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Symbolic moment as rugby comes to black township of Soweto
South Africa’s long standing racist past means it still a country of great contrasts but with the change in power and social dynamics come great ironies too.
The latest will be played out on Saturday when the citadel of black South African football, the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, plays host to a Super 14 rugby match involving the Blue Bulls, the team so beloved by the white Afrikaners.
Although it is almost two decades since South Africa’s political changes began, it is the first time a match of this nature is hosted in a black township and represents the potential of dramatic images as thousands of white fans from the country’s most conservative areas head into the biggest black township to watch their team in the semifinals of the Super 14.
For most of the whites it will be their first trip anywhere near Soweto, scene of much of the internal unrest against apartheid in the 1970s and 80s and today rife with crime.
To that end, the Bulls union have laid on trains from Pretoria to the station right outside the Orlando Stadium and will bus in thousands of others, who are being invited to leave their cars several kilometres away from Soweto and use ‘park and ride’ facility.
The Bulls have had to give up home advantage in Pretoria for their semifinal against the Canterbury Crusaders because their cathedral, Loftus Versfeld, is one of the 10 World Cup stadiums and FIFA have taken over the venue to prepare the turf and other facilities before the tournament starts on June 11.
Loftus, also used during last year’s Confederations Cup, will host six World Cup matches, including South Africa’s second encounter of the tournament against Uruguay on June 16.
