Sport

This leaflet advertised a march to Lords cricket ground to protest at the first game of the Springbok cricket tour planned for the summer of 1970. It was expected to be the biggest demonstration ever organised by the AAM. The demonstration did not take place because the tour was called off on 22 May.

In the early 1970s the Ruskin College Kitson Committee organised an annual march from Oxford to London over the Whitsun holiday. The group campaigned for the release of political prisoner David Kitson, a member of the trade union DATA, who was serving a 20-year sentence in South Africa. This leaflet publicising the march was printed just before the cancellation of the 1970 Springbok cricket tour.

Anti-apartheid protesters at the Surrey Grass Court Tennis Championships in Surbiton, Surrey on 11 June 1970. They were protesting against the participation of a South African player in the tournament.

The Springbok rugby tour of Australia, June–August 1971, met with huge protests all over the country. The first two games, played in Adelaide and Perth, were disrupted by students. In Sydney, members of the building workers trade union tried to saw down the goalposts. Queensland’s provincial government declared a month-long State of Emergency in response to the protests. Because of the scale of the demonstrations, the Springbok cricket tour, scheduled for September 1971, was called off. This badge was produced by the British AAM to show its support for the protests.

A protester being carried away by police after trying to block a coach carrying the England rugby team to the airport en route to South Africa on 12 May 1972. Demonstrators formed a human barrier in front of the coach. Others disrupted a training session. The England team played seven matches in South Africa against segregated teams, including an international against the all-white Springboks in Johannesburg on 3 June 1972.

The umbrella group Stop All Racist Tours (SART) was launched at a press conference on 31 July 1973. It was set up to campaign against the British Lions rugby tour of South Africa planned for 1974. Its sponsors included the AAM, ANC, SANROC, National Union of Students (NUS) and the Catholic Institute of International Relations (CIIR). In the photograph are Ron Taylor, Dennis Brutus and Wilfred Brutus.

The British Lions 1974 rugby tour of South Africa went ahead despite widespread protests. This leaflet exposed South Africa’s new ‘multi-racial’ sports policy as window-dressing for apartheid. It was produced by Stop All Racist Tours (SART), an umbrella group set up to oppose the tour. The leaflet was distributed outside the England v Wales match at Twickenham on 16 March. 

Anti-apartheid demonstrators asked rugby players not to take part in the British Lions tour of South Africa in 1974. The photograph shows a protest at the England v Wales match at Twickenham on 16 March. Other protesters displayed banners on the roof of the RFU’s headquarters. Welsh international John Taylor refused to take part in the tour.