At the height of Apartheid, the late Sports Minister Piet Koornhof came up with the brilliant idea of what was known as the South African Games.
Against the backdrop of colour-bar laws such as the Separate Amenities Act, the minister paved the way for black and white sportsmen to compete against each other.
In the townships the buzz was about the planned soccer tournament comprising of a Black Eleven, White Eleven, Coloured Eleven and Indian Eleven.
The perception — not fact — in the townships was that our black players would make a meal of the White Eleven.
Why not, because as far as we were concerned, all these white sportsmen knew was to kick a rugby ball into the air and run around the field.
And when the South African Games came, it was an embarrassing thing that the team consisting of white players gave a real lashing to the Black Eleven, Coloured Eleven and Indian Eleven.
Because of our tunnel vision — so to speak — we had no clue that the predominantly white National Football League was far better organised than the likes of the South African Bantu Football Association.
The race-based football associations were ultimately collapsed into one non-racial soccer league, under the leadership of the so-called El Supremo of South African football, George Thabe.
It was then that the townships were mesmerised at how our top teams such as Pretoria Bantu Callies and Orlando Pirates, proverbially stumbled over each other to sign white players.
Players such as Plankie Naudé and Jimmy “Brixton Tower” Joubert, became instant household names in Soweto and elsewhere.
Nicky Howe from Arcadia Shepherds crossed the “border” to work as a successful coach at Pretoria Bantu Callies in the township of Atteridgeville.
A few years down the line, I was humbled to be selected among seven journalists from across the country to go on a study tour of the US.
In the city of Columbia, Missouri, we were taken to this city’s university workshops.
Upon arrival on campus in a van (minibus), we observed an African-American with massive shoulders, shovelling compost from the back of a truck into a wheelbarrow.
Next to the wheelbarrow stood a white man who had the body language of a “voorman” (foreman). Or so we thought.
But then when the wheelbarrow was filled with compost, the supposed white boss rolled up his shirt sleeves, grabbing and pushing the wheelbarrow uphill.
It all looked so out of place, because with our Apartheid mentality, perception overwhelmed American reality.
