This rift witnessed the emergence of the NSC in a bid to bypass the DSR and thus achieve unity with establishment sport. This development was particularly strategic as it anticipated the negotiations between the ANC and NP and the pending ‘new’ South Africa. The discussion lastly revealed why TLSA teachers, among many other politically and socially conscious educators within the nonracial school sport movement, were left disappointed if not disillusioned by ‘unity’ in school sport after 1994. Central to their grievance was that ‘sport unity’ arrived at the expense of children from marginalised poor schooling communities, the abandonment of the longstanding non-racial ethos of nurturing mass participation through sport, and consequently the waning of the potential for social cohesion and nation-building.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Cobbett, W. Glaser, D. Hindson D. & Swilling, M. 1985. South Africa’s Regional Political Economy: A Critical Analysis of Reform Strategy in the 1980s. African Studies seminar paper. African Studies Institute. University of the Witwatersrand, October, pp.1-15. Davids, A. 1951. A Critical Analysis of I.B. Tabata’s Book, ‘The All-African Convention’. The Forum Club. Volume 1, pp.21–51. Developments in Non-Racial Sports. 1989. New Unity Movement Bulletin, July. Drew, A. 1991. Social Mobilization and Racial Capitalism in South Africa, 1928-1960. PhD dissertation. California: University of California, Los Angeles. Drew, A. 1996. South Africa’s Radical Tradition: A documentary history. Volume 2: 1943‑1964. Cape Town: Buchu Books. Erwin, A. 1988. Does Sport Have a Role To Play in the Liberation Struggle? 2nd M.N. Pather Memorial Lecture. In: SACOSSPORTFESTIVAL ’88. Athlone: Buchu Books, pp.91-95. Erwin, A. 1989. Sport: The Turning Point. In: C. Roberts (ed). Sport And Transformation. Contemporary debates on South African sport. Cape Town: Township Publishing Co‑operative, pp.23-31. Feldman, R. 2005. The reconstitution of SACOS. South Peninsula High, 26 June. [audio recording]. Author’s Private Collection. Fortuin, A.E. 1982. ‘Homelands Policy’. SACOS General Meeting, Kimberley, 6-7 March. Author’s Private Collection. Fortuin, A.E. 1989. ‘SACOS and the NSC’. 14 December. Unpublished SACOS Paper. Author’s Private Collection. Gerwel, J. 1989. Towards a disciplined, healthy sport movement in preparation for a post-apartheid South Africa. In: C. Roberts (ed). Sport and Transformation. Contemporary debates on South African sport. Cape Town: Township Publishing Co‑operative, pp.58-65. Giyose, M. P. 1988. Non-Collaboration: A Theory of Social Change. Gaborone: Mimeo. Goodall, N. 2004. Opposing Apartheid Through Sport. The role of SACOS in South African Sport, 1982-1992. Unpublished Masters thesis. Johannesburg: Rand Afrikaans University. Hendricks, P. 2010. A Principled Engagement? Non-collaboration and the Teachers’ League of South Africa in the Western Cape, 1990–2003. Unpublished PhD thesis. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Hendricks, P. 2018. The History and Politics of the Teachers’ League of South Africa’s Transformative Praxis. International Journal of African Historical Studies. 51(1):111‑139. Hirson, B. 1979. Year of Fire, Year of Ash. London: Zed Press. Inred, I. 1990. South Africa in African and International Sport – Report on the Harare ANOCA Conference. The Educational Journal, 60(8), December:6-8. Jaffe, H. 1953. The First Ten Years of the Non-European Unity Movement (Excerpts from lecture delivered in December, 1953). Athlone: Cape Flats Educational Fellowship.

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Re-engaging non-racial sport Jethro, D. 2012. Interview with P. Hendricks & F.J. Cleophas, 9 October, Cape Town. Kallaway, P. 1988. An Introduction to the Study of Education for Blacks in South Africa. In: P. Kallaway (ed). Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, pp.1-44. Kallaway, P. 1989. Privatisation and the educational policies of the new right. In: G. Moss & I. Obery. South African Review 5. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, pp.149-162. Kallaway, P. 1991. Privatisation as an aspect of the educational politics of the new right: critical signposts for understanding shifts in educational policy in South Africa during the eighties. In: C. Millar, S. Raynham & A. Schaffer (eds). Breaking ‘the’ Formal Frame. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp.506-528. Kies, H. N. 1962. Helping to Build the South African Nation. The Educational Journal, 34(1), July-August: 29-34. Kies, H.N. 1988. Notes in School – Invigilator. The Educational Journal, 58(2), March:9-11. Kies, H.N. 1990. Notes in School – Invigilator. The Educational Journal, 60(6), September:11-14. Kies, H.N. 1991a. Notes in School – Invigilator. The Educational Journal, 61(3), April‑May:11-14. Kies, H.N. 1991b. Notes in School – Invigilator. The Educational Journal, 61(5), July‑August:12-16. Kies, H.N. 1991c. Notes in School – Invigilator. The Educational Journal, 61(6), September:12-15. Lewis, G. 1987. Between The Wire And The Wall: A history of South African ‘Coloured’ politics. Cape Town: David Philip. Liebenberg, A. 2006. Personal interview, 14 January, Cape Town. Lodge, T. 1989. People’s war or negotiation? African National Congress strategies in the 1980s, In: South African Review 5. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, pp.42-55. Lodge, T. 1991. Rebellion: The Turning of the Tide. In: T. Lodge & B. Nasson (eds). All here and now: Black politics in South Africa in the 1980’s. South Africa Update Series. Cape Town: David Philip, pp.23-204. Mass-based school sport on its knees. 1999. Muslim Views, March:28. Memorandum from SACOS presented to the National Olympic Committee of South Africa. 1991, July 27-28. Meyer, P. 2005. Personal interview, February 3, Cape Town. Molala, N. 1992. Sport in Perspective. The Azanian Labour Journal, 4(4):4-8. Molteno, F. 1987. 1980: Students Struggle for Their School. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Naidoo, D. 1983. ‘Sport and the Worker’, ‘SACOS-Sport and Liberation Conference booklet. August 20-21, Cape Town, pp.1-4. Author’s Private Collection.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Nasson, B. 1989. Opposition Politics and Ideology in the Western Cape. In: G. Moss & I. Obery (eds). South African Review 5. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, pp.91-105. Nasson, B. 1991. Political Ideologies in the Western Cape, In: T. Lodge & B. Nasson (eds). All here and now: Black politics in South Africa in the 1980’s. South Africa Update Series. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, pp.207-232. Natal Council on Sport (NACOS). 1989. The Sports Situation and A New Perspective and Direction for SACOS. In: C. Roberts (ed). Sport and Transformation. Cape Town: Township Publishing Co-operative. Naughright, J. 1997. No Normal Sport in An Abnormal Society: Apartheid, The rise of non-racial sport and international boycott movements 1958-1990. In: J. Naughright (ed). Sport, Cultures and Identities in South Africa. London: Leicester University Press, pp.125-156. Parry, B. 2004. Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique. London: Routledge. Petersen, H. 2005. School sport organisations and education, 1960s-1990s. In: C. Thomas. Sport and Liberation in South Africa. Eastern Cape, Alice: National Heritage and Cultural Studies Centre and Department of Sport and Recreation, pp.120-137. Powell, K. 1990. School Sport and Political Change. Unpublished Master’s thesis. Bellville Town: University of the Western Cape. Ramsdale, E. 1946. The People and the Teachers. The Torch, 11 March:4. Randall, P. 1982. Little England On The Veld: The English Private School System in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press. Rathinsamy, N., Braam, S., Thompson, W. & Sallie M. 2004. Newtonians Reunion 1948‑2004 Commemorative Brochure. Transvaal: Newtonians Rugby Football Club. Rensburg, I. 1982. Dummy Councils. Unpublished Paper. Author’s Private Collection. Richards, T. 1999. Dancing on Our Bones: New Zealand, South Africa, Rugby and Racism. Wellington. New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. Roberts, C. 1988. ‘SACOS 1973-1988: 15 years of Sports Resistance’. Cape Town, November. Roberts, C. 1989a. Ideological control of South African sport. In: C. Roberts (ed). Sport and Transformation. Contemporary debates on South African sport. Cape Town: Township Publishing Co-operative, pp.14-22. Roberts, C. 1989b. Introduction. In: C. Roberts (ed). Sport and Transformation. Contemporary debates on South African sport. Cape Town: Township Publishing Co-operative. South African Council on Sport. 1979. Minutes of SACOS third biennial conference. Cape Town. Author’s Private Collection. South African Council on Sport. 1981. Addendum to minutes of SACOS general meeting. Paarl, September 12-13. Author’s Private Collection. South African Council on Sport. The Role of the Non-Racial Sports Person in the liberation struggle. 1983. Unpublished paper delivered at SACOS-Sport and Liberation Conference, 20-21 August. Author’s Private Collection.

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Re-engaging non-racial sport South African Council on Sport. 1988. South African Senior Schools’ Sports Association. Unpublished Booklet. Author’s Private Collection. South African Council on Sport. 1991. SACOS: Western Cape 18th Annual General Meeting, 20 October. Cape Town. Sport and the Nation. 1983. Unpublished paper delivered at SACOS-Sport and Liberation Conference. Cape Town, 20-21 August. Author’s Private Collection. Steep, K. 1984. Neo-Apartheid’s Tricameral Guise – How it will Work. The Educational Journal, 56(2), September:10-16. Students at ‘White’ Schools Under Racial Permit. 1983. Unpublished paper delivered at SACOS-Sport and Liberation Conference, 20-21 August. Author’s Private Collection. Tabata, I.B. 1982. Apartheid Cosmetics Exposed. Lusaka: Prometheus Publications, Unity Movement of South Africa. Teachers’ League of South Africa. 1992. Education And Sport: The Fraud Of ‘Non‑Racialism’. TLSA Pamphlet. The Onslaught on SACOS and Non-Racial sport. 1988. New Unity Movement Bulletin. December. The Sports Sell-Out: Part of the Deal in the Negotiations Scam. 1990. New Unity Movement Bulletin. November. Transvaal Council on Sport. 1977. Are You Practising Double Standards? Pamphlet, 14 September. Vally, S., Ramadiro, B. & Duncan, J. 2012. Enough Is A Feast: A Tribute to Dr Neville Alexander. Braamfontein, Foundation for Human Rights. Van der Horst, F. 2005. The South African Council on Sport (SACOS): The Sports Wing Of The Liberation Movement. Unpublished Paper Presentation. Sport and Liberation Conference, 14-16 October, 2005. Alice, Eastern Cape, University of Fort Hare. Van der Horst, F. 2006. Personal Interview, 8 December, Cape Town. Webster, E. & Pampallis, K. 2017. The Unresolved National Question in South Africa: Left thought under apartheid. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Western Province Council on Sport. 1991. SACOS Western Cape Region: 18th Annual General Meeting, 20 October. Williams, I. 2005. Personal Interview, 23 September, Cape Town. Wilson, H. 2004. Newtonians Reunion 1948-2004 Commemorative Brochure. Transvaal: Newtonians Rugby Football Club. Zinn, D. 1982. The President’s Council Proposals. Unpublished SACOS publication. Author’s Private Collection.

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ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES

Chapter 7 Of boots and bare feet: Footwear, race and civilisation in Australian sport before World War II Benjamin Sacks Honorary Research Fellow, University of Western Australia

Introduction In December 1867, the Melbourne Cricket Ground hosted the 11th cricket match between the rival colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. As the Victorians worked their way into a winning position, a journalist in the Australasian (Cricket, 1867:11) cast his mind back to the first such meeting a decade earlier. “Compared to the play we now witness”, the journalist declared, “the cricket of that day may be termed primitive”. This descriptor referred not only to the livestock wandering across the field in that inaugural match, but also to the players’ attire – or lack thereof. Several individuals, he recalled, had even taken the field without shoes or stockings. Fortunately, Australia’s cricketers had outgrown such behaviour; this “peculiarity” was now a thing of the past. Less than nine months earlier, however, another colonial newspaper had invoked bare feet in a very different way. When a team of Aboriginal cricketers from western Victoria arrived in Sydney to play a series of exhibition games, they appeared in European attire – including shoes – at all their engagements. Despite their creditable performances and adoption of cricketing costume, a cartoonist in the Sydney Punch (“Native Game” Not Included … 1867:112; see also de Moore, 2008:149) remained unconvinced. The players were lampooned as figures of fun: barefooted, stripped of cricketing paraphernalia and clad only in a loincloth. These incongruous attitudes towards sporting attire, and particularly sporting footwear, serve as the point of departure for this chapter. Drawing on examples from 150 years of Australian cricket and football history, this chapter considers how a focus on feet and footwear can sharpen our understanding of physical culture at the edges of empire. It begins by examining the significance of clothing and particularly footwear in the context of European societies and colonisation, especially on the Australian continent. Next, it traces the histories of cricket and football in Australia, drawing attention to the role of sporting footwear in those histories. This gambit is executed in two parts, first reflecting on the orthodox – that is, white – narrative and then turning to other, untold stories. In so doing, the

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE chapter demonstrates the very different ways that bare black and brown feet – as opposed to white feet – were understood and depicted in Australian sport. At both an individual and societal level, unshod white feet signified a lack of sophistication that was at odds with either maturity or modernity. As the Australasian’s apologetic description indicates, such feet were a ‘peculiarity’ that were at best tolerated and more frequently criticised, censured and banished to the past. Conversely, the Sydney Punch cartoon shows how race coloured popular attitudes towards bodies – and especially feet – in public sporting spaces. Not only were non-European bare feet generally accepted and encouraged on the field, they were sometimes even invented to conform to European expectations about ‘uncivilised’ peoples. As such, I argue, this focus on feet and footwear sheds light on how ideas of race and civilisation were manifested in 19th and 20th century Australian sport. More broadly, the chapter also demonstrates how a focus on sporting attire can contribute to the wider project of decolonising physical culture at the edges of empire.

Finding (one’s) feet at the edges of empire Although clothing can seem primarily functional, the way we dress serves a variety of important social purposes – purposes that scholars of sport are only beginning to explore.1 In her seminal account of dress in colonial Australia, Margaret  Maynard (1994:2) argues that clothing represents a valuable subject for cultural historians: a focus on what people wear allows scholars to render culturally visible “the historical constraints and imperatives that individuals and social groups experience … Power relations whether of class, race, age or sex, are constantly being negotiated through the practice of dress”. In western societies, dress has long been understood as a sign of so-called civilisation. A lack of clothing, or its perceived misuse, hence held strong negative associations. These attitudes were especially significant when Europeans encountered other peoples in the context of empire. In North America, for example, colonial literature cast the nakedness of some indigenous peoples as “a negation of civilisation” and the “absence of culture” (Sayer, 1997:144, cited in Kerin, 2006:82-83). A similar view took hold in Australia, where the nakedness of Aboriginal men and women was seen as confirmation of their savagery and an affront to white decency. Moreover, contemporary commentators fixated on the ‘misuse’ of clothing by Aboriginal people: donning a single boot, putting on illfitting or incongruous items, or often wearing clothing cast off by Europeans (Kerin, 1 A full account of this literature is well beyond the scope of this chapter. In general, however, scholars have shown that sportswear evolved from utilising generic outdoor, work, and leisure costumes to highly specialised, technologically advanced outfits for individual sports. For a classic account of this process, see for example Cunnington and Mansfield (1969). In terms of critical scholarship, most attention has centred on the development and significance of women’s sporting attire. Barton (2015) provides a useful introduction to work on the subject. Very few studies have investigated the intersection of sportswear with notions of race and civilisation, but examples include work from Davids (2018:47-54), Martin (1991), Sen (2015) and Vasili (1994). In terms of academic writing on sporting footwear, Thomas Turner’s (2019) account of the history of sports shoes – that is, sneakers – constitutes by far the most impressive contribution.

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2006:83; Maynard, 1994:59-74). For Maynard (1994:72), these ideas “reinforced existing bourgeois prejudices, and helped to promote the idea of the Aborigine as a clownish figure, whilst at the same time legitimising white superiority and colonial domination”. Feet and footwear were no less significant. Margo DeMello (2009:30) observes that it was considered indecent to show bare feet in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, an outlook that remained ascendant into the Victorian period and beyond. According to Western sensibilities, unshod feet were symbolically linked to humility, but also to poverty, sexuality, low social status and primitiveness. Shoes, conversely, were encoded with individual identity, group affiliation and social position (Riello & McNeil, 2011). As such, while shoes and boots provided physical protection for European feet, their symbolic value was equally significant. These attitudes were largely replicated in Australia, even if several factors – notably local climactic conditions, the influx of Scottish and Irish migrants and a lack of local leathers and boot makers – meant many people went barefooted in the early years of colonisation. By the 1830s, however, it was a mark of deprivation for adults to go unshod in Australia’s eastern colonies (Kippen, 2017; Maynard, 1994:27-28). Bare feet troubled the self-proclaimed guardians of respectability and civilised standards. Australian historian Penny Russell (2009:335) has highlighted “a deep colonial anxiety” about the degraded state of white society in Australia. Colonial elites felt their hold on civilisation was tenuous. The rustic transience of rural life and the ‘stain’ wrought by Australia’s penal colony origins threatened the dissolution of cherished standards. Bare feet were a stark reminder of these deficiencies. This is not to say bare white feet were completely taboo: it was certainly acceptable for children to go unshod; and attitudes towards bare feet were hardly static, especially at Australian beaches after the turn of the 20th  century.2 Nevertheless, bare feet mostly retained their association with poverty and disrepute. Colonial Australian newspapers frequently described destitute urban youths as “barefooted urchins”, and as late as the 1930s the Australian press used pictures of shoeless families as evidence of the suffering wrought by the Great Depression (Potts, 2006:79). As such, through most of the 19th century and into the 20th, unshod adult feet carried undesirable connotations relating to class and civilisation.

First steps: Footwear in (white) Australian cricket and football history These meanings were well understood at sporting sites in colonial Australia. As Daryl Adair (2011:2) has argued, sport was one method by which colonists could maintain an imagined bond to their distant ‘homeland’. Early settlers bred 2 Pictures of Sydney beaches in the 19th century show most people dressed in ‘English-style’ clothing – including shoes – rather than what might today pass as beachwear. By the turn of the century, one newspaper in Victoria reported very few boys and girls were wearing shoes at the seaside, “barefooted children being quite the order of the day” (Feminine Fashions… 1902:2). Bare feet became more common amongst adults in the 20th century with the rise of surfing subculture (Booth, 2012).

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE racehorses and set out on hunting expeditions, and by the 1830s organised sport – and with it gambling – was entrenched as a prominent feature of colonial life. Yet, partly because of this broad appeal, sports such as cricket and football were a site of contest for social control. Together with correct conduct, correct costume was often at the centre of this struggle. Indeed, the way that footwear was policed demonstrates how local authorities sought to uphold standards of dress on the cricket pitch and football field. This system of control was part of a broader effort to safeguard propriety and calm anxieties about the status of white civilisation in Australia. Cricket was among the first British sports to take hold in the Australian colonies. The game was first mentioned in 1803, when officers from HMS Calcutta arranged a match amongst themselves at Sydney Cove (Cumes, 1979:139). Cricket immediately attracted the support of the colonial elite and emerged as one of the most popular pastimes in and around Sydney. As new settlements were founded across the continent, so cricket followed (Pollard, 1992:2-3). The first intercolonial contests took place in the 1850s, and the game’s fortunes – and standards – were significantly enhanced in the third quarter of the 19th century by the example of skilled players from England (Mandle, 1973:519). Well before the six colonies agreed to Federation in 1901, therefore, cricket was Australia’s ‘national game’. As well as being popular, cricket was respectable. Leading figures established clubs and supported the game, while colonial newspapers extolled cricket’s virtues at every opportunity. In 1826, for instance, the Hobart Town Gazette advised its readers to abandon sports in favour of more productive pursuits – but it made an exception for “the manly game of cricket, which teaches activity, alertness, and circumspection” (On Education (Continued), 1826:4). Notwithstanding such lofty rhetoric, early cricket in Australia was rudimentary in setting, technique and attire. A retrospective account of a match in Sydney between British officers and the Australian Cricket Club in the 1830s, illustrates the latter point. According to the author, the officers took to the field in tall hats and spiked shoes, while the locals played both bareheaded and either barefooted or in their ‘stockingfeet’ (McConnell, 1886:503-504). This kind of spectacle would have been unimaginable in England, where spiked footwear was increasingly the norm and bare feet were scarcely comprehensible (Cunnington & Mansfield, 1969:20-25; Rait Kerr, 1973:51-54). In the Australian colonies, conversely, specialised cricketing footwear was relatively uncommon until at least the 1870s (Spofforth, 1894:510). Moreover, wearing boots or shoes without spikes was perilous on slippery grounds, and so players – especially working class and lower-middle class men – were often willing to discard their footwear to avoid an untimely fall (Scott, Cashman & Gibbs 1991:32; Spofforth, 1894:510). These lax standards did not escape comment for long. Cricket’s good standing in the community and its symbolic links with British civilisation demanded such behaviour be policed. In Sydney, the most prominent guardians of the game were local newspaper columnists with pseudonyms like BAT and STUMPS. They targeted improper cricketing attire and extolled local players to improve. In March 1849, for example, the Sydney Morning Herald (Cricket, 1849:3) reported that the town’s cricketers had “fallen into a very slovenly habit”, namely playing the game 140

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“unshod and unstockinged”. A few weeks later, STUMPS wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to the local newspaper. “Dear Sir, will you oblige me by answering, whether or no, in England, Cricketers play without shoes, or stockings, or whether with or without both?” (STUMPS, 1849:3). STUMPS’ insinuation was clear: playing without footwear fell well short of the standards expected of civilised Britishers. In the 1850s these efforts to ameliorate cricketing attire took on new significance as, for the first time, matches were organised between different colonies. Local pride was now very much at stake – not only in terms of the result, but also in how the teams appeared and conducted themselves. The first match between New South Wales and Victoria took place in January 1856. Just before the return match a year later, a letter from BAT once again raised concerns about unedifying dress. He called for improved standards at the upcoming the intercolonial match: This might be excused at Ballarat [a mining town in Victoria] […] but is not to be tolerated in Sydney […] Another unseemly habit, and peculiarly colonial, is to keep the field without either shoes or stockings. This has a dirty appearance, and only tends to lower the standard of the game. BAT, 1856:2 Despite BAT’s warning, several New South Wales players took the field against Victoria unshod. As we have seen, however, within a decade the incident was being determinedly written into the distant past. Writers often used phrases like ‘primitive’, ‘stone-age’ and ‘prehistoric’ to describe such scenes, almost wilfully distancing themselves from this unseemly and uncivilised heritage. This project of banishing bare feet was not an entirely imaginary one, of course. Unshod feet were becoming uncommon by the 1860s and 1870s. The principal reason for this change appears to have been action from local cricket clubs. For example, the bylaws of the Albert Cricket Club (1859:9) in Sydney contained a section on uniforms. “Any member engaged in a Match and not appearing in this Uniform”, it read, “will be disqualified from playing during the discretion of the Committee”. The establishment of the New South Wales Cricket Association in 1859 was also an important factor, as there was now one central authority to ensure standards were met, rather than leaving sartorial matters to individual clubs’ discretion. Over time, the actions of clubs, captains and the Association – as well as the ever-vigilant eye of writers like STUMPS – ensured that violations of ‘proper cricketing costume’ became the exception, rather than the rule. A similar process took hold outside of Sydney. In the mid-1920s, for instance, Queensland joined Australia’s interstate competition. Perhaps as a result, associations in some of the state’s larger towns sought to elevate the game’s standards. In 1925, a meeting of the local Cricket Association in Rockhampton featured a lengthy discussion regarding proper cricketing costume. The result was a solemn edict granting umpires the power to debar players if they were not in full cricketing costume (Proper Cricketing Costume … 1925:7). Similar movements to elevate standards of cricketing dress were soon afoot throughout the state. In Ipswich, a local umpire refused to allow a player to field without boots; he judged bootless play ‘undignified’ for an A-grade fixture (Too Much Power, 1933:9). By

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE 1934, these efforts to control players’ dress grew more concerted. The Queensland Cricket Association forbade players over the age of 16 from taking the field in shorts. In response, the Telegraph (From Top Hats … 1934:11) speculated as to the precise nature of ‘correct cricketing costume’. What this actually comprised, the author surmised, “is blissfully left in the air by the Association”. Yet if some choices of clothing may have been ambiguous, bare feet were not. In 1939, an umpire refused to allow a barefooted bowler on the field. The player’s team appealed, but the local Association sided unequivocally with the umpire (Dress for Cricket, 1939:1). As these examples show, local authorities worked hard to ensure players wore correct cricketing attire. The onus was initially on individual players, captains and clubs, but if they faltered, umpires and cricket associations would step in to ensure standards were upheld. If this pattern of disciplining feet and footwear was most striking in cricket, it was also evident in the various codes of football that took hold in the second half of the 19th century. The history of football codes was more variegated than that of cricket, with geography and class repeatedly shaping patterns of participation and spectatorship. A form of football was first played near Sydney in 1829, but the game rose to prominence in the 1850s due to an influx of young men with experience of the football played in British public schools (Collins, 2011). Within a few years, they had established rugby clubs in Sydney and a new ‘Victorian Rules’ (later Australian Rules) football code in and around Melbourne. By the 1880s Victorian Rules were firmly entrenched across Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia; rugby (and later rugby league) was the game of choice in New South Wales and Queensland. Association football (commonly known as soccer today) arrived in the 1870s, but initially made little headway. Whatever the code of football, the question of appropriate footwear was one that exercised players, administrators and observers across the land. In large part, of course, this preoccupation reflected concerns regarding safety. Irrespective of code, early football was a violent affair in which the risk of serious injury was very real.3 Football boots were any pair of leather boots or shoes that players possessed, usually sturdy working boots that finished midway up the calf. Players would affix leather strips or studs and other miscellanea to provide traction (Kemp & MacArthur, 1995). By the late 19th century, companies were manufacturing specialised football boots – many of which sought to ‘protect’ the wearer by means of rock-solid toecaps. Understandably, David Kemp and Ian MacArthur (1995:21) characterise such footwear as “battleships more than boots”. Partly as a result, contemporary play was slower, more physical and less skilful than in modern variants of football. Despite some advances in design and manufacturing in the early 20th century, football boots remained a cumbersome half-blessing until after the Second World War. Contemporary accounts attest to the limitations of these boots. On very hard grounds, the leather studs or strips provided little grip and made it difficult for players to turn quickly. Conversely, in very wet weather boots became saturated 3 In rugby, for instance, participants wore iron-toed boots known as navvies to ‘hack’ at opponents’ legs until the practice was banned in the 1870s.

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and caked in mud, which made it difficult to maintain one’s balance and dulled speed and agility. As a result of these shortcomings, many players were willing to discard their boots and play in plimsolls (rubber soled canvas shoes), stockings or even their bare feet (Sporting Notions, 1924:31). In 1877, for instance, an early exhibition game of Victorian Rules in South Australia saw a visiting player throw off his boots to increase the pace of his running in the wet conditions (Football, 1877:2). Less than a decade later, a rugby player in Queensland took similar action after finding the pitch muddy and waterlogged. According to the Morning Bulletin (Football, 1886:5), he was thereby able to elude his opponents – “who were encumbered with sodden boots” – and score a try for his side. In the 1890s, playing without boots was a regular occurrence in Sydney’s club rugby competition whenever there was intemperate weather. Yet as had been the case in cricket, this willingness to flaunt feet did not escape attention for long. Early regulations about footwear had focused on safety. The Victorian Football Association followed the English FA’s edict against iron plates, protruding nails, spikes or gutta percha [a kind of natural latex] on boots in 1877, although the latter substance was permitted from 1886; Sydney’s rugby competition had similar regulations from at least 1874 (Pennings, 2013:18; Football Rules, 1874:46). In the 1880s and 1890s, however, commentators grew increasingly concerned about the spectacle of bootless men on the football field. Reporting on a rugby match played between Rosedale and Newtown in Sydney in the 1888 season, a journalist from the Evening News (Football, 1888:8) reported one of the Newtown players had taken the field without boots or socks. “The omission”, he noted peevishly, “was more noticed than admired”. Six years later, another reporter took a similarly dim view of unshod play in soccer games, describing the players’ appearance as “very bad form” (Sydney Sporting Letter, 1894:5). Nor were such criticisms limited to Sydney. In 1895, amid a polemic about the state of football in Victoria, a local reporter paused to decry the local umpires’ habit of allowing players to remain on the field without boots on their feet (Football, 1895:3). Matters came to a head at the turn of the century. In the 1899 season, the Referees’ Association made boots mandatory in all senior games in New South Wales (Rugby Football Union, 1899:8; A Lismore Football Incident, 1899:6). Within a few years, comparable restrictions were enacted across Australia and in each of the codes of football aside from soccer. In Western Australia, where Victorian Rules was the code of choice, local authorities were forced to repeatedly uphold footwear standards. In 1903, a third-grade game was briefly suspended after the captain of one side objected to their opponents’ bare feet (Football, 1903:2). As late as 1921, a second-grade match was halted for the same reason. One local reporter approved of such regulations, which he argued were “for the good of the game” in the state: We are now under the league, and as league rules say that players must have their feet covered, it is only right that it should be observed. Apart from this, it does not look very nice to see men taking part in a game barefooted. Football in Bare Feet, 1921:7

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE This argument went beyond aesthetics, of course. Western Australia was the last crown colony established in Australia and had only been granted self-government in 1890 – a mere 11 years before Federation. As such, its self-styled respectable denizens were eager to prove they were ‘up to the mark’ of their more established brethren in the east. Under these circumstances, such uncivilised conduct on the football field had to be left behind.4 This view that bootless play was something to be ‘grown out of’ went far beyond Western Australia. Throughout the period of study, schoolboy footballers often played in their bare feet without eliciting censure (Schoolboys Play, 1927:14; England Wins, 1932:5). More generally, the spectacle of young people playing football and cricket barefooted was sometimes held up to confirm the romantic self-image of Australian sport. As early as 1881, the Australasian Sketcher (Cricket in Its Beginnings, 1881:6) featured a drawing depicting a half-dozen barefooted children playing cricket with a kerosene tin for a wicket. The implicit suggestion was that this was a ‘democratic’ activity in which every Australian boy could take part. In 1921, the Truth (Sunday Observances, 1921:6) described a similar scene at a local park at Sydney: “Matches and imitation matches in all stages of development, and participated in by all sorts, classes and sizes from the regulation-flannelled youth to the barefooted, ragged-trousered nipper, are contested with the keenness of a test game”. “Their cricket and football matches”, the author surmised, “are A WHOLESOME TONIC TO STODGINESS”. In these circumstances, shaped not only by age but also the class background of the participants, barefooted play was naïf but wholesome. Beyond a certain age and level of play, however, players were expected to don appropriate footwear. Perhaps the best illustration of this need to ‘grow out of’ bare feet was Herbert ‘Dally’ Messenger, the celebrated rugby player whose defection to the new Rugby League competition in 1907 helped establish the code in Australia. Born in 1883, the young Messenger played in his bare feet on suburban parks around Sydney and only took to covering his feet (initially with sandshoes) when he began playing for a semi-social club side in 1900. He finally entered the first-grade scene in 1905, whereupon he took to wearing boots in compliance with the Association’s regulations (Fagan & Messenger, 2007). Even after his retirement, Messenger’s early barefooted prowess remained an important part of his legend. Indeed, in 1932 the Sydney Sun (In Bare Feet!, 1932:10) reported on a strange letter that had been sent to the New South Wales Rugby League. What was the reason, its author asked, that boots were required in all matches? In response, the Sun pointed to Messenger’s renunciation of bare feet to demonstrate that propriety was as significant as protection: “The writer of the letter might have some satisfaction in the knowledge that Dally Messenger played and kicked just as well with bare feet as he did with boots. Still it wouldn’t look quite the thing in an international match!” Messenger’s example demonstrates the more general meaning of bare feet in white Australian sport on an individual level. Bare feet were acceptable and sometimes 4 For further discussion of the significance of intercolonial politics regarding football and Western Australia’s self-image, see Barker (2004).

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even admirable at the early stages of individual or social development, albeit they carried clear working-class connotations. As a child – or indeed a community – reached maturity, however, a barefooted appearance signified a lack of decorum and needed to be outgrown. To this end, captains, officials, administrators and members of the public were all engaged in efforts to uphold dress standards on cricket pitches and football fields. More generally, their collective vigilance was part of a broader effort to safeguard propriety and guide Australian boys – and the Australian nation – towards the standards expected in a ‘civilised’ white community.

On the other foot: Footwear and marginalised histories of cricket and football in Australia If this sketch of bare feet in Australian sport is instructive, it is by no means exhaustive. Indeed, this coloniser-centric approach does not by itself assist in decolonising physical culture. Instead, we must turn to consider the meaning of bare black (and brown) feet – both to the athletes involved and to the (white) Australian public more generally. Indeed, a very different set of meanings and expectations were associated with non-white feet in Australian sport. This was the case for both Indigenous Australians and other non-white athletes who travelled to Australia. Their willingness to play unshod was augmented by the frequent willingness of white audiences to see and even imagine such displays from ‘primitive’ peoples. In person and by reputation, bare feet were used to demonstrate primitiveness, and to entertain and titillate white audiences. By examining black and brown feet in Australian cricket and football, we can draw attention to the ways that race was constructed, enacted and even performed through the medium of sporting dress. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (together termed Indigenous Australians) are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent.5 The onset of colonisation in 1788 brought with it conflict, suffering and dispossession for Indigenous peoples. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, British settlers and officials increasingly encroached on their territory and their way of life – including the way they dressed. Europeans found Indigenous nakedness curious and uncivilised, and Indigenous men and women were soon under continual pressure to assume white clothing. As Maynard (1994:72) observes, by the 1840s and 1850s “the insidious effects of contact with whites meant that traditional clothing habits were gradually replaced by European dress”. Even so, Indigenous peoples adopted these dress habits in a “sporadic and idiosyncratic” manner, suggesting that most did not share Europeans’ preoccupation with projecting propriety and civilisation. This insouciance certainly characterised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander attitudes towards footwear. While some communities sporadically used footwear 5 Unsurprisingly given their (at least) 40,000-year tenure on the continent, there is great diversity across different Indigenous communities in Australia, each with its own constellation of cultures, customs and languages. This chapter uses the term ‘Indigenous’ to group these individuals and communities, while acknowledging that this approach singularly fails to capture the differences between them and their distinctive experiences of culture and colonisation.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE made from bark, feathers and other materials before European contact, they were predominantly used to protect injured feet or prevent injury in extremely rough or hot conditions (Akerman, 2005). As such, there is scant evidence of any cultural taboo surrounding bare feet in Indigenous communities. Indeed, throughout the period of study many Indigenous Australians found European-style shoes unpleasant and consequently eschewed such footwear in their daily lives.6 Given these attitudes towards footwear and the aforementioned limitations of early boots, it is hardly surprising that Indigenous men and women played European sports bare feet. Bare feet were particularly advantageous in football. Fleet-footed Indigenous players were able to evade their booted adversaries with ease – a tactic that often led to white opponents targeting their shins to slow them down (Rugby League, 1928:9; Sporting Notions, 1928:39). Indigenous athletes took to football soon after it was established in Australia.7 By 1871 they had clearly learned to play by Victorian Rules: Indigenous men in eastern Victoria played – and defeated – the local Europeans in both football and cricket (Lake Town, 1871:4). Despite sustained involvement in the 19th and 20th centuries, few players participated at the highest level of the game until the 1980s. They were largely excluded due to a combination of demography (they tended to live outside of urban centres), segregationist laws and prevailing racist attitudes. Instead, Indigenous athletes had to ‘force their way in’. As Roy Hay and Athas Zafiris (2017) have argued, “they formed their own teams and played with each other, or tried to break into local activities or competitions when they could”. A similar pattern was evident in rugby, although rugby league was relatively more welcoming for Indigenous peoples than other football codes (Tatz 1995:10). Indigenous peoples were playing the game by the 1890s (Queensland Rugby Union, 1894:302), but even in rugby league it was only from the 1930s that they made a lasting mark at the top level of the sport. While football enjoys a strong link with Indigenous communities at present, the same cannot be said for cricket. The first recorded Indigenous involvement in cricket took place in February 1854 at Port Lincoln, South Australia (Juvenile Native Missionary Society, 1854:3). Bernard Whimpress (1999:255-259) has shown that several pockets of Aboriginal cricket were established in the 19th century, but no Aboriginal player or team was able to make headway in the game without interruption. In the first half of the 20th century Indigenous interest in cricket dwindled as opportunities to play were stifled by a combination of segregationist laws and unwelcoming attitudes. Yet, even as they were actively excluded from the sport, Aboriginal cricketers consistently aroused fascination amongst white audiences. This fascination primarily focused on the physical spectacle of their bodies. Indeed, David Sampson (2000:172) argues that the 1868 Aboriginal side that toured Australia and then Britain relied on “images of primitivism” – notably 6 For example, the term for non-Indigenous footwear in most of the eastern and northern Pilbara and Western Desert languages is jina buka, literally ‘stinking feet’ (Akerman, 2005:59). 7 Indeed, some conjecture remains over whether a traditional Indigenous game called Marn Grook influenced Victorian Rules. In general, however, historians have been skeptical of this claim. See Collins (2011) for a critical view of the Indigenous origins of football. For a more sympathetic account, see Hallinan & Judd (2012).

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identifiably ‘native customs’ such as throwing boomerangs and spears, dancing or uttering war cries – to create a spectacle for white audiences. Overly orthodox cricketing performances and apparel, he points out, “disappointed expectations that they might provide gimmickry” and necessitated the tourists perform their primitivism. In light of white audiences’ fixation on images of primitivism, bare feet inevitably attracted attention and comment. Bare black feet were held as evidence of ‘natural’ athletic ability – a trope that has retained currency into the 21st century. Yet for white audiences, an unshod appearance also rendered Indigenous athletes amusing and confirmed their inescapably ‘primitive’ condition. In 1892, a team from the Victorian countryside visited Melbourne to play against Richmond, one of the largest football clubs in Melbourne. The team included three Aboriginal players from the nearby Coranderrk station. Despite the visiting side’s spirited and skilful showing, the Herald (Football, 1892:4) observed that it was “very funny to see them play without boots”. The spectacle of bare black feet was clearly a crowd pleaser. Indeed, some 40 years later a widely syndicated newspaper column called on some shrewd entrepreneur to take barefooted Indigenous footballers on tour across the Empire (Aborigines in Sport, 1930:6). If anything, bare black feet were even more notable in the genteel sport of cricket. Perhaps the most successful barefooted Aboriginal cricketer was Harry Hewitt, a Ngarrindjeri man who grew up on the Point McLeay mission in South Australia. Although he won fame for his accomplishments outside of sport, Hewitt was best known as an exceptional athlete in the 1880s and 1890s (Whimpress, 1999:140‑142). He was particularly skilled at football and cricket, both of which he played to a high level in his bare feet. Indeed, upon his death the Adelaide Observer wrote “his prowess as an all-round man when he played – always without boots – in the Senior Association is well remembered” (An Aboriginal Tragedy, 1907:41). If Hewitt’s bare feet were a marvel for football spectators, they generally caused amusement for crowds at cricket matches. In a ‘North vs. South’ game in Adelaide in 1893, Hewitt “divested himself of his boots and stalked on to the field without leg-guards” before “tucking his trousers up to his knees” and scoring 41 runs in no time (The Adelaide Oval, 1893:7). A similar spectacle unfolded in 1901, when Hewitt captained an Aboriginal 11 against a suburban side to commemorate the opening of a new pavilion. As he was wont to do, the Evening Journal reported, Hewitt “disregarded civilized conventionalities by batting not only without leg guards but without boots and stockings” (New Pavilion… 1901:3). On both occasions, the white crowd greeted his unshod appearance with unbridled hilarity. While many Indigenous cricketers and footballers certainly did prefer playing unshod, the myth of Aboriginal bare feet in sport frequently outstripped reality. As we have seen, the 1868 Aboriginal cricket team were satirised as barefooted savages in Sydney despite wearing shoes as part of full cricketing costume. Bare feet were invoked in a similar manner in contemporary discussion of Eddie Gilbert, an Indigenous fast bowler who played first-class cricket for Queensland. Having grown up on Barambah Aboriginal Reserve near Brisbane, Gilbert took up cricket at a young age and was selected to play for Queensland in 1930 after strong

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE performances in local competitions. From the outset, as Whimpress (1999:242) notes, “Gilbert was portrayed … as something of a comic savage who found it uncomfortable to play in boots, preferring bare feet”. Yet there is scant evidence that Gilbert played more than one game unshod – and that was at a country carnival in 1930. Indeed, those who played and grew up with Gilbert rejected the suggestion that he frequently went unshod, whether on the cricket pitch or in daily life (Edwards, 1992:260). Nevertheless, based on this solitary incident and his (not uncommon) problems finding comfortable bowling boots, local and interstate newspapers fixated on Gilbert’s feet. One newspaper petitioned for him to play in special shoes to give his feet “something like their accustomed freedom” (Gilbert’s Cricket Boots, 1933:13), while another published a heavily racialised poem calling for his feet to be ‘unbound’: Eddy’s adamantine sole that bush nuts crack! Why dim their prowess in mere ‘tan’ or ‘black’? Eddy’s ancestral foot – primordial shape, With aptitudes combined of man and ape – For feet like these should clumsy Bluchers gape? Sidelights, 1933: 20 This preoccupation with Gilbert’s feet had clear racial overtones. Just as with the 1868 Aboriginal team, the insistence that Gilbert played barefooted – or that he should – was emblematic of how Aboriginal athletes were actively excluded from ‘civilised’ white Australia. Irrespective of how they actually dressed, Gilbert and other Aboriginal cricketers would remain primitive, barefooted savages in the minds of the Australian public. Barefooted play – real or imagined – was not limited to Indigenous athletes, of course. From the 1880s, readers of Australian newspapers and magazines were treated to accounts of Indians, West Indians and Pacific Islanders playing cricket or football unshod, apparently impervious to either pain or civilised standards. In 1938, an Indian soccer (football) team arrived in Australia to play a series of matches against local opposition. Commentators puzzled over how to describe these brown and barefooted – but clearly well-educated and impeccably polite – young men. “These Indians speak English fluently”, one reporter marvelled, “and with more culture than many of our own people” (No Doubt Now… 1938:21). Coverage was nevertheless fixed on the Indians’ feet throughout their stay, with headlines like ‘Barefooted Indians Will Show Us Tricky Soccer’ and columns detailing the footwear preferences of each member of the squad (Barefooted Indians… 1938:2; Indians Do Better… 1938:9). The Indians’ undoubted skill and the novelty of their appearance drew large crowds and raised impressive gate monies. Barefooted Pacific Islanders were even more intriguing for Australian audiences. Islanders took up cricket in the last quarter of the 19th century, often playing the game in a highly distinctive manner (Sacks, 2019). Rumours of this fantastical cricket were confirmed when a Fijian side toured Australia in 1907-1908. Upon their arrival in Sydney, the proprietor of their hotel was horrified to find “the visitors

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were without shoes and stockings, and various other articles of attire necessary according to European ideas” (Society Doings in Sydney, 1907:50). On the field, however, crowds flocked to see the Fijians play not only bootless, but wearing a sulu (waist cloth) and with coconut oil streaked over their shirtless bodies. In reality, their on-field performances were often less about cricket and more public displays of Fijian dances, chants and singing in conspicuously traditional costume. As Nicole Anae (2013) has argued, the Fijians’ apparel – including their bare feet – was an exercise in performance, designed to create an enticing spectacle for local crowds. They were certainly successful in their efforts: more than 9,000 spectators attended some games and the tour was a commercial success. While bare feet were only one small part of the Fijians’ appeal, their example is instructive because it draws attention to instances where non-white athletes deliberately performed primitiveness and alterity to engage and entertain white audiences. Indigenous athletes sometimes adopted a similar strategy. Perhaps the best illustration of this approach was the so-called Palm Island ‘All Blacks’, an Indigenous rugby league side from Northern Queensland who played a series of exhibition matches in the 1920s and 1930s. Palm Island had served as a government-operated settlement for Indigenous peoples since 1918. The island’s superintendent introduced rugby league football soon afterwards and the inhabitants took to the game with enthusiasm and skill (Palm Island Settlement, 1923:4; Watson, 2010). Within a few years, Palm Island’s white officials were organising excursions to nearby towns, where the visitors played football and gave corroborees and dances to entertain white audiences (Northern Notes and News, 1924:20; Football, 1925:5). By 1928, word of their prowess and popularity reached Brisbane and they were invited to play two exhibition games against white representative sides over Easter. As they had done in all their previous matches, the Palm Islanders played in their bare feet; their white opponents donned sandshoes to avoid inflicting injury while preserving propriety. The games were a spectacular success. A record 10 000 people attended the first match, resulting in a windfall far in excess of previous Easter matches. While the Palm Islanders were clearly talented athletes, it was not their footballing skill alone that drew such large crowds. Boomerang demonstrations, dancing and chanting entertained the spectators before the matches; once the whistle was blown the Palm Islanders’ somersaulting

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Figure 7.1 A cricketer from Fiji visiting Adelaide , c. 1908 [PRG 280/1/13/344]’. Source: State Library of South Australia

CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE celebrations and ‘quaint’ barefooted appearance were the main draws. To this end, local newspaper reports featured subtitles like ‘Football in Bare Feet at Exhibition’ and ‘Novel and spectacular game’ (Aborigines in Favour, 1928:7; Rugby League, 1928:7). Indeed, the Telegraph (Rugby League Football, 1928:13) admitted, “It is probable that the crowd regarded the game as something in the way of entertainment rather than serious football”. But what entertainment! Their visit was so successful they returned to Brisbane the following year, as well as playing in the northern towns of Townsville and Mackay in front of large and enthusiastic crowds. In the end, it was only the death of the superintendent in 1930 that curtailed further visits to Brisbane (Rugby Opening, 1930:8; Palm Island Tragedy, 1930:4). The popularity of the Palm Island ‘All Blacks’ was striking but hardly atypical. Indigenous football and cricket teams frequently drew raucous approval from white audiences, particularly when they comported themselves in an identifiably ‘uncivilised’ manner. Bare black feet were often an important part of this presentation, signifying as they did the inherent difference of Indigenous athletes. With this image confirmed, white audiences could remain comfortable in their view of Indigenous inferiority – even if athletes could symbolically transgress this order by winning the game itself. Conversely, Maynard (1994:72) contends, colonial society frequently ridiculed Indigenous men and women who adopted some degree of European dress. “This was partly on moral grounds”, she explains, “but also because of the whites’ anxiety to preserve their own racial superiority”. In any event, the example of Eddie Gilbert shows that the absence of such clear markers of difference could not prevent white spectators and journalists imagining them. Yet together with the Fijian cricketers, the Palm Island footballers also demonstrate that a subordinate position did not entirely preclude agency. White audiences’ thirst for alterity and primitivism provided Indigenous and other non‑white athletes with opportunities to ‘play the part’ to gain an advantage. When they indulged their audiences, these athletes were rewarded for their efforts with money, goods, status and social access that were otherwise difficult to obtain (Sampson 2000:129). Bare feet were only one part of this performance, of course, but in the context of British sport – and especially cricket – they provided a strikingly incongruous image for white audiences to enjoy. While some non-white athletes played unshod because they had no access to boots or preferred bare feet, we should therefore be open to the idea that others chose to do so – not in spite of the reaction it would elicit but because of it. In this context, the willingness of black and brown footballers and cricketers to provide a ‘novel’ and ‘comic’ spectacle can be recast as a deliberate, strategic act.

Conclusion These disparate examples speak to the ways that bare feet were understood in Australian sport before World War II. From at least the 1840s, white bare feet were subject to regulation and social disapprobation in public sporting spaces. Black and brown feet had a very different significance for both the athletes involved

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and the white audiences who flocked to see them. In the case of Indigenous and other non-white athletes, barefootedness was part of a suite of dress-related behaviours that marked them as ‘different’ and ‘uncivilised’. As such, their unshod feet were generally expected, celebrated and even invented. For their part, nonwhite athletes could and often did use this white fascination with primitiveness and alterity to their advantage. This history therefore elucidates broader discourses of civilisation and progress that shaped social behaviour in the 19th and 20th centuries. The story of bare feet in Australian sport is fundamentally a local one. The nation’s vast geography, relatively harsh climate and class- and race-based anxieties helped shape the way colonisers – and particularly colonial elites – understood and sought to control bodies in sporting and other contexts. Moreover, the diverse ways that Indigenous Australians received European dress and sport were not necessarily repeated in other imperial milieux. Even so, several features of this chapter are of broader interest to historians of sport and physical culture. As Keith Rathbone (2019) has argued with respect to women’s sporting attire in France, a focus on dress can cut through simple narratives of ‘progress’ to reveal underlying – and ongoing – processes of contestation. While Rathbone’s focus is on discourses of gender, the example of bare feet demonstrates that sporting dress is similarly helpful in reading ideas pertaining to class, geography and especially ethnicity/race. This history therefore confirms that sporting attire is a potentially fruitful site of enquiry for historians of sport. By considering the way players dress, and the way their dress is controlled, we can cast new light on the ways that power operates through sport and through society. More specifically, this treatise on sartorial sporting politics demonstrates that a focus on dress can assist in decolonising physical culture at the edges of empire. As John Hargreaves (1985:139) has argued, the rationalist bias in Western culture holds that the body must be disciplined for civilisation to survive. Bare feet – and bare bodies, of course – signified the failure of this process. Yet such assumptions were hardly uncontested in imperial sporting spaces. By interrogating colonised peoples’ attitudes towards sporting dress, we move past the colonial implication that any differences in sartorial attitudes and practices were rooted in ‘primitiveness’ or ignorance. In so doing, we can begin to uncover the agency of those athletes who decided that playing without boots was not bootless at all.

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Sun. 1932. In Bare Feet! 28 April:10. Sunday Mail. 1928. Aborigines in Favour. 8 April:7. Swan Express. 1903. Football. 16 May:2. Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser. 1874. Football Rules. 11 July:46. Sydney Morning Herald. 1849. Cricket. 6 March:3. Sydney Morning Herald. 1856. BAT. To the Editor. 25 December:2. Sydney Punch. 1867. “Native Game” Not Included in Mr Driver’s Act. 2 March:112. Tatz, C. 1995. Obstacle Race: Aborigines in Sport. Kensington: New South Wales University Press. Telegraph. 1928. Rugby League Football. 9 April:13. Telegraph. 1934. From Top Hats and Silk Stockings to Short. 3 March:11. Telegraph. 1938. No Doubt Now About These Indians! 25 August:21. Townsville Daily Bulletin. 1925. Football. 12 August:5. Townsville Daily Bulletin. 1932. England Wins. 27 July:5. Truth. 1921. Sunday Observances. 14 August:6. Turner, T. 2019. The Sports Shoe: A History from Field to Fashion. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts. Vasili, P. 1994. The right kind of fellows: Nigerian football tourists as agents of Europeanisation. International Journal of the History of Sport, 11(2):191-211. Watson, J. 2010. Palm Island: Through a Long Lens. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Western Champion. 1924. Northern Notes and News. 20 December:20. Whimpress, B. 1999. Passport to Nowhere: Aborigines in Australian Cricket, 1850-1939. Sydney: Walla Walla Press. Wingham Chronicle. 1899. A Lismore Football Incident. 26 August:6.

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Chapter 8 Health for the masses? Physical culture, radio and the state in 1930s Ireland Conor Heffernan Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Austin H.J. Lutcher Starke Centre for Physical Culture and Sports

Introduction The people of this country have the tradition of being of good stock and physique. Compared with other countries, we can, to my own knowledge produce a very high percentage of men and women who are potentially physically fit. At the same time, we neglect physical culture more than any other nation. There has been no great national drive to preserve it, as in Germany, Italy and the middle European countries. This is an incalculable loss to our country … John Lucy, 1937:7 Writing in Keep Fit & Cheerful in 1937, Captain John Lucy simultaneously spoke of Ireland’s proud physical heritage and its current physical degeneration. Lucy, who had served in the First World War, now classed himself as one of the Irish Free state’s premier physical culture authorities. Through his weekly radio programmes on Radio Athlone, Ireland’s largest radio network, Lucy had access to a captive audience of men, women and children. Using this medium to improve individual health, and in doing so, improve the state’s health, Lucy stressed the need for individual action in all matters of health and fitness. The Free states’s future was, according to Lucy, predicated on the availability of a fit and healthy citizenry, one strong in mind, body and spirit (Lucy, 1937:7-10). Such rhetoric was commonplace across Europe during the 1930s. Daphné Bolz (2012:1999-2010) previously discussed the transnational and cross-political support found for more state physical education and physical activity in several European countries at this time. For many, the 1930s was certainly a decade when fascist Germany and Italy led the way in physical education, as evidenced by their vast state gymnastics programmes which inspired both envy and awe in the nation’s geopolitical rivals. Physical culture as endorsed by the state was, as attested in Charlotte MacDonald’s (2013:12-55) study of 1930s British physical culture, linked to a nation’s geopolitical survival. Aside from internal eugenic concerns about producing healthier

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE generations, politicians and public commentators began stressing the need for a fit corps of troops, ready for any future conflicts. In Great Britain, such concerns had a long history, dating to at least the Crimean War (Campbell, 2012:6). During the 1930s France likewise positioned physical culture as a reaction to the horrors of the Great War when France’s participation was notable for her high mortality rates. Debates during 1920s in France spoke of lost generations and depressed masculinities (Tumblety, 2013:1-20). During the 1930s, efforts to revive French military strength, as embodied by the nation’s citizenry, engendered a great deal of public anxiety and debate. In Germany and Italy, where large scale programmes were being run, the intense focus directed towards state physical culture belied an underlying anxiety about the nation’s health (Bolz, 2012:1999). Given the fact that numerous states took a greater interest in physical culture during this time, Lucy’s comments may appear somewhat banal. Britain, France, Italy and Germany, among others, saw commentators and politicians continually link individual health to national prosperity. What distinguished these countries from the Irish Free state was their geopolitical importance. Ireland, unlike the abovementioned nations, was a small, politically neutral, country. Having gained independence from Great Britain in 1921, the Irish Free state concerned itself more with political stability during these years rather than military conquest or glory (Neary & O’Gráda, 1991: 250-256). The sundering of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the Irish Free state in 1920 meant, however, that geopolitical concerns continued to influence policymaking in the Free state. Northern Ireland, unlike the Free state which gained independence from Great Britain in 1921, remained part of Great Britain and, in fact, continued to be an important military outpost (Bogdanovic, 2017: 89-92). This meant that despite its relative insignificance on the global stage, many of the discourses and debates permeating the Irish Free state echoed those found in other parts of Europe. In the past, studies of Irish physical culture have stressed the importance of foreign markets and ideals. Work on Eugen Sandow, for example, emphasized his influence in popularizing physical culture devices and monographs in pre-independence Ireland (Heffernan, 2019a:402-412). Likewise, research on individual Irish physical culturists, like W.N. Kerr, stressed their reliance on British and American periodicals (Heffernan 2019b: 1-24). Although tentative, such work points to the permeability of foreign physical culture discourses in Ireland. Similarly, research on physical culture has tended to focus, at times exclusively, on powerful nations. Exceptions to this, like Simon Creak’s (2014:12-33) work on Laos, speak to the advantages found in studying relatively smaller nations. As will be shown, broader European anxieties found expression in the politically neutral and recently independent Ireland. Irish commentators expressed many of the same hopes and desires as their European counterparts but adapted them to the local context. 1930s physical culture in the Irish Free state was both a mimicking, and a reaction to the changed European climate. Studying this phenomenon, the chapter is divided into three parts. First, attention is given to physical culture in Ireland and Europe during the 1930s. This section will discuss the prevailing trends and debates attached to the subject, highlighting, in particular, causes for concern within the

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Irish context. Following this, attention will be given to the physical culture radio broadcasts of John Lucy and Lieutenant Tichy of the Irish military. Lucy and Tichy were two of the most influential and popular voices on Irish physical culture at this time. Capitalising on the growing importance of the radio, itself an underexplored area in the historiography of physical culture, both shaped Irish perceptions and expectations of physical culture. Critically both cast Irish physical culture against the backdrop of European gymnastics and state endorsed fitness programmes. The chapter concludes by examining the success of Lucy and Tichy in elevating physical culture’s importance in Ireland. This way, the chapter highlights how European concerns influenced Irish physical culture, and, in turn, were adapted to the Irish context.

Physical culture and Ireland in the 1930s Surveying the British context, Michael Anton Budd conceptualised the European interest in physical culture as a series of waves beginning in the early to middle 19th century and moving into the 20th (Budd, 1997:xi-xiv). Budd’s own work ended in 1914, prior to the Great War, but he extended his concept to 1929. Certainly, it is true that the late 1920s saw a new turn in physical culture. Whereas the early 20th century was defined by an individual interest in physical culture, the interwar period saw a much greater emphasis placed on group physical culture as a form of statehood. Why was this the case and how powerful was this movement? Writing in Managing the Body, one of the most important contributions on British physical culture, Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska noted that “the iconic status of the fit male body became a powerful national symbol in Britain and elsewhere during the 1920s and 1930s” (2010:196). Seeking to discover why the search for strong men, and in some cases, women, was not confined to the fascist dictatorships found in Italy and Germany, Zweiniger-Bargielowska cited fears about declining family sizes, degenerating health, the debilitating effects of modernity and a growing militarism (2010:195-210). Despite their relative political differences, similar concerns were found in Nazi Germany where the National Socialist Party positioned the fit, healthy and strong body as a cornerstone of a new German nation. This resulted in the growth of state endorsed athletic clubs, youth movements and mass exercise programmes. Michael Hau (2017:8-14) found that although the German state had long taken an interest in public exercise programmes, it was under the Nazis that individual exercise was used to create a unified and Nazi infused sense of Germanness. The influence mass gymnastics had on a citizenry should not be underestimated. Kimberly Jannarone’s recent article (2019:1-27) on Sokol gymnastics stressed the embodied patriotism often stirred during gymnastic displays. Nazi Germany is one of the most obvious examples of state endorsed fitness programmes, but similar trends have been found in Italy (Bolz, 2012:1999-2005) and France (Tumblety, 2013:1-23). German and Italian state gymnastics inspired commentators in Great Britain and Ireland to create comparable systems This was not without its problems Charlotte MacDonald (2013:45-90) found that although politicians and public health officials

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE in Britain wanted to emulate the German system, there was an unease about the prospect of using the mandatory participation systems found in mainland Europe. Driven by a sense that Britain was synonymous with democracy, efforts were instead made to create voluntary exercise programmes across the British Empire. British lawmakers could then be seen to appear modern in endorsing state exercise without the accusation of forcing people to exercise. The most obvious example of this was the creation of a Physical Training and Recreation Act in 1937 which originated in England and resulted in comparable acts across the Empire in Canada, Australia and New Zealand (MacDonald, 2013:55-98). Endorsed among great fanfare, the Act funded numerous sporting clubs, volunteer services and teacher training programmes. Fizzling out during the early 1940s owing to the Second World War, the Act’s global reach spoke of how ubiquitous concerns about state welfare had become. In the Irish Free state, a peculiar situation was occurring. Politicians and public health officials began to appropriate the language of state physical culture without many of the pressing concerns. Debates began to center then on the degeneration of the Irish people and the need for physical activity. Whereas Britain, Germany, France and other countries espoused similar beliefs, they had geopolitical and imperial concerns almost entirely absent from the Irish context. This did not diminish the strength of this belief in Ireland which, incidentally, dated to the mid1920s. In newspapers, a series of anonymous contributors began to petition for some form of state intervention in physical culture. A regular contributor who had a strong personal belief in physical culture was ‘Periscope’ from the south of Ireland. Believing that his own county, Cork, had degenerated physically, Periscope issued a series of scathing accusations against his birthplace. His barbs were aimed at both Cork’s climate and its weakened population. Several reasons why – the climate of Cork City is not one conducive to sound physical condition, chiefly because it is a most relaxing climate, the atmosphere being so excessively humid that ‘pep’ the indefinite factor in energy and abounding vitality, is at a sad discount … Unquestionably the young men of Cork to-day are very inferior, physically and intellectually, to the young men of Cork thirty or forty years ago … Periscope, 1925:6 Periscope’s diatribes, which continued throughout the remainder of the decade, were not fringe opinions. They were echoed by several of his contemporaries. Through their endorsements, we gain an insight into some of the prevailing fears of the age. Elcono’s (1924:5) support for Periscope’s writings the previous year, was accompanied with the claim that “modern inventions have made life too easy for a good many of the young people we see lolling lazily in motor cars or riding on the train cars”. Periscope’s other explicit fans, like Seamus O’Connaill, likewise endorsed his belief in the degeneration of Irishmen and women (Periscope 1925:4). Such concerns continued into the following decade, a point discussed in the next section, but it is important to stress that they did not appear in a vacuum.

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Whereas Periscope’s importance in influencing public debates can be questioned, his was not the only voice. Far more important was General Mulcahy, an Irish general and politician with a particular enthusiasm for physical culture. A member of the Irish Free state army until 1924, Mulcahy’s political career – serving as Minister for Defence and Minister for Local Government and Public Health at the time – was defined by his belief in state intervention. This was especially true in the realm of physical culture. As early as 1928, Mulcahy publicly petitioned for the creation of an official state-run physical culture institute (Physical Culture: General Mulcahy’s Scheme … 1928:7). This, he believed, would create healthy generations and help off-set the supposedly wayward influence of American culture in Irish society. Barbara O’Connor (2005:89-100), among others, stressed the fear among politicians and religious officials in the late 1920s and early 1930s that American movies, music and customs were having a debilitating effect on Irishmen and women. This fear was not confined to Ireland (ZweinigerBargielowska, 2006:595-610) but it fueled Mulcahy’s passion for physical culture. By the early 1930s, Mulcahy’s interest in physical culture reached something of a fever pitch. Speaking in the Dáil, Ireland’s legislative house, when he was no longer in government, Mulcahy spoke passionately about using military instructors to teach physical education to the masses. … in ordinary circumstances the country would look to the Army to provide such a machinery of instructors as would enable physical instruction of a sound kind to impress itself … Mulcahy, 1938 Mulcahy’s passion for physical culture never wavered. What changed was his belief in how the state should oversee the implementation of it. As a Minister in the 1920s, Mulcahy pushed for government funded training programmes alongside teacher training colleges. Influenced, in part, by the growing militarisation of physical culture in other states, Mulcahy pushed for military involvement during the 1930s. Mulcahy and individuals like Periscope were perhaps extreme in their zealousness for physical culture, but they represented a line of thought in Ireland that was inherently global in influence. This system of thought privileged strong and healthy physiques as emblems of the state’s prestige and also its inherent strength. It was, in Joseph Alter’s (2011:56-88) terms, an embodied sense of nationalism. There was just one problem. As a newly independent nation, the Irish Free state found itself in a perilous financial situation. This, as Neary & Ó’Gráda (1991:250‑260) demonstrated, embedded a financial conservatism in Irish politics which oftentimes meant that funding for recreational projects was lacking. Efforts to fund physical education in Ireland ran into this very problem during the 1920s. In 1922, school teachers and policymakers met to discuss changes to the school curriculum. The first gathering of its kind since Irish independence the previous year, the meeting resulted in a complete overhaul of the curriculum, which included the formalisation of physical education in Irish schools (O’Boyle, 1986:176). Prior to this time, physical education was sparsely taught in Irish schools, oftentimes with lackluster results. Met with a great fanfare in the Irish media, the decision was overturned by the end of the

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE decade when it became apparent that the Ministry for Education was unable to provide substantial funding (Walsh, 2005:253-260). This situation was echoed in the sporting sphere. Paul Rouse’s (2015:145-220) extensive study of Irish sport found that despite a widespread acceptance that sport and physical education were vital subjects, Irish governments in the late 1920s and early 1930s often proved unwilling and unable to provide substantial funding. The lack of substantial state funding added to the military’s importance in the realm of physical culture. Aside from the growing emphasis placed on military and state physical culture in Ireland and mainland Europe, the military in Ireland offered a low-cost option. Military recruits in Ireland had been trained in physical drill since the mid-19th century. From the early 20th century, military instructors were used in recreational settings to train schoolchildren (Moran, 2013:12-48). They were one of the best trained bodies in Ireland and, given the growing emphasis placed on state physical culture, seemed to be the ideal solution. It was no surprise then, that Ireland’s most outspoken physical culture supporters were former or current military men.

Physical culture programmes in Ireland In post war Germany a new spirit was fanned and flamed. Every worker gave extra time every day for the fatherland. Physical culture was fostered under the most difficult of circumstances … John Lucy, 1937:79 When speaking of Irish physical culture personalities during the 1930s, there are two men who led the way in popularising the subject. The first, John F. Lucy, spent several months publicising the value of physical culture on Radio Athlone. The other, Lieutenant Josef Tichy, was a visiting officer to the Irish Free state army during the 1930s who, likewise, spoke on Radio Athlone. Previous studies (Budd, 1997) have stressed the importance of new mediums like photography and film in marketing physical culture practices during the early 20th century. Far less attention has been placed on the radio as a vital influence, especially during the 1930s. Richard Hayne’s (2009:25-48) work on sports broadcasting during the 1930s explained the importance of the radio in the British sporting world at this time. Likewise, Mike Huggins (2007:491-500) found that despite the difficulties in covering and broadcasting games, stations like the BBC became integral parts of peoples’ sporting enjoyment. Driven by the pressures outlined earlier, the BBC also put on a series of ‘physical jerks’ programmes aimed at encouraging some form of physical activity among the population (MacDonald, 2013:51-53). state sponsored shows such as these were complimented by individual physical culture entrepreneurs like the South African physical culturist Tromp Van Diggelen, who attempted to capitalise on this new interest in physical culture for all through radio programming and gramophone records (Grampus, 1928:3). Such programming was not exclusive to Great Britain, indeed it was a cornerstone of the approaches found in Italy (Bolz, 2012:1999-2010) and Germany (Hau, 2005:12-23). Britain’s proximity to Ireland, and the relative sharing of cultural norms between the

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two states (Lyons, 1979:7) meant that British physical culture shows, which were accessible in the Irish Free state, helped normalise the idea of a physical culture show. Moving to Irish produced programmes, which continually applauded the growing European appreciation of physical gymnastics, it is beneficial to begin with Lucy, whose own relationship with physical culture was complex. As part of his military training during the Great War, when Lucy enlisted in the British army, he first undertook a strenuous regime of physical culture. Unlike the later exercises, Lucy promoted hia war training to his audience which was defined by its harshness. In later recollections, Lucy claimed: We drilled, and drilled, and drilled … Our weak muscles were wrenched at physical exercises at which everything for a solid hour was executed on the tips of our toes. This was our worst experience. We sprinted from one kind of torture to another while our mouths went dry, our bodies clammy and stale, and our limbs trembled … ‘If you broke your mothers’ hearts, you won’t break mine.’ A tall, lithe, elastic-muscled English sergeant put us through it …. The most painful exercise was chosen as a corrective … It was a rotten life, and we were very, very sorry for having enlisted … Lucy, 2009:37 Such a “rotten life” may explain why Lucy emphasised ‘fun’ and ‘cheerfulness’ in his later radio broadcasts (Lucy 1937:1-3). Lucy spent his post-military career as an Irish celebrity of note. Owing primarily to his long military career – he served for over 20 years – Lucy was first co-opted by Radio Athlone to give a series of lectures on his various world travels as part of the British military (Irish Press, 1935a:5). These talks served as the impetus for his first book, There’s A Devil in the Drum, from which the above quotation about military training is taken. The success of his military travel programs served as the inspiration for his ‘keep fit’ radio broadcasts which began in the mid-decade. Lucy’s transcripts were later collected into one collection Keep Fit and Cheerful, which garnered a great deal of positive attention in the press (Irish Press, 1935b:3). Three themes reoccurred throughout the series. They were; the importance of enjoyment in exercise, the negative effects of modern living and the link between individual health and state prosperity. Most likely a reaction against his military training, Lucy promised … I shall be very gentle. I am not going to advocate physical jerks. Physical jerks are all right for young men and athletes but they come too hard on most people, and the very name of physical jerks sounds poisonous in many ears … Lucy, 1937:11 Later comments promised a system of exercise comprising five minutes of exercise a day, something that could be done with a smile on one’s face and, more importantly, something that could be done by the entire family. In this regard, Lucy contrasted his system with more common physical culture systems which sought to make “Sandows of people”, a reference to the famed physical culturist

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Eugen Sandow, and “like the hard and jerky old army systems they may lead to strain” (Lucy 1937:11-13). This approach largely echoed that found in Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy in stressing the joy of exercise, its inherent benefits and its accessibility. Like others in Europe, Lucy similarly cited the negative effects of modernity as found in sedentary labor and an overabundance of food. The relative comfort brought about by urbanisation and a growing white-collar service meant that “about half our people of all ages to-day do not get the best out of life, because they neglect the simple culture of their bodies” (Lucy, 1937:34-35). This led to a grave situation whereby “there are even some men of thirty who no longer feel sprightly” (Lucy, 1937:34-35). It was for this very reason that Lucy stressed the importance of office works to “get up and move” while simultaneously admonishing schoolteachers for forcing children to “keep still” (Lucy, 1937:34-35). Modernity had weakened the populace and steps needed to be taken to return people to a more natural state. Such discourses had, of course, existed since the mid-19th century, but took on a heightened emphasis during the 1930s, especially in Nazi Germany (Budd 1997:1-22). Lucy himself was deeply impressed with the life reform movement found in Germany, and although silent on the promotion of nudism, was in favor of its emphasis on physical movement above all else. Finally, and this was repeated in Lieutenant Tichy’s radio lectures, Lucy positioned individual fitness as a duty to the state. This was reflected in his claim that … The nation that is physically fit is buoyant, cheerful, daring and successful. If the physique of the nation is bad or neglected the people tend to be gloomy, lazy and intolerant … Lucy, 1937:7 Lucy continued by talking about the beauty of the Irish landscape, the strong physical stock of the Irish people and the need to ensure both remained strong. Such rhetoric was placed within a utopian future in which people of strength and beauty would make a world in which everyone could live in prosperity “regardless of circumstances” (Lucy 1937:66-67). Lucy’s ideas had direct parallels with Nazi Germany, a country he routinely returned to in his talks. Not only had Germany revitalised itself after the difficulties of the Great War, the workers had given “extra time every day for the fatherland” (Lucy, 1937:79). Integral to Germany’s revival was the growth of physical culture under the “most difficult of circumstances” (Lucy, 1937:79). Seeking to produce a similar state of affairs in Ireland, Lucy pushed for the creation of “physical welfare centres”, funded by the Irish Free state (Lucy, 1937:80). The popularity of these views will be discussed in the next section. Where Lucy’s talks covered a range of different exercises and exercise systems, Lieutenant Josef Tichy focused exclusively on Sokol physical culture. Originating in Czecho-Slovakia during the mid-19th century, Sokol physical culture was a form of national physical culture deeply aligned with Czecho-Slovakian culture and independence (Nolte, 2002:2-24). In 1934, Sokol was officially adopted by the Irish Free state army, with Lieutenant Tichy brought from Czecho-Slovakia to

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Ireland to oversee Sokol’s current implementation (Heffernan, 2019c:37-44). As discussed elsewhere (Samek, 2013:139-151), Sokol physical culture was met with a great fanfare in Ireland which explains, in part, why Tichy was asked to deliver lectures on the subject for Radio Athlone in 1935 and 1936. The hope at that time was that Sokol would spread from the military into other realms of Irish life, such as Irish schools and prisons (Heffernan, 2019c:37-43). Tichy’s lectures on Sokol should be seen, then, as an advertisement to the Irish public. Like Lucy, Tichy situated his lectures within the context of individual and state prosperity. In one of his first lectures, Tichy described the power of physical training for the individual: Physical Training aims at the acquirement of perfect health, and the cultivation of strength not alone to withstand the hardships of everyday life, but also to overcome sickness and help in the process of recuperation after sickness … Tichy, 1936a:3 This, as Tichy explained, would benefit the nation. Coupled with this, Sokol was thought to provide the order and discipline so desired by European nations at this time. Tichy told Irish listeners that “discipline during training is voluntary, but strict, and this spirit prevails right through the whole organization” (Tichy, 1936a:5). Sokol’s importance to the nation-state was not just confined to the citizens’ physicality and discipline, but also to their cultural soul. Tichy commented, as Nolte (2012: 12-89) later re-iterated, that “the Sokol Movement has gone hand in hand with the revival of the Czech nation” (Tichy, 1935:2). Sokol’s own origins dated to the 1848 revolutions which swept across mainland Europe, a point which explains Sokol’s longstanding association with Czechoslovakian nationalism (Tichy, 1935:2). Tichy used this history to draw comparisons between the struggles for Czech and Irish independence. Both nations had gained independence at roughly the same time – Czechoslovakia in 1918 and the Irish Free state in 1921 – which led Tichy to claim that Sokol could complement Ireland’s own sense of cultural nationalism. Sokol, according to Tichy, had the ability to protect and improve the ongoing process of Irish cultural revival (Tichy, 1936b:3). In Czechoslovakia, Tichy claimed that the “Sokol Club House” was instantly recognisable. It was a cultural hub open to men and women alike, a place where “in the evening, one sees young people and old hurrying to the Sokol House and carrying their gymnastic dress” (Tichy, 1936b:3-4). Understood in this way, Sokol had the ability to strengthen the Irish nation both physically and spiritually. Tichy’s continued reminder that Sokol was the Czech term for falcon – “the bird chosen as being symbolic of a healthy, manly and vigorous race of indominable will … ” – served to reiterate Sokol’s apparent attractiveness (Tichy, 1936b:5). Lucy and Tichy’s respective lectures were very different in their composition, but shared a fundamental belief in the national importance of physical culture. Both military men, albeit Lucy was far more ambivalent about the military than Tichy, they served as voices for Irish physical culture during the 1930s. They were not the only ones employed by Radio Athlone to deliver radio classes on physical culture (Radio Programmes, 1935:5), but they were the only individuals to command a continued presence on the

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE airways. Unfortunately, it has proven impossible to discover the audience figures for Lucy or Tichy. From internal military reports, we know that Tichy’s lectures were thought by army personnel to be very popular (Broadcasting Manager Letter, 1935). Likewise, Lucy’s collection of radio transcripts suggests a great deal of interest in his views on physical culture. Where Lucy stressed fun and playful movement, Tichy emphasised the importance of collective exercise in which the individual was subordinate to the mass. Diametrically opposed, at least at first glance, both claimed that a strong and prosperous Ireland required a physically fit people.

Promoting physical culture in 1930s Ireland How widespread were Lucy and Tichy’s views? Returning to Charlotte MacDonald, we know that Great Britain expressed a remarkable envy and fear regarding the strict state endorsed forms of physical culture found in Italy and Germany (2013:33‑78). The same appears to have been true of the Irish Free state. Continuing the point made in the conclusion of the previous section, Lucy’s own popularity during the 1930s, and the popularity of his beliefs, is important to stress. Not only did he host his own military and physical culture programmes, he also published a series of books at this time which routinely endorsed the political structure and sporting projects of fascist nations. Writing for the Irish Press, a national newspaper, in 1938, when the political situation in mainland Europe was veering more and more into troubled waters, Lucy conceded that although “the national outlook in peace or war of strongly armed and overpopulated countries cannot be the same as ours”, it was still important for the Irish Free state to adopt some measures for the future (Lucy, 1938:10). Written with reference more so to geopolitics than physical culture, this idea largely underpinned Lucy’s lectures on exercise. The Irish Free state needed to emulate Nazi Germany or Mussolini’s Italy, not because she would need to prepare for war, but rather because this was a clear path towards physical health and a strong future. Furthermore, and much like his security warnings, Lucy advocated for strong government involvement in the realm of physical culture. His views were not unique. Another strong proponent of European style physical culture in Ireland was Eoin O’Duffy, the Commissioner of the Irish police force from 1922 to 1933, and a man responsible for overseeing the governance of several Irish sporting organisations ranging from handball to the Irish Olympic Committee (McAnallen, 2014:704-705). O’Duffy’s appreciation for fascist governance eventually culminated in a short-lived “blue shirt movement”, a cheap imitation of Mussolini’s blackshirts and an ill-fated campaign fighting for Franco in the Spanish Civil War (Ercole, 2014:493-510). While O’Duffy’s reputation was largely comical in Ireland by the 1940s, his voice held considerable sway during the 1930s. Like Lucy, he too wished to see more done in the realm of physical culture. Speaking to a collection of parents, child athletes and newspaper reporters at a sports event in 1931, O’Duffy spoke of the need to look towards Germany for “proper development of the body” (E.B.S. 1931: 11). O’Duffy’s unpublished memoirs,

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housed in Ireland’s National Library, serve as a shrine to his appreciation of fascist physical culture. One section of his self-aggrandising memoirs spoke to his fears of Irish degeneration during the 1930s which could only be rectified through physical culture. In an earlier article on the Athletic revival I wrote … There is much reason to doubt whether a mind can possibly be really keen and healthy if it not be encased in a healthy body … Training in athletics, is not merely a physical matter … very special mental qualities … O’Duffy, c. 1943:3 O’Duffy’s writings in athletic journals were replete for plans of building a “nation of super men” who could “beat the world” in sport (N.A.C.A., 1928-1944:8). Driving such plans was O’Duffy’s repeated assertion, and as his biographer Ferghal McGarry would later write (2005:44-89), overarching preoccupation with the idea that “without physical culture and athletics, the manhood of a nation is doomed to deterioration” (National Athletic and Cycling Association, 1928-1944:4). O’Duffy’s fall from grace politically in the late 1930s when he was effectively ostracised from Irish politics, did not dampen his enthusiasm. As late as 1943, O’Duffy was still arguing that … there is something wrong with a country which is not promoting manly outdoor recreation for its people. It is unlikely to go ahead … Without a clean, vigorous and healthy race the wealthiest nation is poor … O’Duffy, 1944:3 Lucy and O’Duffy both shared the same opinion on Nazi Germany that, regardless of its grander geopolitical aspirations, there was much for the Irish Free state to adopt in the realm of physical culture. Many Irish newspapers and journalists agreed. The Irish Times, one of Ireland’s most circulated newspapers, featured a series of articles on the Reich Physical Culture League in Germany (The Irish Times, 1936:2). The newspaper even went so far as to invite Herr von Tschammer und Osten, one of the Reich’s sporting leaders, to contribute an article on German physical culture (Tschammer und Osten, 1936:3). When the newspaper was not commenting exclusively on Germany, praise was being given to France, Italy and the United states for privileging physical culture. As a “nation’s future [was] dependent on [its] own energies”, the newspaper proved particularly impressed with what other nations were doing (The Irish Times, 1933:10). Even as late as 1939 when tensions between Nazi Germany and other European nations were increasingly tense, the Times spoke of the “bronzed and fit” population found in Germany and Italy in particular. The article’s closing lines sounded remarkably like Lucy’s own broadcasts: The plain, natural food of old Ireland has been largely the source of its strength. Nevertheless, a little physical culture is an excellent thing, and there are many of our round-shouldered pigeon chested youths who could well do with a taste of the organised, disciplined exercises that have been prescribed in so many countries … Bronzed and Fit, 1939:6

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE The strength of such discourses reverberated throughout Irish government buildings as evidenced by the state’s efforts to intervene in physical education and sport at this time. Hamstrung by financial difficulties, the state commissioned two reports in 1938, one concerned with “the revival of athletics” and the other into the state of physical education. Ultimately ignored on publication in 1939 (Rouse, 2015:316), owing to the outbreak of war and a lack of adequate funding, both reports were situated in the context of a growing degeneracy among the population, the need for some form of government involvement in physical culture and the benefits that would accrue from such a policy. Lucy’s lectures were not isolated opinions. The same is true for Lieutenant Tichy who, soon after his radio lectures, was tasked with introducing Sokol physical culture into Irish schools and Irish gymnasiums Tichy’s lectures spoke of the cultural and physiological benefits offered by Sokol, a combination which made the new system particularly attractive to Irish politicians and schoolmasters alike. Regarding the cultural strengthening offered by Sokol, two efforts were soon made to ‘Gaelicise’ the system (O’Donoghue, 1985:329-345). The first related to the translation of Czechoslovakian commands into Irish. Soon after his lectures, Tichy was approached by both the Department of Education and Defence about translating Sokol into Irish (Heffernan, 2019c:45-55). While little progress was ultimately made, the idea that Sokol needed to be adapted fully into the Irish context proved strong as evidenced by later military reports which criticised the ongoing use of Czech and English commands by the Irish military (Heffernan, 2019c:45-55). Likewise, similar efforts were made to create some form of Irish music to accompany public Sokol demonstrations. Done at a time when the military’s funding was well below par, this goal resulted in a lengthy composition process which included the purchasing of several new speakers and amplifiers (Heffernan, 2019c:45-60). Such actions served to re-iterate Tichy’s explicit linking of Sokol physical culture with a nation’s cultural strength. This idea was shared by Ireland’s serving Minister of Defence, Frank Aiken, who told reporters at this time that an “almost perfect analogy existed between the Sokol movement in Czecho-Slovakia and the Gaelic Athletic Movement in Ireland” (Irish Press, 1934:7). The Gaelic Athletic Movement was, for many, a sporting symbol of Irish cultural nationalism (Cronin, 1996:1-12). Aiken’s labelling of Sokol as a cultural equivalent simultaneously spoke to its perceived importance as well as the aspirations many attached to it. It was for this reason that such great efforts were made to integrate it fully into Irish society. The greatest expression of this was the desire to incorporate Sokol into Irish schools. This was done both informally by the schools themselves, as well as by the Department of Education. Following Tichy’s broadcasts, a series of enquiries were sent to the Army School of Physical Culture about educational Sokol. At the time, such requests were either rebuked or ignored as the military had yet to formalise the Sokol system and were wary about introducing it to schools so early on. Such reservations did little to dispel schoolmasters’ enthusiasm as evidenced by Brother Newell, the headmaster of Newbridge College in Leinster. On receiving no reply from his numerous letters from the Army School, Newell next wrote to his old friend and serving Minister of Defence, Frank Aiken, demanding he be

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sent information on Sokol. Looked on unfavourably by the military, Newell’s persistence was illustrative of the extent to which schools were interested in Sokol (Heffernan, 2019c:40-50). Eventually the Department of Education ran a series of trials on the implementation of Sokol in schools, a decision they cast in the context of bulwarking Irish culture and improving the current generation’s physical fitness (Moran, 2013:45-80). Such trials took place in 1939, but much like the government reports previously mentioned, failed to enact lasting change (Cooney, 1939:34‑55). This meant that by 1940, Sokol was taught in some schools but not others, a situation replicated in Irish gymnasiums and in some cases, prisons (Heffernan, 2019c:56-60). What was fascinating about Sokol’s warm welcome into Irish society was how unproblematic its promotion as a general cure all was. Tichy remarked upon the system’s ability to uphold a nation’s culture and protect its future generations. Many agreed. As a final note in this regard, it is worth examining Irish newspapers from the era. From Sokol’s first appearances in Ireland in 1934, a number of Irish journalists, politicians and public health officials began promoting its importance. Eoin MacNeill, an Irish politician and cultural nationalist, held Sokol in such high regard that he told the Evening Herald that it was a “disgrace” to see Sokol used only by the military when it could be used to reform the bodies of common citizens (Evening Herald, 1934:11). Likewise, Frank Aiken told the Irish Press the same year that Sokol had introduced discipline and aroused national sentiment in CzechoSlovakia, and that it could do the same in Ireland (Irish Press, 1934:7). This proved to be an enduring idea as evidenced by William Podesta, the head of the short lived “Keep Fit Campaign” told the Irish Press in 1939 that Sokol should be introduced throughout Ireland (Irish Press, 1939:2). While such commentators were outspoken in their praise of Sokol, far more common were newspaper reports on voluntary Sokol displays which implicitly praised the system and stressed its importance for national wellbeing. At the heart of such endorsements were two messages. First that some form of government intervention was needed in the Irish physical culture and second that physical culture could in some way protect or restore nature. What began as a series of lectures by Lieutenant Tichy became something of a mantra for many in Ireland.

Conclusion By 1939 both John Lucy and Lieutenant Josef Tichy had largely vanished from the Irish consciousness. Lucy’s broadcasting career had finished, although the continued circulation of his books ensured something of a lasting influence. In Tichy’s case, he returned to Czecho-Slovakia in the late 1930s when it became apparent that the country’s political situation was becoming perilous (Heffernan  2019c:  35‑43). Although their time in the Irish media spotlight was short-lived, both men helped vocalise, and broadcast, the growing Irish interest in state physical culture. Inspired by the fascist regimes of mainland Europe, Lucy and Tichy spoke of the need for strong and healthy generations, the urgency of state intervention and the many benefits accruing from physical culture. Perhaps not entirely widespread throughout Irish society, these views still held

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE considerable sway in the Irish Free state as evidenced by the numerous journalists, schoolteachers and politicians who echoed Lucy and Tichy’s sentiments. At a surface level, Lucy and Tichy’s radio broadcast give a sense of the widespread and adaptable nature of geopolitical health concerns during the 1930s. That pockets of support for fascist regimes existed in Ireland (Ercole, 2014:493-510) explains some of this enthusiasm, but the breadth and diversity of those in support of state physical culture extends beyond this group. Calls for more physical culture programmes in Ireland emerged during the 1920s, but took a renewed emphasis the following decade. Using Germany and Italy as models, advocates stressed the need for state intervention. Much like the British case, admiration did not mean emulation. Despite the popularity of Lucy, as well as Tichy and others’ calls for more action, Ireland’s flagging economy prevented any serious support from the government. This point alone stresses the complex nature of 1930s physical culture whereby seemingly transnational views are adapted to fit local needs. Seeking to provide some form of support, the Irish Free state government eventually instituted a series of exploratory reports into physical education in Ireland and trialled the implementation of Sokol physical culture in Irish schools. Both actions were done with relatively little cost and hence, represented the only available avenue open to politicians. There was then, a limitation, in how far support for state physical culture could go. Previous studies of European physical culture have tended to privilege those state projects which enjoyed a great deal of funding and prestige. The Italian and German cases have been well covered. So too have the French and the British. In each instance the ruling governments directed time and money towards physical culture for largely the same reasons – to improve health and discipline, and protect the state and so forth. Studying the Irish context reveals that these concerns were not solely limited to countries with broader geopolitical concerns but were something of a trans-European, if not trans-Atlantic, phenomenon. In the Irish case, a lack of capital funding meant that support for state physical culture was limited to ideological backing more so than any substantial developments. That the greatest support, and arguably mobiliser, for state physical culture came from the radio broadcasts of Lucy and Tichy highlights the importance of new media in this development. In 1936, an anonymous letter to the Meath Chronicle argued that physical culture was inseparably linked up with the future well-being and physique of our people, and almost as closely allied with it is the duty of safeguarding the national morale of the youth … Nations the world over have made the promotion of physical culture and discipline a national question to be solved by the state … here Government assistance and legislative action will be necessary … Meath Chronicle, 1936:8 In a single passage the contributor highlighted the overarching tensions of 1930s Irish physical culture. Something needed to be done, the state needed to be

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involved and, ultimately, support was lacking. The paltriness of Irish investment aside, the country’s interest and involvement in physical culture dispels the idea that state physical culture was solely the preserve of empires, or aspiring empires, during the 1930s. As this Chapter has shown, the broader European interest in state physical culture was not the preserve of the elites. Through new popular mediums, and low cost projects, smaller nations likewise attempted a physical culture revival.

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Chapter 9 Bats, balls and boards: Islands, beaches and decolonising Pacific sport1 Malcolm MacLean University of Queensland, Australia/De Montfort University, England The Empire has many edges. Some are spatial, some are temporal, some are ontological, some are epistemological, but all are relational. Edge presumes a centre, and being asked to reflect on physical culture from the edge of empire poses several challenges, most notably, where is the centre to which the edge sits in relation? In some approaches, a provincialised Europe might be seen as an edge of Empire (Chakrabarty, 2000); John Darwin (2007) takes this one step further, asking how it was that a remote peninsula in the far west of Asia became the defining heart of visions of empire; for some, we might consider sport as a Cinderella subject on the edges of academia as an empire, with all its praxis of power, of serious scholarship. Yet, as discussions of the revision of the study of sport grow, as we reflect on the literary turn, the cultural turn, the postmodern turn, a discourse of being on the margin of the “mainstream” (of history, of sociology, of politics, of anthropology) persists with an implicit pose of marginality-assubservience. In the world of sport studies, we have a tendency to engage in a well-honed cultural cringe, lamenting that no-one takes us seriously or that we don’t get the profile we deserve and then spend all our time talking to ourselves, writing in our specialist journals and reading each other rather than branching out to new audiences. Engaging, as we do in this collection, with decoloniality and with physical culture can help us push aside that cringe because we can begin to build a dialogue between our many worlds, our many disciplines, and in the spirit of a decolonial outlook continue to slough off the singular and universal truth that underpins many discipline areas in favour of a developing pluriversality of practice and outlook. It is in this spirit of multiple margins that this paper focuses on the Pacific Basin, highlighting the paucity and unevenness of Pacific-focussed research addressing questions of sport and physical culture. Despite the often high profile of Pasifika2 1 An earlier version of this paper was presented under the same title as a keynote lecture at the New Zealand Studies Association 2018 conference at the University of Aviero, Aviero, Portugal, 27-30 June. I am grateful to participants, especially Selina Tusitala Marsh, for questions and discussion that helped refine the case: none of those discussants are in any way responsible for what follows. 2 Pasifika: an increasingly recognised but contested collective term for peoples of the Pacific, also serving in settlement colonies such as Aotearoa/New Zealand to mark peoples of the Pacific as a group who are colonised but not indigenous.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE athletes in the region’s imperialist powers – Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, the USA, France – there is very little scholarly literature dealing with sport in Pacific contexts: the Pacific occupies many margins. Addressing this issue at this stage involves two things. First, I briefly explore why and how sport matters. I explore Pasifika engagement with and adaptation of sport, through a discussion of Samoan cricket and kilikiti. Secondly, I look briefly at surfing, including the sport’s role in Pacific Rim imperialism drawing on recent work in Indonesia, a marginal Pacific nation, but certainly Pacific Rim. Before that, however, I make some points about rethinking, positionality and decoloniality. As an analyst of sport I come to my practice as a settler, the son, grandson and great grandson of Scottish and Irish migrants, raised in the margins of an empire, embedded in a post-imperial, postcolonial settler colony now living in England in the cultural heart of the empire that made me a settler even though, as a descendent of Scots and Irish, it is still not my people’s home. This means I see the world from a cultural margin but through lenses shaped and polished by a metropolitan epistemological outlook made fuzzy by a settler ontology: these lenses are at least bifocal and probably varifocal. This is not an individualising point on my positionality, but a structural point based in the decolonial view that we are where we think and where we do: I think from what Empire sees as the edge of the world. Decoloniality’s spatial epistemology and ontology is at odds with modernity’s empiricist expectations that prioritise what we do and think rather than where we do and think (Mignolo, 2011:77-117; Mignolo & Walsh, 2018). This positionality and consequent pluriversality shape this paper. It has been developed alongside an attempt to rethink the cultures of struggle in sport during the long 19th century (MacLean, 2021). This rethinking was impossible without exploring the relationship between industry, empire and sport and therefore coloniality/modernity – placing sport in a global matrix of power. It also sits with a historiography of Indigenous peoples in sport, including Indigenous writings about sport, focusing on the decolonisation of sports history in the interests of supporting Indigenous struggles (MacLean, 2019). This rethinking required reconsideration of the place, image and expropriation of Indigenous peoples and Indigenous movement and body cultures in modern sport. It also solidified a long standing suspicion that part of the problem when we discuss sport, empire & colonialism is a singular, narrow, achievement oriented definition of sport that excludes Othered movement and body practices. This chapter therefore is influenced by a historiography of modern sport’s formative zeitgeist, and of the problems of defining sport in a pluriversal world.

Why sport matters Sport matters for three principal reasons with specific meaning and forms in colonial, especially settler colonial, contexts. First, it is trivial and banal. Second, it is beyond important to the way many people make sense of their world. Third, it has a potent effect on our social, cultural and economic lives. These three

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are mutually interdependent. Sport’s banality means that it carries all manner of meanings; its triviality allows it to be overlaid with significations. For some, especially middle aged and older men, raised to expect consistent employment and minimal geographical mobility, the collapse of both these expectations means that a sporting identity is their only stable identity marker. It is also a very big business with a global footprint – carbon and otherwise – influencing lives when teams win or lose, when a mega-event takes over towns, forcing relocation or other forms of disruption and engaging large numbers of people in active ways: ask anyone who has found themselves at London’s Highbury & Islington tube station when Arsenal has a home game. In colonial settings, sport takes on an extra tier of mattering because of this very banality. Its ordinariness means that the kinds of bodily orders and disciplines it imposes become taken for granted. Ways of standing, moving and corporeal being become naturalised and therefore ordinary; bodies become sites of contested disciplines, as sport and physical culture become ways and means of body training, be it for the nation (Brownell, 1995), for the revolution (Deutsch, 2017), for the Empire (James, 1998) or for ‘civilisation’ (Poulter, 2009). For those of us whose interests are less current and more historical, or more epistemological and ontological, sport also matters because of the circumstances of its invention. For the most part, sport emerged as an institution in the final third (give or take) of the 19th century – cricket and horseracing as initial 18th century institutionalisations are the major exceptions, football/soccer was codified in 1861, and several others in the early 20th century followed the 19th century model of institutionalisation. This is not the invention, formation or origin of the games and sports, but their formalisation with codified rules and structures. Many aspects of the origin debates are antiquarian nonsense, especially where they posit an ontological singularity, a single moment of invention – although there are important ways, especially in colonial and imperial settings and with cases such as surfing or lacrosse, where origins fundamentally matter. This timing of sports’ institutionalisation matters because it was an era where the intellectual developments of the late 17th and 18th centuries – reason, rationalism and empiricism – were bedded down and extended from the natural to the social world. By the end of the era of high imperialism in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, the rational management of humans in work, in the family, in their social lives and their everyday existence was becoming seen as both desirable and achievable, from the organisation of the workplace to the ordering of planned cities and of daily life. In the case of movement cultures, leisure pursuits and pastimes become controlled and regulated, ascribed with rationalities, in days, weeks and years that take on different structures and different meanings, that are lived in ways not previously experienced, in places that in many cases did not previously exist as cities emerged from nothing and colonial settlements sought to reproduce ‘Home’. For historians of empire and colonialism it is this redefinition of movement cultures that matters; sport became a mechanism to manage the Indigenous and the colonised, to regulate their bodies, to stamp out what was

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE seen as their lasciviousness and ‘savagery’ making them controllable in extraction colonies and at best assimilated and therefore extinct in settlement colonies. Sport matters therefore because it is a place where modernity and coloniality mingle as matrices of power to redefine the body and its possibilities and in doing so recast the epistemologies and ontologies of the indigenous objects of empire. It is this dynamic of discipline that shapes what follows.

Cricket/kilikiti Perhaps the quintessence of British imperial sport, cricket’s place in a Pasifika world poses significant and profound challenges for how we understand the pastime and its links to and place in the region’s colonisation. Cricket’s modern form can be traced to its place in agrarian economies in the south of England during the 18th century (Underdown, 2000). The arable farming that typified the area was marked by long periods of relatively low intensity labour, maintaining crops as they grew and preparing for the next round of planting, followed by intense bouts of harvesting in a few weeks of each year. In a setting where cycles of work-related time were understood on an annual basis, unlike livestock-based farming where working cycles were both annualised and daily, cycles of recreation also allowed for consecutive days of play. These circumstances did not necessarily lead to a striking and fielding game such as cricket, but where a game that could be played over several days was available, these conditions did allow it to develop. Unlike many other games and pastimes, cricket was also one that was played by cross-class teams, formalised in the 19th century in the distinction between gentlemen and players. Despite being grounded in the south, it was widely played and, unlike the various emerging codes of football, had a common set of national rules and from the later 18th century a widely accepted mediation and control system via the aristocratic and London-based Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). As a sport that was widely understood by all classes and in most regions, it became one that travelled with the military, with missionaries and with schoolteachers as they made an empire. By the later stages of the 19th century, the game was still widely played in military circles and had set down roots not only in Britain’s colonies of white settlement, but also in other key parts of empire such as the British West Indies and what was then widely labelled the Indian Subcontinent. The story was slightly different in the island regions of the Pacific where the British influence was less developed, in part because the region was more contested by other European imperial powers, especially France and Germany, and also partly because of the much more assertive involvement of the United States of America. This contestation was particularly prevalent in Samoa. The islands lay outside formal imperial relations and colonisation until 1899 but from the mid-19th century were marked by British and German economic interests in the western islands and US military interests in the eastern parts of the island group. Cricket arrived with the British who came as traders, as the military, as missionaries, as administrators and as schoolteachers. They entered a complex world marked by centuries of human occupation and by, fewer but still considerable, years of active engagement with various Euro-American visitors and residents (Sacks, 2019).

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Although Indigenous forms of cricket are well-known in Pacific contexts, there has been very little scholarly work, or much writing at all for that matter, about cricket in the south, south east and central Pacific regions. Cricket in the south west Pacific however is a staple of anthropological literature and pedagogy, largely because of one film: 1975’s Trobriand Cricket (Kildea & Leach, 1975). The film has given the game considerable profile, but there is very little in the literature since leading to a situation where this form of colonial resistance and reinscription of a body culture practice, in effect decolonising cricket, has become frozen in 1973/4 when the film was shot. It remains one of the few instances in the literature where the form of the game has been reshaped along Indigenous lines, where team names allude to colonial products and team activities include widespread allusion to Second World War battles, or at least they did in 1973; nearly half a century later there is little to tell us differently. This reformation marks Trobriand cricket as distinct from the more common forms of sporting reinscription as may be seen in Indigenous engagements with modern sport, even where that sport has an Indigenous origin, including working within modern sport to assert an Indigenous or colonial identity and presence or re-engaging with traditional forms of physical culture (Robidoux, 2012; Downey, 2018; Ruck, 2018; Dubnewick, Hopper, Spence & McHugh, 2018). Cricket in Samoa has had a different trajectory and is to a large degree overlooked in the scholarly literature. To date, the only sustained historical analysis of Samoan cricket and kilikiti3 is Benjamin Sacks’ 2017 PhD (and subsequent 2019 monograph), which informs this discussion. In Samoa (Palagi)4 cricket is played alongside kilikiti, often with the kilikiti styles influencing cricket. Sacks’ analysis is compelling for several reasons. First, he highlights the complexity of colonial and imperial interests during the first phase of his study with British, New Zealand, German and United States economic, political, religious, military and cultural interests all vying for dominance. Second, he compellingly unpacks British colonial interests, as well as the role played by New Zealand after 1917, as it relates to the profile and significance of both versions of the game. Third, he explores the cricket/ kilikiti links between the western and eastern islands after formal colonisation in 1899. Finally, he explores the differences and distinctions in Indigenous Samoan relations that relate to and in part account for the ways both games develop. Most significantly however, and although he does not belabour the point, he shows how cricket was both and concurrently a tool of colonial dominance where Samoan bodies were shaped to play in a manner reminiscent of the apex of the English game and of decolonial resistance where the basic form of the game was taken and redesigned to meet the needs of fa’a Somoa.5 Cricket/kilikiti developed along two pathways. The first was the imperial game as played by the British in the islands: 11-a-side, white flannels, breaks for tea and polite applause for the batter who had just been declared out by the umpire. To a considerable degree this was the game of the village green, the Mumbai gymkhana, Lords, the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Hagley Park. It was imbued with the 3 Also known as kirikiti. 4 Foreigners; usually limited to people of European descent. 5 The Samoan way or manner.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE ethos of the Home Counties, upper class civility and the spirit of athleticism. This was the civilising game of empire, amid the palm trees of Samoa’s coastal plains, woven through with the ironies of mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun. This was not the way the game was played in Samoan settings, where it had become a transcultural practice. One of the principal problems of working in imperial and colonial sports history focusing on Indigenous peoples’ sporting and body cultures is that the contemporary sources are often written and read through a gaze grounded in coloniality – what Mignolo calls a matrix of colonial power (Mignolo, 2011, Mignolo & Walsh, 2018:153-176) – that presumes that Indigenous, colonised peoples had no sporting culture and were tabula rasa. Sacks, however, argues that making sense of kilikiti requires making sense of the way it developed within a Samoan athletic culture associated with the notion of va as the space between entities that holds them as both separate and together, and as the spatial basis of communal cultures. Athletic activities and an associated ‘ludic spirit’ are one of the practices he identifies as characteristic of this relational aspect of fa’a Samoa, and crucially he suggests Samoans spent a lot of time ‘at play’, which was misinterpreted by colonists as time wasting and laziness, therein failing to see the development and maintenance of social bonds and associativity. Cricket did not enter into a world where there was no cultural politics of sport or play as the gaze from coloniality often implicitly suggests: it entered one heavily imbued with a paidia and ludus underpinning in Samoans the disposition essential for sport (Suits, 1978; Ryall, 2013; Felkers, Mulder & MacLean, 2015). It may not have been Palagi cricket’s ludic disposition, but it was an existing playfulness.6 Moreover, it came into a social world where there was a sophisticated process of journeys and exchanges, malaga, that maintained social relations within and between islands and their communities. Much of this ludic spirit accentuated participation, as well as the performance of experts and champions. Sacks links transcultural kilikiti to the place of catching and throwing activities in the malaga cycles, specifically to pigeon netting (seuga lupe) and dart throwing (tagati’a) the latter of which could involve very large numbers of people in each team: it is not hard to see how a throw-and-catch competition could be taken over by a throwhit-and-catch game. The point is not that it is a simple one-for-one replacement, but that cricket entered into a world where the circumstances were ripe for its transmogrification. It was in its transformation that the principles and equipment of the game were repurposed to the maintenance of relationships within the space between people – the va. The view through this lens means that we can see kilikiti, in either its historical form or its more recent codified form, not as some inadequate re-presentation of cricket, a failed copy or clumsy attempt at colonial mimesis, but as an adaptation of the activities of the malaga cycle, as a ludic activity designed and intended to maintain, enhance and develop va-centric social relations. This adaptation came 6 I recognise that Caillois’s typology including paidia and ludus have been developed in a Eurocentric context and may not be directly transferrable to Samoa or other Polynesian settings, but in a very unscientific manner I see those dispositions in many of Polynesia’s everyday ontologies.

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about very quickly after the game’s first appearance in Samoa in the early 1880s, with some forms of narrative suggesting it did not take hold among Indigenous Samoans until they were challenged by visiting Tongans (Ruck, 2018:24-6). Whatever the motivation, kilikiti developed rapidly. By the mid-1890s at the latest, kilikiti was an established element of the malaga cycle, with the 11-a-side game replaced with teams made up of entire visiting parties (of as many as 200) and games lasting up to two weeks. Important roles were played by ‘aumaga, young untitled men with significant martial and other responsibilities. The technology changed with local products adapted to make balls and bats while the demarcation between player and spectator blurred with the emergence of the lape, a group of supporters often now associated with cheerleaders but more like the cheer squads seen in Australian Rules football, actively interacting with the game while also bridging the player/audience divide. Whereas rugby union in its early days and cricket may be seen as games of ‘afakasi7 and urban Samoa (Ruck, 2018:30), kilikiti had and retains powerful associations with ‘aiga8 and therefore with the va. More recently the game has been codified and, while still popular in both independent and American Samoa, has also spread with diaspora populations, taking hold especially in Aotearoa/New Zealand, as may be seen in the Auckland secondary schools competition.9 Like many ‘traditional’ sports, kilikiti now exists in its codified and its ‘folk’ formats. Making sense of cricket/kilikiti requires making sense of each of the four points of Sacks’ case; for the purposes of this discussion, the first is key. That is, the relationship between Samoa and its contested colonial powers is distinctive, not unique but distinctive, before the formal agreement leading to the 1899 arrangement. Not only does Sacks argue that to understand both cricket and Samoa we need to understand the pre-colonial forces at play when Germany, the United States of America and Britain individually asserted and mediated their own competing interests. He also argues that colonialism needs to be disaggregated. To this end he distinguishes between the colonial interests and drivers associated with various Government officials and administrators, teachers and missionaries and the military demonstrating not only that each of these groups had a different rationale for being on the islands, but that they also had different relations with cricket and, through the game, to the Indigenous population. Before 1899 the principal tensions were between British administrators and cultural entrepreneurs – teachers and missionaries – on the hand, and Samoa’s traditional leaders on the other. Officials and administrators sought to restrict and suppress cricket/kilikiti because of its perceived economic disruption; missionaries and teachers because kilikiti undermined the ‘civilising role’ of cricket. These colonial forces combined the protection of the soul and of the traders’ strongboxes in common cause. There seems to have been less moral concern from the German and United States groupings, except in terms of the effect of the games on production and labour. Consequently, the multiple colonialisms between contending powers and the 7 A neologism for ‘mixed race’; transliteration of ‘halfcaste’ but without the same pejorative connotations. 8 An extended family; the principal unit of Samoan life and fa’a Samoa. 9 See, for instance, Tagata Pasifika TVNZ, 2012.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE different interests within each group left plenty of cultural space for kilikiti to set down roots and become a distinctive Samoan practice. This sense of kilikiti operating in the gaps left by power points to a fundamental aspect of the colonialist/coloniality misunderstanding of sport and other cultural practices in colonial settings. We can see this is the way kilikiti is referred to as Samoan cricket (in the labelling Trobriand cricket, and the way kilikiti is italicised here as a foreign word in line with the publisher’s guidance). There are two key discursive dynamics at play in this labelling. The first is a formalist assumption that we can define the game, cricket, by its rules and the conventions of play. These are debates we see often in sport, especially around standardisation. For many years, all settlers and sport developers in new localities had to go on was a rule book, an often-sparse series of statements that had to be interpreted if games were to be played. A consequence of this situation is that the historical literature is marked by recurring statements by neophytes welcoming the visit of people from the imperial core who explained and demonstrated the ‘correct’ ways to play. At one level this formalist interpretation is correct, and there is a particular strand of sports history that explores the ways games developed in various places through explorations of these varying interpretations. The second is a consequence of this formalism and establishes cricket as the reference point for the interpretation of kilikiti, making the Samoan game an inferior version of the imperial game. In terms of the structures of coloniality – the colonial matrix of power – this is akin to arguing that syncretic religions emerging from colonial engagements, such as in Aotearoa/New Zealand Ringatū, are an inferior form of Christianity: notably this language form may be seen to apply to Ringatū as a Māori developed syncretic church (Binney, 1995), but is seldom seen to make inferior Mexican Catholicism, where Christianity was adapted to the patterns of Indigenous religions. It is at this point that Mignolo’s decolonial argument that we are where we think and where we do becomes important, but before that there is another characteristic of sports history that is relevant. The discipline is grounded in social history, and as such turns very much on a question of what people did. The consequence of this is that the discipline is not very good as asking or exploring what it meant to those people to do what they did; that is to say, the discipline is better at performance than it is at phenomenology. Mignolo’s where is crucial at this juncture because it allows us to disrupt the centrality of cricket and see kilikiti as one of several games played and contested between villages, between descent groups where the relational characteristics and aspects of the va are enacted. As such, kilikiti is not an inferior version of cricket, but a game where some of the core characteristics of cricket as a throwing and hitting/striking and fielding game have been repurposed to ontological and epistemological objectives grounded in fa’a Samoa. Sacks’ argument is much more nuanced than I have allowed here in underpinning this point about decoloniality. He makes powerful points about ways the game(s) developed in the era after 1917 when, despite civilian leadership, New Zealand’s colonial occupation marked a shift from multiple colonialisms to dominance by military interests and governance. He also, unlike many discussions of Samoa,

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draws out the cricket-based cultural links between the western and eastern islands after the formal split in colonial dominance in 1899. Cricket crosses colonial boundaries. He also disaggregates Indigenous social relations as having an impact on the ways both games develop, highlighting a fluid distinction between ‘aiga centric kilikiti and a more middle class and ‘afakasi presence in cricket to suggest that neither of the games acts as a site of collaboration or resistance but that each does both. Although he does not belabour the point, he shows how cricket was both and concurrently a tool of colonial dominance where Samoan bodies were shaped to play in a manner reminiscent of Lords and of decolonial resistance where the basic form of the game was taken and redesigned to meet the needs of fa’a Samoa. The conventional view of cricket in the Empire is the British West Indies or sub-continental view from orthodoxy that sees cricket as the glue of Empire, sustaining athleticism and amateurism albeit with nationalist tweaks and variations (James, 1964; Manley, 1996; Beckles, 1999a; 1999b; Guha, 2003). Cricket in Samoa, perhaps more than the Trobriand Islands, disrupts that view through emphasis on reinscription into Samoan forms – both of cricket and kilikiti. Sport history has only very recently begun to grapple with how it might decolonise. Despite occasional invocations of Clifford Geertz’s notion of the ‘native’s point of view’ it remains overly formalist. Along with a range of promising methodological interventions, recent developments in the field are pointing to new ways that we might decolonise sports history grounding our analyses in Indigenous outlooks.10 Significant among these is Alan Downey’s recent The Creator’s Game exploring lacrosse as the appropriation and reappropriation of an Indigenous cultural, including body cultural, practice through a frame provided by Aboriginal epistemological codes (Downey, 2018). Kilikiti is but one of a plethora of Indigenous ludic practices that are crying out for this kind of interpretation.

Surfing the Pacific Rim Whereas cricket’s origins lie in the colonial homeland, the dominant narrative of surfing is that this sport of Hawaiian kings was saved by colonial leisure industry entrepreneurs and adventurers, exported to the United States mainland and modernised to become the global sport we now know. Despite being seen as the quintessential Pacific sport exported to the world, surf history is intensely colonial in form. This dominant narrative where surfing, that distinctively Hawaiian practice, came close to dying out as a result of missionary impacts in the 19th century only to be revived as part of Hawai’i’s tourist industry in the 1890s and exported to the United States of America and Australia by Duke Kahanamoku reads surfing through United States mainland eyes, further narrowed by being the narrative of the turn of the 20th century leisure industries. This narrative stumbles on at least three principal problems. First, it ignores the presence of surfing in the rest of the Pacific. Second, there is little evidence, outside missionary boosterism designed to seek funds, that surfing ‘died out’, although there was almost certainly a waning of the practice. Third, and a corollary 10 On decolonial methodologies in history, see Odendaal, 2018; O’Bonsawin, 2017.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE of the first problem, there may have been export to settler colonials in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, but across the Pacific and in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand corporate surf culture met Indigenous practice but we have little idea of Indigenous surfing practices in many of those areas, except that they existed – because the story is dominated by Hawai’i as surfing’s ontological singularity. Here, too, is a sport narrative crying out for decolonisation. This corporate leisure industries narrative has had a profound effect on scholarship, where it is regularly claimed for instance that the first written source on surfing dates from 1778, which might be true for the Pacific – but the Atlanticist historian Kevin Dawson cites a source from the 1640s from what is now Ghana (Dawson, 2017:139). The unspoken, implicit text of the Hawaiian singularity is that surfing existed nowhere else: just as we cannot find a single source for football/soccer (give a bunch of people a round object – eventually someone is going to kick it), we cannot claim a single source for surfing (put people at the beach, eventually someone is going to see if they can ride along with a wave, either in person or in a boat/canoe of some form). What’s more, the same missionary text often cited as the source of the ‘death-of-surfing’ narrative, Highram Bingham’s 1847 Residence of 21 Years in the Sandwich Islands, also tells of (Queen) Ka’ahumanu’s request that he use his planned trip to Tahiti in around 1821 to bring her back an olo, “a royal surf board”, because the Tahitian ones were held in high regard: Ka’ahumanu was co-ruler with Liholiho until 1824 and then acted as co-ruling regent with Kamehameha III (Moser, 2017:38-39). Something is rotten in the received historical narrative. This received historical narrative helped shape the spread of commercial surfing through California and around the Pacific Rim, and to shore up the Hawaiian tourism industry – a link that was so solidified by the 1930s that it was the marker of the 1937 Disney animation, Mickey Mouse Hawaiian Holiday. Transformations in travel, among other things, meant that by the 1960s there had been a shift in the discourses of surf culture leading to an accentuation of the surf ‘safari’: travel to find new surf spots, as exemplified by the first commercially successful surf film, Endless Summer. By the 1960s, surfing’s colonialism had shifted from its expropriation as a white man’s pastime to become a peripatetic encampment claiming as new and undiscovered beaches around the world, whether or not there were existing occupants, let alone users, and often despite and in contempt of those Indigenous peoples. These encampments have now been extended by the plethora of surf schools that seem inescapable. There have been several important scholarly analyses of surfing in recent years, including vital work by Belinda Wheaton, Isaiah Helekunihi Walker, Kristen Lawler, Mark Stranger, Scott Laderman, Krista Comer and 2017’s Critical Surf Studies Reader. Walker’s work importantly reasserts surfing as a resistive Hawaiian practice, and Stranger’s unpacks a phenomenology of surfing with some reflections on transient surfer communities in various beach locations (Walker,  2011; Stranger, 2011). It is Laderman’s that I draw on here even though it centres on Indonesia, more Pacific Rim than Pacific (Laderman, 2014). Laderman, as do most of these other authors, raises vital questions about sport, commercialisation, tourism, neo-colonialism and the pervasive tentacles of Empire. 184

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Indonesia appeared on the surf safari radar in the late 1960s and became established as a surf tourism destination in the early 1970s. For Australians, it was close and crucially a political ally (despite tensions) firmly within the American sphere – although at the cost of up to a million dead and half a million imprisoned during the Suharto coup in 1965/66; a body count ignored in claims for surfing as quest for spiritual transcendence on the wave face. This body count was extended with the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, now Timor L’Est, in 1975, where the death of around a third of the population had minimal impact on Indonesian surf tourism. Surfing magazines have a long tradition of apolitical travelogues, with some of the 1980s features on Central America making El Salvador’s and Guatemala’s murderous civil wars a game-like experience, as part of the adventure (Laderman, 2017:50-54). When this wilful ignorance is combined with claims of the radicalism of hedonism, it becomes hard not to see surf practitioners as complicit in the oppression around them. In the wake of the 1965 coup, the Suharto regime continued Surkano’s development strategy of turning Bali into an international tourist destination. This work coincided with the development within surfing cultures of status and kudos being attached to the travelling surfer, exploring the frontier of wave travel and seeking the mythical perfect break – a fantasy encapsulated in Endless Summer and one that ignored or treated with contempt the people already in those places. This is a version of the same colonialist outlook that places the United States mainland in the driver’s seat of the surfing diffusion historical narrative. This also is a contempt we continue to see in surf tourism and the sport’s engagement with coastal communities. Speaking on ABC National Radio’s Hindsight show on 6 April 2003, for instance, the Hawaiian haole professional surfer Stephen Cooney said of Uluwatu, a popular Balinese surf spot, that it was a real life experience … it was pristine, there was a coral reef, there was (sic) fish, there were sea cows. The locals continued to tell us you shouldn’t be out there[,] ‘don’t go there, you shouldn’t be in the water[,]’ because they felt that Uluwatu had some sort of mystical power, well I think they thought it was an evil place so when we actually started paddling out, they couldn’t work out what we were doing. cited in McGloin, 2017:205 The level of arrogance in this statement is both distressing and utterly unsurprising. It just oozes contempt and colonial expectation, condemning the ‘superstitious’, demonstrating contempt by assuming that after years of relentless tourist influx the Balinese had no conception of the patronising presumptions that came with these visitors. This derogation of ‘mystical power’ shows a failure of reflexivity, given the language of affect and mysticism that pervades surfing. Cooney’s statement also encapsulates the mystique and romanticism of the surfing myth. Bali was and is in no way ‘pristine’. Indonesian regimes of the 1960s set out to make Bali a tourist destination; part of its appeal was the proximity to Singapore and therefore accessibility to global air travel. In just 3-4 years in the late 1960s, Bali was converted to a tourist hot spot and surfing drawcard, targeting men and building an hospitable tourist environment with welcoming locals and

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE accommodation, food and transportation where prices suited the budget oriented surfer market. It worked; by 1973 Tracks magazine, Australia’s premier surfer media at the time, wondered whether this was “paradise”, celebrating “some of the best surf discovered outside Hawaii (sic)” and the “cheap accommodation, beautiful tropical surroundings, an interesting culture, psychedelic mushrooms and cheap grass” (Cited in Laderman, 2014:66). Barely 8 years before this Orientalist paean, in September 1965, around 5% of the Balinese population, that is roughly 80 000 people, were killed in the Suharto coup, yet Bali in particular and Indonesia more generally were depicted in the surf media and more widely as a tropical fantasy paradise full of brown-skinned, peaceful and serene people – just the people to become Cooney’s superstitious locals, perplexed by the ‘crazy surfers’.

Po’ina nalu and va as the ‘where’ of sports history Simplistically adopting the ‘native’s point of view’ without considering the phenomenological implications or the epistemology and ontology of sport practice is insufficient if we are to make sense of these body cultures and the effects of the colonial matrix of power. Surfing tells a compelling story of an Indigenous movement culture made global, but that story is told not from the point of view of po’ina nalu (the Hawaiian surf zone), but from the point of view and in the interests of the North American leisure and tourism industries. Neither is it told from a perspective that is alert to Indigenous “practices and assumptions about what water means and how relationships with it are made”, including the ways that coastal practices embody distinctive engagements with both water and land (Wheaton et al., 2020:90). This missing perspective can best be understood through a lens provided by what Shilliam (2015) identifies as the ‘deep relation’ of decolonial science. The narratives exposed and obscured in surfing may also be seen in the contempt for Indigenous communities or the complex win-some-losesome dynamics of surfing as a glocalising activity. Generally, surfing has a positive image despite its pervasive misogyny and homophobia, yet there is much about the pastime that a decolonial view might find wanting, although as Isaiah Walker (2011) suggests, it’s never that simple. That it is not simple may also be seen in cricket, a sport similarly woven through with stereotype and presumption. Yet the Samoan evidence suggests that neither the colonial game nor the decolonised community practice can be understood as simplistically virtuous or oppressive. A decolonial view must see kilikiti as not not-cricket but as an adaptation of an English game, woven through with its own plethora of cultural significations, to a Samoan movement culture carrying its own fa’a Samoa meanings. Decolonising sport, whatever our margins, clearly has an awful lot to tell us.

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References Beckles, H. 1999a. The Development of West Indies Cricket: The Age of Nationalism Vol.1. London: Pluto Press. Beckles, H. 1999b. The Development of West Indies Cricket: The Age of Globalisation Vol.2. London: Pluto Press. Binney, J. 1995. Redemption Songs: A Life of Nineteenth-century Maori Leader: Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuku. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Brownell, S. 1995. Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chakrabarty, D. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Darwin, J. 2007. After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire since 1405. London: Allen Lane. Dawson, K. 2017. Surfing beyond Racial and Colonial Imperatives in Early Modern Atlantic Africa and Oceania. In: D.Z. Hough-Snee & A.S. Eastman (eds). Critical Surf Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, pp.135-54. Deutsch, J. 2017. Antifascism, Sports, Sobriety: Forging a Militant Working-Class Culture. G. Kuhn, (ed. & trans.). San Francisco: PM Press. Downey, A. 2018. The Creator’s Game: Lacrosse, Identity, and Indigenous Nationhood. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Dubnewick, M., Hopper, T., Spence, J. & McHugh, T.F. 2018. “There’s a Cultural Pride Through Our Games”: Enhancing the sport Experiences of Indigenous Youth in Canada Through Participation in Traditional Games. Journal of Sport & Social Issues, 42(4):207-26. Felkers, I., Mulder, E. & MacLean, M. 2015. Homo ludens in the twenty-first century: Towards an understanding of Cailois’s paidia in sports. In: M. MacLean, W. Russell & E. Ryall (eds). Philosophical Perspectives on Play. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.123-35. Guha, R. 2003. A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport. London: Pan Macmillan. James, C.L.R. 1998. Beyond a Boundary. London: Serpents’ Tail. Kildea, G. & Leach, J. 1975. Trobriand Cricket: An Indigenous Response to Colonialism. Government of Papua New Guinea, University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology & Ethnography. [Online video]. Available: https://bit.ly/3ey6VLH (Accessed 13 February 2019). Laderman, S. 2014 Empire in Waves: A Political History of Surfing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Laderman, S. 2017 ‘A World Apart: Pleasure, Rebellion, and the Politics of Surf Tourism’ In: D.Z. Hough-Snee & A.S. Eastman (eds). Critical Surf Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, pp.47-61. MacLean, M. 2019. ‘Engaging (with) Indigeneity: Decolonization and Indigenous/ Indigenizing Sport History’. Journal of Sport History, 46(2):189-207.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE MacLean, M. 2021. ‘Conflict and Accommodation’. In: M. Huggins (ed). The Age of Industry. W. Vamplew & M. Dyreson (eds). Bloomsbury Cultural History of Sport Vol 5. London: Bloomsbury, pp.119-41. Manley, M. 1996. History of the West Indies Cricket. 2nd Edition. London: Trafalgar Square. McGloin, C. 2017. ‘Indigenous Surfing: Pedagogy, Pleasure, and Decolonial Practice’ In: D.Z. Hough-Snee & A.S. Eastman (eds). Critical Surf Studies Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, pp.196-213. Mignolo, W. & Walsh, C. 2018. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Durham: Duke University Press. Mignolo, W. 2011. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke University Press. Moser, P. 2017. On a Mission: Hiram Bingham and the Rhetoric of Urgency. In: D.Z. Hough-Snee & A.S. Eastman (eds). Critical Surf Studies Reader. Durham, Duke University Press, pp.29-46. O’Bonsawin, C. 2017. Humor, Irony, and Indigenous Peoples: A Re-Reading of the Historical Record of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Championship. Sport History Review, 48:168-84. Odendaal, A. 2018. Reflections on writing a post-colonial history of a colonial game. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring Decolonising Themes in SA Sport History. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, pp.1-8. Poulter, G. 2009. Becoming Native in a Foreign Land: Sport, Visual Culture, and Identity in Montreal, 1840-85. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Robidoux, M. 2012. Stickhandling through the Margins: First Nations Hockey in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Ruck, R. 2018. Tropic of Football: The Long and Perilous Journey of Samoans in the NFL. New York: The Free Press. Ryall, E. 2013. Playing with words: Further comment on Suits’ definition. In: E. Ryall, W. Russell & M. MacLean (eds). The Philosophy of Play. Abingdon: Routledge, pp.44‑53. Sacks, B. 2017. Purely of their own manufacture: the adoption and appropriation of cricket in Samoa, c1879-1939. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Western Australia. Sacks, B. 2019. Cricket, Kirikiti and Imperialism in Samoa, 1879-1939. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Shilliam, R. 2015. The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections. London, Bloomsbury. Stranger, M. 2011. Surfing Life: Surface, Substructure and the Commodification of the Sublime. Farnham: Ashgate. Suits, B. 1978. The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tagata Pasifika TVNZ. 2012. Kilikiti Games. [Online video]. Available: https://bit.ly/2ZLZps7 (Accessed 13 February 2019).

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Underdown, D. 2000. Start of Play: Cricket and Culture in Nineteenth-Century England. London: Penguin. Walker, I.H. 2011. Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawai’i. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Wheaton, B., Waiti, J., Cosgriff, M. & Burrows, L. 2020. ‘Coastal blue space and wellbeing research: looking beyond western tides’. Leisure Studies, 39(1):83-95.

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Chapter 10 From apartheid to democracy: the response of Cape Town‑based mountain clubs to the changing political landscape, 1970-1994 Farieda Khan Independent Researcher

Introduction The period 1970-1994 was a time of great political turbulence and change in South Africa – a period when the apartheid State was openly challenged and the State responded with political repression and violence. Large sections of the population, especially those in the black townships, were involved in open revolt in the wake of the Soweto Uprising in 1976 (Welsh, 2009:52, 142). During the 1970s the most visible features of social apartheid disappeared, but the Government maintained the fundamentals of apartheid, viz. race classification, segregated residential areas and schools (Giliomee & Schlemmer, 1989:123-124). The 1980s was also a very volatile period, and at times it seemed as though the country was in the grip of an undeclared civil war (Thompson, 2014:228-229, 241). Notwithstanding, the State sought to ensure its political survival through small, incremental changes and policy adaptations (Giliomee & Schlemmer, 1989:114-115; Thompson, 2014:224‑225). The 1990s was a period of dramatic socio-political transition which began with the unbanning of extra-parliamentary organisations such as the African National Congress (ANC) and the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 (Thompson, 2014:246), culminating in the first democratic elections in April 1994. Amid the radical social and political shifts taking place, mainstream (i.e. predominantly or exclusively white) civil society organisations began to respond by adapting their mode of operation from the mid-1980s onwards (Khan, 2001:216). In the sphere of sport, the consequences of several decades of apartheid was dire, especially for black people, as residential areas, sports facilities and recreational amenities were overwhelmingly skewed in favour of whites (Archer & Bouillon, 1982:45-46). The ethnic sectarianism which had been rife in black sports clubs during the first half of the 20th century, and which had resulted in clubs voluntarily segregating themselves from each other on the grounds of ethnicity, religion and even hair texture (Khan, 2019), was disappearing by the late 1950s/early 1960s (District Six Museum, 2010:44, 52, 58). By the 1970s, the ideal of non-racial

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE sport, as espoused by the South African Council on Sport, established in 1973 (Archer & Bouillon, 1982:229), was becoming the norm in black sport. As South Africa began the gradual move from racial discrimination and political repression towards democracy during the period under review, this chapter will evaluate the responses of six of the eight mountain clubs active in Cape Town at the time, as well as their interaction with each other. With the exception of the Scout Mountain Club (established in 1951) and the University of Western Cape Mountain Club,1 established in about the late 1970s (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1980:31), these clubs are: the Mountain Club of South Africa, the Cape Province Mountain Club, the University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, the Western Province Mountain Club, the Bats Climbing Club and the South African Climbers Club. In so doing, this paper intends to uncover aspects of the Cape’s hidden history of mountaineering by going beyond the history of mainstream mountaineering and presenting a more comprehensive, diverse and complex story of mountaineering in Cape Town.

The response of Cape Town-based mountain clubs to the political landscape, 1970-1985 The Mountain Club of South Africa, Cape Town Section The Mountain Club of South Africa (MCSA), established in 1891 (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1894:7), attracted the cream of the social, professional and governing elite of the Cape (Burman, 1966:16) and did not accept blacks as members (Khan, 2018b:58). The MCSA continued to serve the interests of the white elite through the first half of the 20th century (Khan, 2018b:59-61). Following the victory of the National Party (NP) in 1948, the club willingly conformed to the segregationist demands of the apartheid regime (Khan, 2018b:62-63) even though it was under no legislative compulsion to do so, including prohibiting its members from climbing with black mountaineers (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1954). By the 1970s, the MCSA’s tradition of assiduously courting the white political establishment by inviting its leaders to be its patrons and honoured guests at its annual dinners, was well entrenched (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1974b:187; 1975:145; 1976b:167), bolstering the club’s ‘special’ relationship with the government. The club was thus able to take advantage of its favoured position by sending its members on advanced mountaineering courses abroad, which were funded or partly funded by the government (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1970:124; 1975:146; 1977b:169). Throughout the 1970s, the MCSA would remain careful not to upset its membership, endanger its positive relationship with the government, or threaten its access to mountain areas across farms and forests by challenging the racial status quo. Thus, any complaints from farmers about racially 1 These clubs have not been included in this paper due respectively, to the fact that the first was a youth club, and that there is a lack of information on the second, as no club minutes for the UWCMC or its newsletters, are housed at the University of the Western Cape (Orderson & Pekeur, 2018).

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From apartheid to democracy mixed climbing parties involving MCSA members would lead to swift action from the club to prevent a recurrence (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1973b; Mountain Club of South Africa, 1973c). By the late 1970s, with the country in the throes of social and political upheaval, it seemed that the MCSA remained committed to keeping the membership of the club exclusively white, because when the issue of “Non-white members” was raised in 1978, it was decided that it would be “undesirable to do anything at this stage” (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1978a:296). This stance was confirmed at the end of the following year (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1979:353) – expedience thus trumped principle. However, like their environmental counterparts, the MCSA began to realise that, in a shifting socio-political landscape, their long-term survival depended upon a move away from the race-based approach which they had adopted until then. Thus, by the early 1980s, the MCSA tentatively began interacting with the “three Coloured mountain clubs” (viz. the Cape Province Mountain Club, Western Province Mountain Club and University of the Western Cape Mountain Club), with the first invitation to a social function and climbing meet (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1980:31). While there were now several individual MCSA members who were willing to climb with leading black mountaineers such as Ed February (February, 2004), by this stage, the club had still not formally tackled the issue of opening up its membership to all.

The Cape Province Mountain Club The Cape Province Mountain Club (CPMC) was established in 1931 by a group of coloured climbers in District Six, excluded from the MCSA as a result of that club’s unwritten ‘whites only’ policy (Khan, 2018a:68-69). From the time of the CPMC’s establishment, the tone and nature of its relationship with the MCSA (as determined by the latter), was aloof and paternalistic, with minimal contact (Khan, 2018a:70; Khan, 2018b:60, 62-63). By the 1970s, this was a situation encouraged and doubtless made easier by the racial segregation and discrimination normalised by apartheid. CPMC member, Ed February, who was then climbing the highest grades in the country, remembers the 1970s with bitterness, since none of the MCSA’s top climbers would partner with him (February, 2017b.) Eventually he met up with MCSA members such as Dave Cheesmond, who were happy to partner with him and other CPMC members in defiance of the MCSA’s unwritten rules about not fraternising with black climbers (February, 2017a). February’s anger is echoed by a fellow CPMC rock climber, who noted that the MCSA was, “… very paternalistic – they tolerated the apartheid status quo. We made overtures but these were not accepted… we had no relationship – they offered no help, shared no expertise” (Bruyns, 1999). On the rare occasion when there was actual interaction between the two clubs in the 1970s, this was usually at the CPMC’s request, such as the training in search and rescue methods in the early 1970s led by the Search and Rescue Subcommittee leader, William Henry Crump. However, this interaction turned out

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE to be an unpleasant experience for CPMC members like Peter Bruyns, who felt that Crump “was a racist, he showed us contempt in the way he spoke to us and in his demeanour” (Bruyns,  2017). This image of Crump has been confirmed by MCSA member Barry Fletcher, who has commented that, “Crumpie was one of the old colonial types – like those who did not want Jews and darker ethnicity persons to be members of the old clubs in town” (Fletcher, 2017). The 1970s was a difficult period for the CPMC, because “… the segregation of the mountaineering community …meant that there wasn’t a transfer of skills … there was nowhere where one could do a course on mountain leadership skills … the Mountain Club, Cape Town Section … had a high level of skill and knowledge and expertise [but] it was not accessible to us …” (Bruyns, 1999). The CPMC, which had begun moving away from its origins as a ‘Coloureds only’ club during the 1950s, now had Muslims joining the former Coloured, Christian club,2 but Africans still did not, which may be attributed in large part to the realities of the rigid residential segregation of the apartheid era which “kept communities apart” (Hendricks, 2015), as well as to the greater economic discrimination experienced by Africans (February, 2017a) which restricted them to physically demanding menial jobs, with less leisure time. These factors, along with the club’s usual approach of recruiting members from among friends and family, resulted in very few Africans participating in mountaineering. Unlike the MCSA or the UCTMSC, the CPMC membership had to cope with the difficulties of operating in the apartheid era in rural areas, where it was “full-on apartheid” (Fortune, 2016), and they were barred from the accommodation and campsites on state and private land (Pasqualle, 1973:7). Another perennial problem was that of negotiating access across the land of white farmers, some of whom were racist (Bruyns, 2017; February, 2017a), which sometimes resulted in refusal of access, as well as numerous unpleasant encounters, including several occasions when farmers threatened members with firearms (February, 2009; Pasqualle, 2017; Stevens, 2016)! However, CPMC members simply took these obstacles in their stride, noting that, “That’s how things were – we didn’t think of them as challenges – we just dealt with them” (February, 2017a). Another significant obstacle faced by the club during this period was the continued implementation of the Group Areas Act which resulted in the forced removals of nearly all the Coloured communities living in close proximity to the Table Mountain Chain. In particular, the eviction of District Six residents, where many leisure mountaineers and rock climbers had been nurtured, and which was the home of the CPMC, took place throughout the 1970s, dispersing residents all over the Cape Flats, destroying many social, cultural and sports clubs and institutions in the process (Adams, 2002:73-75; Swanson & Harries, 2001:77). Marooned on the Cape Flats in townships situated at a distance from the mountain chain, meant that those who wished to continue their mountain activities now had to use their limited leisure time and money to reach areas which had been easily and freely accessible before. 2 Ishmet Allie seems to have been the first Muslim member in the 1950s (Burman, 1966:52).

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From apartheid to democracy The relationship between the CPMC and the MCSA also continued along the same parallel path with little interaction, except with those individual members happy to climb with their CPMC counterparts (Stevens, 2016). By this stage however, with many highly capable rock climbers in its ranks, CPMC members felt their isolation from the mainstream mountaineering fraternity keenly and with resentment – as one member recalls, “The MCSA looked down on us – they had this monopoly on search and rescue, and didn’t think we were capable of mountain rescue” (Stevens, 2016).

The University of the Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club The University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club (UCTMSC), established in 1933 (University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, 1933), had a membership composition which mirrored that of the Mountain Club of South Africa, i.e. it was white and predominantly male, and drawn from the educated, affluent middle and upper middle class, consisting of university lecturers and students. There was no question of admitting any of the tiny minority of black students (mainly Coloureds and Indians) to the club because of the University of Cape Town (UCT) administration’s acceptance and implementation of social segregation on campus (Phillips, 1993:192-193). This situation was challenged by a Coloured student, CPMC member Kenny Parker, who applied to the UCTMSC for membership in 1954 (University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, 1954:44-45). However, it was only in 1959 that he was reluctantly, and with a great many reservations, accepted by the club (University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, 1959:203-204). While the club’s reluctant decision was hardly a ringing endorsement of open membership, it should be borne in mind that this took place during a period when the foundation of an apartheid society was being constructed. Further, it was only by the late 1950s (as noted earlier) that black sports clubs still practicing discrimination, finally rejected ethnic sectarianism within their own ranks. Hence the opening of the UCTMSC to all students, however reluctantly, represents the first shift in the rigidly segregationist mode of operation of sports clubs in South Africa. Parker’s admission to the UCTMSC did not result in large numbers of black students joining the club during the 1960s and 1970s, and it remained predominantly white (Hutton-Squire, 2018; Moseley, 2018). The reason for this was two-fold. Firstly, the 1960s coincided with a rise in radicalism among many of the black students at UCT who came from Unity Movement-aligned schools (such as Livingstone and Trafalgar High Schools), which had a political tradition of non-racialism and noncollaboration with those upholding the status quo (Wieder, 2008:51, 56). These students began to deliberately stand aloof from student bodies, boycotting their activities as a form of political protest (Aboo, 2016; Cornelius, 2016; Jones, 2016; Le Grange, 2016), The second reason that the membership of the UCTMSC remained predominantly white was bound up with its institutional culture and the fact that its members inhabited a privileged world in which issues such as race-based exclusion from

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE facilities in climbing areas such as the Cederberg and Drakensberg, did not intrude. The fact that the UCTMSC’s main climbing partners were other exclusively or predominantly white clubs, such as the MCSA and the mountain clubs at Wits, Natal/Pietermaritzburg, Stellenbosch3 and Pretoria universities (University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, 1978:39-40), probably also influenced this situation. However, by the late 1970s, it appeared that the social and political changes which had begun sweeping South Africa, were being acknowledged by the UCTMSC (Grindley, 1978:7). The UCTMSC was in an extremely privileged position as the club could tap into the financial resources of the university, applying for cash grants not only for its operational requirements, but also for funding to build new mountain huts (University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, 1971:v). Having already purchased Waaihoek in 1961, the mountain property on which the club’s huts stood (Pells, 1962:4), the club was able to amass significant equipment and infrastructure over time, in addition to giving its members the opportunity to gain additional mountaineering expertise by climbing abroad, for example in Kenya (Jamieson, Rankin, Schoop & Van Lierde, 1976/77:10-13), and the Andes in South America (Jamieson, 1979/80:7). During the 1980s, the narrow membership base of the UCTMSC was becoming more diverse, with black students beginning to join the UCTMSC, including Ed February (February, 2018) and Richard Hess (UCTMSC Bulletin, 1983:16). In 1983, with grants from the club, February was able to gain extensive climbing experience abroad (Grindley, 1983:1). The UCTMSC, with its access to UCT’s financial resources, was able to offer black climbers opportunities to gain mountaineering expertise and experience that clubs such as the CPMC and WPMC could not, and which the MCSA would not. With regard to inter-club relationships, the CPMC seemed to have a good relationship with the UCTMSC as they made use of their Waaihoek mountain huts on several occasions (Bruyns, 1973a:12; Bruyns, 1973b:14); while the UCTMSC and the MCSA continued to have close, cordial and reciprocal relations (Jamieson, 1979/80:7).

The Western Province Mountain Club The Western Province Mountain Club (WPMC) was established in the coloured suburb of Athlone by former CPMC member Eric Carolus who, together with some friends, founded the club on the Cape Flats in 1967 (Carolus, 2016). The club was granted a hut on Table Mountain, but only on condition that its Constitution stated that it was a ‘Coloured club’ (Petersen, 2015). Notwithstanding, the WPMC espoused the non‑racial ideals shared by most black sports clubs in the 1970s and had a couple of white members, but no African members (Pietersen, 2016) – very likely for similar reasons to those of the CPMC. During this period the WPMC, like 3 By the 1980s, the UCTMSC’s relationship with the University of Stellenbosch’s Berg en Toer Klub (BTK) was several decades old, with the first reference to its annual joint meets being in 1940, which indicates that a relationship had begun during the 1930s already (Pells, 1952:11).

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From apartheid to democracy the CPMC, was forced to operate as a ‘Coloured’ club and had to deal with the institutionalised racism of the State in being excluded from facilities reserved for whites, such as the Algeria Campsite at the foot of the Cederberg Mountains (Petersen, 2015). The interaction of the WPMC with the MCSA largely followed the pattern set by the MCSA in its interaction with the CPMC, in that contact was formal and infrequent, such as giving a talk on mountaineering to the WPMC (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1973a:127). Moreover, such interaction took place within the MCSA’s view that the two clubs needed to operate on the racially separate lines decreed by apartheid, as evidenced by its concern when it learnt that a member of the WPMC had spent two nights at one of its huts. While no action was taken on that occasion because the club wished to avoid “undesirable publicity” and “offence to the coloured community”, it was decided that action would definitely be taken if it were to occur again (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1974a:155). The MCSA’s rigid approach to racial segregation would thaw only slightly in the late1970s when it decided to pin an invitation to the WPMC’s tenth anniversary on the club’s notice board (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1977a:250). Like the CPMC, the WPMC continued to battle to operate within the restrictions of apartheid even though social apartheid was slowly loosening up, with accommodation on national hiking trails being opened to all. However, even these facilities were subject to the prejudice of whites, as a WPMC member found, when in 1983, he and his wife were summarily ejected from the Otter Trail hut they had booked a year in advance because the white group with whom they had to share the hut objected (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1983:149). In their relationship with the MCSA, WPMC members largely shared the feelings of the CPMC, with one member noting that their club did not get much recognition from the MCSA since they “didn’t see us as serious mountaineers” (Fortuin, 2016).

The Bats Climbing Club Frustrated by the MCSA’s racist attitudes, Dave Cheesmond (a member of the Natal Section of the MCSA), together with several other young mountaineers in Cape Town, established an informal, non-racial group called the Bats Climbing Club (BCC) in the early 1970s (February, 2017a). Ed February, a CPMC member who had met Cheesmond while climbing Table Mountain and formed a climbing partnership with him, joined the Bats, together with his brother Rodney and Maurice Wyngaard (both from the CPMC), Edmund January (from the WPMC), as well as Pete du Preez, Steve Bridgemond and Dave’s brother, John from the MCSA (Salkeld, c1976:11). Although the formation of the BCC wasn’t “a well-thought through, formal political act” (February, 2017a), very likely the founding members did so to signal their opposition to the segregated nature of climbing in Cape Town at the time. The MCSA members in the BCC were called to meetings and told to desist from climbing with blacks, but Cheesmond in particular refused to be dictated to (February, 2017a). Given the fundamental ideological differences between the BCC and the

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE MCSA, hostile relations seemed inevitable, especially after an article appeared in a British climbing magazine in the mid-1970s quoting Dave Cheesmond, who was heavily critical of the “conservative” MCSA and its disapproval of the racially mixed Bats (Salkeld, c1976:11). Infuriated by Cheesmond’s actions, which the MCSA regarded as part of an effort to “discredit” it, the Cape Town Section decided to declare him persona non grata (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1976a:228). Cheesmond left for Europe at the end of 1974 in order to avoid conscription into the South African Defence Force. The Bats remained in existence for another couple of years before fading away (February, 2017a).

The South African Climbers’ Club The South African Climbers’ Club (SACC) was established on 11 October 1977 (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1977c:277) by Dave Cheesmond on his return to South Africa after spending time in Britain (February, 2017a). As with the Bats, one of the primary reasons that the SACC was formed, was to counter the racism and non-inclusiveness of the mainstream mountaineering fraternity (Cartwright, 2018). While the SACC was not solely a Cape Town-based club, it was launched at UCT and the core of its climbers was based in Cape Town. Subsequently, however, many of the most active members moved to the then Transvaal (Bradshaw, 2018) where Mike Cartwright “took [the Club] up to another level” as he managed to get funding from the government by convincing them that the Club was South Africa’s “top mountaineering organisation” (February, 2017a). Remarkably for the period, an organisation which was non-racial received government funding and was able to fully sponsor numerous climbing trips by its members (February, 2017a). However, the likely explanation for this funding was that the SACC’s operations coincided with propaganda efforts by white sports administrators and government officials to portray South Africa as a country in which non-racial sport was thriving (Booth, 1998:135). As a result of the generous government funding, a number of the club’s “top alpinists”, including Ed February, Mike Cartwright and Roger Nattrass, was able to undertake mountaineering expeditions abroad (Cartwright, 2018). Given the fundamental differences in the way the SACC and the MCSA operated, it is unsurprising that their relationship broke down in 1978 (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1978b:306). The SACC collapsed at some stage during the late 1980s and was effectively absorbed into the MCSA (Cartwright, 2018).

The response of the mountaineering fraternity to the changing political landscape, 1985-1994 Inside the MCSA, the process of change only began to speed up from the mid1980s onwards, hesitantly and slowly at first. After an enquiry from a member of the public, the issue of “Non-White membership” was once again placed on the club’s agenda in January 1984 (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1984a:139), and was followed by 20 months of consultations with farmers, forestry officials,

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From apartheid to democracy and members (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1984b:183). While some members voiced their concern that such a move would be “the thin end of the wedge” (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1985a:297), and that the club could be “swamped by hordes of non-whites” (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1985a:301), ultimately the club decided to acknowledge the political reality that “attitudes are changing” (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1985a:296, 301). In September 1985 a new membership policy was accepted in which “the race of an aspirant member [would] be no impediment” to admission (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1985a:295). It was from the mid-1980s onwards that the MCSA embarked on a series of changes to its relationship with black mountaineers and clubs, such as: a decision to support reciprocal relationships with the Malawi and Zimbabwe Mountain Clubs (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1986a:44); holding the first social meetings with all the Cape Town-based mountain clubs (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1985b:3 and 1985c:21); informal meetings with the CPMC (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1986b: 71 and 1986c:76); joint climbing meets with the CPMC (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1986e:146) and WPMC (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1987:198); launching ‘outreach’ programmes at schools where the CPMC had contacts (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1986d:91); admitting its first black member in 1986 (Odendaal, 1993:100) and organising a mountaineering expedition to Chile in 1987 in which members of the CPMC and WPMC participated (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1988:1). Despite the fact that membership of the MCSA was now open to all, the fears of the more conservative members of the MCSA of an avalanche of black members did not come to pass, and ironically, the club struggled to attract black members (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1990:182). The membership composition of the CPMC did not change markedly during this period as only a handful of African members joined for a short period as a result of the club’s strong outreach programme among church and youth groups (Bruyns, 2017). It seemed that the recruitment and retention of membership by Africans was difficult to sustain, possibly because there was no history of community interest in mountaineering to build upon, in addition to socio-economic obstacles such as the cost of membership fees, gear and transport. The forced removal of the District Six community continued to have negative consequences for the club as the destruction of the club’s recruitment base and the loss of its proximity to the Table Mountain Chain led to a slow decline, and by the late 1980s, it was feared that the club might have to close (Cape Province Mountain Club, 2011). The UCTMSC continued on the path set earlier in the 1980s with a broader, more diverse membership, and continued to sponsor climbing trips abroad for its top climbers, such as Ed February (De Klerk, 1987:19-20). The early 1990s was a period of transition for South Africa, with many mainstream environmental organisations responding to a rapidly changing society by reaching out to their counterparts across the colour divide and by attempting to be more socially-responsive themselves (Khan, 2000:171). This proved to be the case among the mountaineering fraternity as well, and closer interaction and cordial relations among the Cape Town-based mountain clubs was established. For example, the

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE first joint meet by the UCTMSC, UWCMC and Stellenbosch University’s Berg en Toer Klub (BTK) was held in April 1993 (Pelman, 1992/93:28‑30). However, it should be noted that the UWCMC had been in existence since the late 1970s, thus it is telling that this was the first time that either the UCTMSC or the BTK had invited them on a joint meet. The UCTMSC also launched an outreach programme in which students from underprivileged backgrounds were taken on mountain hikes (Jones, 1991/92:6; Spisto, 1993/94:19; Waker, 1993/94:12). Responding to the rapprochement sweeping through mountaineering circles, the MCSA began discussions in 1991 on the possibility of the CPMC and the WPMC becoming sections of the MCSA (MCSA, 1991:206). Ultimately, both the CPMC and WPMC opted to retain their independence, fearing the loss of their history and institutional identity (Bruyns, 2017; Fortuin, 2016). Underlying this decision were the still-painful memories of racism displayed by the MCSA in the past (Rodger, 1992:11). Both clubs lost members to the MCSA - mainly climbers who wanted access to the superior resources of the MCSA – and this stirred up resentment and tension among the clubs (Hendricks, 2015; Holloway, 2016). In 1993, the MCSA began considering how to address the ‘elitist’ label which was often attached to it, and it was decided to launch an “Outreach Committee” and to initiate “ventures with disadvantaged groups” (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1993:7). In so doing, the MCSA hoped to identify “potential leaders” who would take their new-found skills and experiences in mountain wilderness areas back to their communities, and nurture a new generation of members and leaders for the MCSA (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1994a:1). The MCSA concluded 1994, the year that democracy was finally embraced by South Africa, with an editorial on the need for the club to “engage reflectively [on the] pertinent issues of our day” if it wished to “grow and remain the premier mountaineering body” in South Africa (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1995:1, 3). Despite the tensions which were brought to the surface by the attempt to amalgamate the CPMC and WPMC with the powerful MCSA, the 1990-1994 period was, in the main, one of friendly and close interaction among all the Cape Townbased clubs, as many joint activities and social events were held (Mountain Club of South Africa, 1992c and 1994b; Savel, 1993), and it seemed as though a solid foundation was being laid for a close and co-operative relationship for the future. At this point, the future for mountaineering in a democratic South Africa looked promising indeed: diverse, accessible and broadly participatory.

Conclusion A picture of Cape mountaineering history has emerged which firstly, unequivocally demonstrates the inextricability of sport and politics by illuminating the political reasons for the position of the MCSA as the Cape’s (and the country’s) premier mountaineering club, as well as the political obstacles facing clubs such as the CPMC and WPMC, which served disadvantaged communities. This is key to an understanding of the skewed development of Cape mountaineering. Secondly, this discussion has, through an exploration of the interaction among the Cape

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From apartheid to democracy Town-based mountain clubs, exposed the unequal nature of these relationships and demonstrated how they link to the political and economic standing of the members of these clubs in society. Finally, this chapter has sought to uncover parts of the Cape’s hidden history of mountaineering by going beyond the history of mainstream mountain clubs and evaluating the development of community-based and non-racial mountain clubs. Through this exploration of Cape mountaineering history, this paper has presented a more in-depth, diverse and complex picture of that history.

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From apartheid to democracy Holloway, D. 2016. Personal interview. 18 January, Cape Town. Hutton-Squire, M. 2018. Answers to questions posed. Email, 19 July. Jamieson, D., Rankin, R., Schoop, P. & Van Lierde, M. 1976/77. The UCTMSC Expedition to Kenya. UCTMSC Bulletin, 22:10-13. Jamieson, D. 1979/80. Report on the UCTMSC 150 Expedition to the South American Andes. UCTMSC Bulletin, 24:7-9. Jones, A. 2016. Personal interview. 3 March, Cape Town. Jones, R. 1991/92. Chairperson’s Report. UCTMSC Journal, 31:6-7. Khan, F. 2000. Environmentalism in South Africa: A Socio-political Perspective. Macalester International, 9:156-181. Khan, F. 2001. Towards Environmentalism: A socio-political evaluation of trends in South African history, 1919-1976, with a specific focus on the role of black conservation organisations. PhD thesis. Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Khan, F. 2018a. From Carriers to Climbers – The Cape Province Mountain Club, 1930s-1960s – An untold Story. In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring Decolonising Themes in South African Sport History: Issues and Challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, pp.67-79. Khan, F. 2018b. A Century of Mountaineering: Race, Class and the Politics of Climbing Table Mountain, 1890 – 1990. Acta Academica, 50(2):52-74. Khan, F. 2019. Ethnicity, Culture, Religion and Sport: Sectarianism as an Obstacle to the Development of Sport in Cape Town, South Africa during the First Half of the Twentieth Century. In: Elinor M. Angelini (ed). Racism and Discrimination in the Sporting World. Montreal, Canada: Universitas Press, pp.128-148. Le Grange, C. 2016. Personal interview. 18 April, Cape Town. Moseley, G. 2018. Answers to questions posed. Email, 7 September. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1894. Mountain Club, its Origins and Doings during the First Two Years. The Mountain Club Annual, January:7-11. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1954. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 10 February. B1.9, Vol IX, 09/12/1949-09/03/1955, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1967. 75th Anniversary Dinner. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 69:9. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1970. Annual Reports. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 72:124. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1973a. Minutes of a General Meeting, 14 March. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1973b. Minutes of a General Meeting, 13 June. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Mountain Club of South Africa. 1973c. Minutes of a Quarterly Meeting of the Cape Town Section, 15 June. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1974a. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 9 January. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1974b. Annual Reports. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 76:187. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1975. Annual Reports. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 77:145-146. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1976a. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 May. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1976b. Annual Reports. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 78:167. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1977a. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 January. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1977b. Annual Reports. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 79:169. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1977c. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 October. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1978a. Meeting of the General Committee, 10 May. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1978b. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 July. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1979. Meeting of the General Committee, 14 November. B.1.12. Vol XII, 09/07/1969-12/12/1979, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1980. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 November. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIII, 1980-1985. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1983. News Clippings, 14 January. J2.18, January 1977 May 1983, Vol. R, Special Collections, University of Cape Town, BC 1421 MCSA. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1984a. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 11 January. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIII, 1980-1985. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1984b. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 08 August. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIII, 1980-1985.

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From apartheid to democracy Mountain Club of South Africa. 1985a. Minutes of a Quarterly General Meeting, 06 September. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIII, 1980-1985. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1985b. Social Evening. Mountain Ears, November, 2:3-4. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1985c. Minutes of the Annual General Meeting, 06 December. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985-1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1986a. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 12 February. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985-1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1986b. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 14 May. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985-1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1986c. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 11 June. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985-1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1986d. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 9 July. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985-1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1986e. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 10 December. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985‑1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1987. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 9 September. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XIV, 1985-1988. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1988. Puna de Atacama Expedition – Chile. Mountain Ears, 11:1. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1990. Annual Report. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 92:1. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1991. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 15 May. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, Vol. XV, September 1988‑July 1992. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1993. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 10 March. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, August 1992 – August 1994. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1994a. Community Outreach. Mountain Ears, 34:1. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1994b. Minutes of a Meeting of the General Committee, 03 August. MCSA Archives, MCSA Headquarters, Cape Town, August 1992 – August 1994. Mountain Club of South Africa. 1995. Editorial. Journal of the Mountain Club of South Africa, 97:1, 3. Mountain Lookout. 1973a. Bruyns, P. Traverse of the Hex River Mountains, 17‑22 December 1972:12-13. Mountain Lookout. 1973b. Bruyns, P. Witels Kloof, Hex River Mountains, 29 December 1972 - 04 January 1973:14-15. Odendaal, L. 1993. Climbing to greater heights – Together. Tribute, November:100-102. Orderson, D. & Pekeur, J. 2018. Response to query re UWCMC documents. Email, 16 September.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Pasqualle, P. 1973. Cederberg – the ‘Bad Luck’ trip, Easter 1973. Mountain Lookout, pp.7‑10. Pasqualle, P. 2017. Personal interview. 17 August, Cape Town. Pells, E.G. 1952. A Short History of the University of Cape Mountain and Ski Club of South Africa, 1933- 1952, Unpublished Report. UCTMSC, Special Collections, University of Cape Town. Pells, N. 1962. ‘The Purchase of Waaihoek’. UCTMSC Bulletin, 9:4. Pelman, W. 1992/93. Joint Meet with Stellenbosch BTK and the University of the Western Cape, 24-25 April. UCTMSC Journal, 32:28-30. Petersen, M. 2015. Completed questionnaire. Email, 4 November. Phillips, H. 1993. The University of Cape Town, 1918-1948: The Formative Years. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press. Pietersen, C. 2016. Personal interview. 13 February, Cape Town. Rodger. 1992. Letter to Editor. Ash Valley Echo, 2(4):10-11. Salkeld, A. c1976. People. Mountain, 48:11. Savel, B. 1993. Waaihoekkloof, Ash Valley Echo, 3(2):4. Spisto, M. 1993/94.Community Hike, 14 March 1993. UCTMSC Journal, 33:19. Stevens, H. 2016. Personal interview. 13 February, Cape Town. Swanson, F & Harries, J. 2001. ‘Ja! So was District Six! But it was a beautiful place’: Oral histories, memory and identity. In: S. Field (ed). Lost Communities, Living Memories – Remembering Forced Removals in Cape Town. Cape Town: David Philip, pp.62-77. University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club. 1933. General Meeting, c.June 1933, UCTMSC Minute Book, 1933-1940, Administrative Archives, University of Cape Town. University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club, 1954. Minutes of a Committee Meeting, 17 March, UCTMSC Minute Book, 1953-1962, Administrative Archives, University of Cape Town. University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club. 1959. Minutes of a Committee Meeting, 23 March, UCTMSC Minute Book, 1953-1962, Administrative Archives, University of Cape Town. University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club. 1971. Editorial. UCTMSC Bulletin, 18:v. University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club. 1978. Intervarsity 1978. UCTMSC Bulletin, 23:39-40. University of Cape Town Mountain and Ski Club. 1983. Cedar Easter. UCTMSC Bulletin, 26:16. Thompson, L. 2014. A History of South Africa – From the earliest known human habitation to the present. South Africa: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Waker, H. 1993/94. The MSC Development Programme. UCTMSC Journal, 33:2-13. Welsh, D. 2009. The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Wieder, A. 2008. Teacher and Comrade – Richard Dudley and the Fight for Democracy in South Africa. New York: University of New York Press. 206

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Chapter 11 Sport and physical culture at the edges of the imperial project Tony Collins De Montfort University Physical culture was one of 19th-century imperialism’s most important social projects. The central ideological narrative of British imperialism was based on the division of the world into those peoples it considered to be ‘healthy’, ‘fit’ and ‘masculine’ – in other words, the ruling- and middle-class of the Anglophone world – and those it considered to be diseased, unfit, and degenerate, and thus incapable of governing themselves. It provided moral justification for the 19th century transformation of the human body. This was also true of eastern Europe as Jan Pedza and Martin Klement highlighted in their chapter on the Sokol movement in Czechoslovakia. Modern notions of physicality emerged in the world in the initial period of the industrial revolution when the need for discipline, obedience, and self-sacrifice was central to the creation of the class- and gender-based factory workforce. The new class of factory owners and other capitalists viewed the habits and customs of rural life as a hindrance to profitable production. Labour in a rural economy ebbed and flowed in line with the demands of the agricultural seasons. In stark contrast, work in the factory was continuous, intensive and, up until the factory reforms that started in the 1840s, almost unending, as workers regularly toiled twelve hours a day, six days a week. The working-class, male body had been transformed by the new world of the factory. Similar transformations took place among the middle-class. Further on, I will highlight more examples from other parts of the world. The physical and sport culture that emerged in the mid-19th century provided a practical rendering and proof of this belief. Sport, believed the columnist in the Yorkshire Post (Football Notes, 1886:6), the morning paper of the middle-class of Leeds, had ‘done so much to make the Anglo-Saxon race the best soldiers, sailors and colonists in the world’. In America, the future United States governor-general of the Philippines, W. Cameron Forbes, declared that ‘football is the expression of the strength of the Anglo-Saxon. It is the dominant spirit of the dominant race’ (Football Notes, 1886:8; Cameron Forbes, 1900:339). When western imperial powers colonised other parts of the globe they took this attitude with them. There, as Patricia Vertinsky and Aishwarya Ramachandran points out in their chapter, they “focused on the transmission of physical cultures in colonial projects where the racial and cultural identities of those colonised were variously ignored or addressed in more sensitive ways”.

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE Built on European nationalist tenets of Muscular Christianity, a concept of physical culture spread across the globe as colonial settlers sought to reassure themselves of the superiority of their way of life and, later, as they sought to inculcate those values among the conquered colonial elites. Through organised sport and physical education, imperialism demanded the re-fashioning and disciplining of the human body. In the metropolitan centres, working-class bodies were developed according to the needs of the capitalist factory: physical strength was essential for males involved in manual labour, while dexterous labour was demanded of women in textile factories. In colonised countries, stamina and endurance were essential for the arduous labour needed to generate the super-profits of imperialism. For middle-class young men across the new world, physical fitness became central to the development of character and personality: ‘Mens sana in corpore sano’ (a healthy mind in a healthy body) was the philosophy that underpinned the new educational ideas that emerged in British private schools from the 1840s. A ‘healthy mind’ was one which adhered to Muscular Christian morality, rejecting bodily and material temptations alike. As middle-class sports administrators sought to control the influx of working-class players into sport in the later Victorian period, amateurism became the defining feature of this moral universe. In colonial settings this contact of the classes resulted in an ambivalent relationship between coloniser and colonised, whereby the colonised subject ‘mimics’ the coloniser. A situation existed whereby the colonised adopts the coloniser’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values, but the result was never a simple reproduction of those traits (Le Grange, 2018:15) – in this instance the mimicking of sport codes played by the coloniser. What makes the relationship between coloniser and colonised ambivalent is the potential for the colonised to redefine this relationship. In this regard, Francois Cleophas showed in his two biographical sketches how a black bodybuilder (David Isaacs) and a weightlifter (Ron Eland) in Cape Town redefined colonial sport and centre-staged their own narrative. The extension of western empires in the second half of the 19th century saw the increasing portrayal of physical and sporting health as an example of the racial superiority of European culture and served as one of the justifications for their right to rule African and other colonies. However, the shock of the Indian Rebellion of 1857 caused the British and possibly other European empires also, to rethink their colonial policies and move to the creation of a pro-E mpire colonial elite. At the core of this policy was education and this led to the establishment of universities, private schools and sport clubs that aimed to create an elite class amongst the oppressed. A modern example of this use of high status private schools to develop a local elite or to co-opt sections of the middle-class, is highlighted in the discussion on the recruitment of black students by the Diocesan College that features in the chapter on the struggle of the Teachers’ League of South Africa. For both the industrial working classes at home and colonial peoples abroad, Muscular Christian physical culture was part of imperialism’s ‘civilising mission’; the belief that such people needed to be raised out of their supposed ‘savagery’ and taught the virtues of western civilisation. As Benjamin Sacks showed in his chapter, even the idea of playing sport in bare feet in countries with a hot climate

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Sport and physical culture at the edges of imperial project became seen by the partisans of Muscular Christianity as ‘primitive’ and to be actively discouraged. The sporting missionaries of western imperialism believed that ‘physical education’ was an important way to train those they saw as the ‘lower orders’ to take orders and defer to those who believed themselves to be superior. Those that resisted such virtues were held to be of limited intelligence (in the case of British athletes who opposed amateurism), effeminate (such as Bengali men in the Indian sub-continent) or irredeemably lazy (as was taught about the Chinese or Africans). Indeed, laziness and effeminacy were viewed by Muscular Christians as being among the worst of moral vices. Indigenous physical culture was viewed as inferior and actively suppressed in some places, as Malcolm MacLean explained in the case of kilikiti in Samoa. Western conceptions of race and class shaped the development of physical culture in imperialist-dominated countries. While the YMCA encouraged indigenous participation in sport, it was firmly under the leadership of its own sporting and religious missionaries. Sport clubs in the British colonies were strictly segregated according to skin colour, but also by British definitions of ‘race’ or ‘nationality’. In India, Lord Harris, the governor of Bombay and former England cricket captain, barred the creation of ‘native’ cricket clubs that were not based on religion, declaring that “I will steadfastly refuse any more grants once a Gymkhana [club] has been established under respectable auspices by each nationality, and tell applicants that once a ground has been set apart for their nationality they are free to take advantage of it by joining that particular club” (Guha, 2002:61). This was a continuation of Britain’s ‘divide and rule’ political programme, which would culminate in the partition in 1947. As the centrality of cricket to modern India demonstrates, one of the most important legacies of the British Empire for its former colonies was its model of sport and physical culture. In Ireland, the nationalist Gaelic Athletic Association based itself on a form of ‘Muscular Nationalism’ that replicated the values of amateur British sports. As Conor Heffernan highlighted in the chapter, ‘Physical culture for the masses: Physical culture, radio and the state in 1930s Ireland’, rightwing nationalists such as John Lucy used physical culture as crucial to forging of a healthy population with a strong sense of national identity in the newly created Irish Free State. In this, he and others in Ireland looked to the example of Nazi Germany’s organisation of sport and physical activity as the blueprint for Ireland. Lucy saw no contradiction between this and the British model upon which Irish sport had been founded. Neither did a number of sports administrators in Britain. Frederick Webster, a major English athletics’ administrator and the head of Britain’s leading sports’ college at Loughborough stated shortly before World War II broke out: “ ... as in ancient Greece, so it is today in Germany, the sports grounds were, and are, places where the young go to train and compete strenuously and the old watch knowledgeably and exercise themselves gently”. At the same time as physical culture was becoming the key defining point for 19th century masculinity, it was also becoming increasingly important for middleclass women. As female educational institutions emerged, they too embraced the need for physical education. Based on the educational principles of boys’ public

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE schools, many girls’ private schools promoted sports such as hockey and lacrosse, and, especially in Britain, the Swedish system of gymnastics. Its most influential advocate and practitioner was Martina Bergman-Österberg, whose educational philosophy reflected an inverted Muscular Christianity by arguing that: ‘unless the women are strong, healthy, pure and true, how can the race progress?’ Echoing the ideologues of masculinity, she argued that gymnastics was ‘the best training for motherhood’ and a ‘vital factor in making manly men and womanly women’ (Parrat, 2001:204). Even those movements seeking national liberation from imperial domination did not transcend endorsement of traditional gender roles, as the chapter on women’s involvement in the Czech Sokol gymnastic movement explains. For 19th century Victorians, sport was of supreme importance in the socialisation of young males and, increasingly, young females. It is commonplace today for sport to be characterised as an activity that is in itself inconsequential and ultimately meaningless, yet it is no more meaningless than making tonal sounds with one’s vocal chords or pretending to be another person by reciting words which have been written by someone else. Singing and acting only gain meaning through their social practice, just as does sport. The moral and cultural meanings invested in sport by the British and other European middle-classes in the 19th century provided an ethical framework through which an imperial value system could be disseminated. This imperial legacy remains strong today. Contemporary ideas that true sport is morally pure, that it is based on ‘fair play’, or that it offers a ‘level playing field’ that can overcome divisions in society or even still – the Nelson Mandela mantra the ‘sport unites like little else’ – are derived directly from the moral evangelism of Victorian sporting missionaries. Indeed, the Olympic movement itself – a product of the age of imperialism – has merely swapped the certainties of Coubertin’s vision of Muscular Christianity for the self-confidence of the so-called ‘free market’; its overwhelming belief in its own moral mission has remained intact regardless of the ideology by which it chooses to justify itself. Yet these attempts to use physical culture to discipline the minds and bodies of working-class and colonial peoples could not be completely successful. The enjoyment of physical activities and contests – whether called sport or something else – was a feature of all human societies that the Victorians’ attempted to shackle to their imperial ideology could not undermine. For the poor and oppressed, the financial rewards of a successful sporting career meant the possibility of escape from a life of poverty and drudgery. This was simply a case of material possessions. As Eric Hobsbawm discussed about black American jazz musicians, professional sport was “a means of asserting oneself as a human being, being an agent in the world and not the subject of others actions” (Hobsbawm, 1993:294). Sometimes resistance was imposed on athletes simply to survive in the face of racial or social exclusion. Farieda Khan highlights the case of mountaineering clubs in Cape Town where racism forced non-white mountaineers to create their own clubs simply in order to take part in their chosen leisure activities. In the

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Sport and physical culture at the edges of imperial project second half of the 20th century, as sport increasingly gained cultural currency beyond the playing field and became an arena for global politics, it also became a site for active political protest, as seen in the examples of the Algerian national soccer team created by the FLN in 1958 during its struggle against French colonialism, Tommy Smith and John Carlos’s protest against racist America at the 1968 Olympics and, less well-known but no less inspiring, David Isaacs’ struggle for non-racial bodybuilding in apartheid South Africa. Sport itself is not a route to liberation. Its myths of fair play, the level playing field and the equality of competition are rooted in the attempts of 19th century Anglophone and European middle-classness that regulated and controlled games. As was seen under apartheid in South Africa or under the regimes of amateur sport in the 20th century, such ideas can be manipulated to suit any purpose. Although formal discrimination is now unfashionable, sport and physical culture today still upholds the essential moral and physical binaries of the Victorians: pure versus impure, healthy versus corrupt, male versus female. The struggles of Duttee Chand and especially Caster Semenya to compete are a powerful reminder of the barriers that still face those who do not conform to the stereotypes demanded by sport. And, of course, men’s professional football of all codes still remains one of the world’s major cultural phenomena in which openly gay men are all but invisible. The right to participate in sport and physical culture to the fullest extent of each individual’s desire and ability is not something that can achieved in itself. As Tarminder Kaur and Norman Ontong note in their exploration of the Fit2Run race of life, the race’s social history “is also a political history of South African athletics, exposing limits of transformation”’. Just as in the Victorian era, sport reflected and reinforced the dominant ideological framework of the society that gave birth to it and sustained it. The struggle for equality and full participation in sport will only be won when the right to fully participate in society is won for everyone, and the system which created the conditions of class and colonial oppression has been despatched to the dustbin of history. Then, possibly we will be able to move from the edge into a new world order of sport and physical culture.

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References Cameron Forbes, W. 1900. ‘The Football Coach’s Relation to the Player’, Outing, December 37(3):339. Guha, R. 2002. A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport. Picador. Hobsbawm, E. 1993. The Jazz Scene. Pantheon. Le Grange, L. 2018. Decolonising sport: Some thoughts. In: In: F.J. Cleophas (ed). Exploring decolonising themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges. Stellenbosch: African Sun Media, pp.15-21. Parratt, C. 2001. More Than Mere Amusement: Working-class Women’s Leisure in England, 1750-1914. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Yorkshire Post. 1886. Football notes. 29 November:8.

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CONTRIBUTORS Francois Cleophas is a senior lecturer in Sport History at the Department of Sport Science at Stellenbosch University. He is a former South African national school athletic champion and a national junior 400m record holder. He graduated with a Phd in 2009 that dissected physical culture in Cape Town’s historically marginalised communities. He has published over 35 articles in accredited journals, presented more than 20 papers at national and international conferences and contributed 10 chapters to books. He is the author of the publication Exploring decolonizing themes in SA sport history: Issues and challenges (2018). He also explores decolonization themes in physical education, physical culture and sport science. Tony Collins is emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on the history of sport, including How Football Began (2018), The Oval World: A Global History of Rugby (2015) and ’Sport in Capitalist Society’ (2013). Conor Heffernan is Assistant Professor of Physical Culture and Sport Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2019, Conor completed his Ph.D. at University College Dublin, under the supervision of Dr. Paul Rouse. He has published work in Women’s History Review, Irish Studies Review, Loisir, Sport in History and The International Journal of the History of Sport. Paul Hendricks graduated with a Phd in 2010 with a dissertation, A principled engagement?: non-collaboration and the Teachers’ League of South Africa in the Western Cape, 1990-2003. He is an independent researcher with an interest in history, education and the visual arts. His writings focus on non-collaboration and the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) in the Western Cape. His research forms part of a wider focus area that explores the issue of resistance in education and its connection with the uncovering of alternative educational discourses and practices. Farieda Khan is an independent researcher in the field of environmental and sports history, as well as a freelance journalist. Her thesis for her Doctor of Philosophy degree (University of Cape Town, 2001), examined twentieth century South African conservation history, with a focus on Black conservation organisations. Currently her work as a freelance journalist focuses on South African politics, while her research work focuses on the history of mountain clubs and Black Scouting in Cape Town. She has published 13 chapters and papers in books and peer-

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CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON PHYSICAL CULTURE reviewed journals; presented 8 papers at national and international conferences; and published 83 articles in university and popular publications. Tarminder Kaur is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg. Her research interests are sport, in it’s broadest sense, among working people and how they negotiate their subaltern identities in southern Africa. For her doctoral thesis, she wrote an ethnography of the sporting lives of farmworkers in the Western Cape. Her research is published in a number of journals and book chapters. She is coediter of: Sports in Africa, Past and Present (2020, Ohio University Press); and two special issues: “Becoming and Unbecoming Farm Workers in Southern Africa,” Anthropology Southern Africa (2017) and “Sporting Subalternities and Social Justice: Rethinking South African Sports Studies,” Acta Academica (2018). She serves on the board of Sports Africa Network. Martin Klement is a historian at the Masaryk Institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He studied history in Prague and Berlin. In 2019 he graduated with a thesis focusing on the “völkische Weltanschauung” in the German gymnastic unions in Central Europe. His main research interests are the German and Czech gymnastic movements, the history of North Bohemia, and museum education. At the Masaryk Institute and Archives he is currently collaborating on a three-volume edition of documents from the Czech-German compromise negotiations between 1912 and 1914. Malcolm MacLean is an historian by training with degrees in anthropology and sociology and academic affiliations at The University of Queensland, De Montfort University and the University of Gibraltar. His research focusses on sport-related colonial, imperial and decolonial relations and on sport-related political activism. His current research projects explore cultural boycotts in antioppression political campaigns, the potentialities of sport in decolonial politics, and he is a co-founder of the Netball History Network. He is also a co-founder of the Philosophy at Play conference series, and with Wendy Russell and Emily Ryall has co-edited several volumes of essays emerging from those events. He is a member of the Editorial College of The International Journal of the History of Sport and editorial boards of Sport in History¸ Journal of Sport History and Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies. Norman Ontong is an athletics coach and a founding member of Fit2Run, a not-for-profit initiative that caters for young people from socio-economically challenging backgrounds. He started his professional life as a school teacher, gradually progressing to becoming a school principal, then Curriculum Advisor in Accounting, to financial auditor for the Cape Winelands District Municipality, and finally establishing himself as a Professional Accountant. He is a keen sportsperson and in 1996 he won silver medals at the Two Oceans and the

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Contributors Comrades Marathons. He won numerous other medals and awards for athletics performance and community service. Building on his personal success and talents, he gives back to the community by volunteering as an athletics coach and manager of Fit2Run. Jan Pezda is a postgraduate student of Czech and Czechoslovak history at the Department of History at the University in Ostrava. During his PhD studies, he has also spent some time at the University of Passau. His research interests include the history of physical culture, tourism and leisure time in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Benjamin Sacks is a Lecturer in Academic Communication Development at Curtin University and an Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Western Australia. His PhD, awarded in 2018, explored the historical significance of cricket in the Samoan islands. His first monograph, Cricket, Kirikiti and Imperialism in Samoa, 1879-1939 was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2019. His historical research focuses on processes of cultural adaptation and indigenisation at the peripheries of empire – especially pertaining to physical cultures and the Pacific region. Patricia Vertinsky is a Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Kinesiology at the University of British Columbia. She is a social and cultural historian working across the fields of women’s and gender history with a special interest in physical culture, physical education and modern dance. She is an International Fellow of the American Academy of Kinesiology, Past-President of the North American Society of Sport History, and Vice-President of the International Society for Physical Education and Sport History. She has received awards from the North American Society for Sport History, the International Society for History of Sport and Physical Education, and a number of other organizations, and is also the recipient of an honorary PhD degree from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Among the books she has written or co-edited are The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Exercise and Doctors in the Late Nineteenth Century (1992), Physical Culture, Power and the Body (with Jennifer Hargreaves, 2007), Disciplining Bodies in the Gymnasium: Memory, Monument, Modernism (with Sherry McKay, 2004), Sites of Sport (with John Bale), and The Female Tradition in Physical Education (with David Kirk, 2016).

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