Arsenal in South Africa: "Arsenal, Nidlala Ibhola!"

The country that is bringing you the 2010 FIFA World Cup is football mad.

Before the kick-off to amateur games on Saturdays, you can observe many players and fans coming down to the local grounds. Being players, they are also very big soccer fans, so they are often wearing the shirt of the soccer team that they support. These players are aged from 16 to 35 years of age from different parts of Pretoria but with one thing in common: “their love for soccer or, is it football?”

You expect most of these soccer fans to be wearing local Pretoria based soccer team jerseys like Mamelodi Sundowns or SuperSport United. The odd Mamelodi Sundowns shirt is seen, but the large majority wear Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, and other jerseys. At the sides of the pitch the majority of the talk is about the teams in the English Premier League and who’s playing later that afternoon, with little mention of our own Premier Soccer League.

If you are born in Pretoria and are a rugby fan, you support the “Blue Bulls”, you don’t fanatically support London Irish, Saracens, or St Helens. That would just be unheard of.

So why do we support the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United, and Liverpool?

The game of soccer (know in Britain as football) arrived in South Africa as a by-product of Britain's commercial and imperial expansion, brought and played by mainly white working-class Britons. Thereafter, it became hugely popular among the black population, encouraged by the schools and missions, and in the Transvaal, by the mines and the close-knit conditions of the African townships.

Arsenal is the favoured team in the African immigrant demographic. Liverpool is the preferred team in the white culture. There are way too many Manchester United fans—or "manyoo" fans, as I like to refer to them in South Africa. Manchester United has brainwashed our public with big branding and preseason tours. It’s very much a "if your not a 'Manc' you support A.B.U (Anything But United)."

Arsenal's flair and creative football with African players has started to rival the Manchester United supporters in South Africa.

When driving or walking the streets of South Africa you’ll see Arsenal shirts about, unfortunately it’s likely to be "fake". An Arsenal official shirt retails at around 600 Rand, which is a lot of money for the average South African to part with. 

Unfortunately a South African hasn’t yet had the honour to play for the Arsenal men’s or ladies' team. But, ex-Gooners have made their mark in South Africa.

The Arsenal Supporters Club of South Africa has been in existence since the early 90’s, when the legendary Arsenal player George Eastham started it. In the days prior to satellite TV, Arsenal fans would meet on a regular basis to watch recorded games sent out from the UK and to pour over faxes containing the latest news concerning the Gunners.

Then when the first satellite dishes started appearing, the games were often watched in a foreign language and invariably not live. The supporters club has been officially recognised by Arsenal in the UK and are now known as Arsenal South Africa.

www.arsenalsa.co.za

The club meets for every live Arsenal game in Johannesburg. Thanks to satellite television almost all our games are now shown live. In fact, South Africa gets far more live football than the UK. In fact, this weekend, we received seven Premiership fixtures live and the other three games were shown delayed. We are truly spoilt for choice. So, if you don’t have an Emirates season ticket, the next best thing is having satellite television in South Africa.

Topper Brown, a former Arsenal player, became the coach of the Durban and Natal teams in 1955. 

The black popular press reported that Natal Africans "indulged in some of the finest artistic soccer...ever seen. Their ball control, deft touches, the accuracy of their passing, and their ability to find the open gaps was indeed amazing." Thanks to this rare collaborative effort between black and white under apartheid conditions, newspapers declared, "Natal soccer is now the country's show-piece."

Sounds like Topper Brown was branding the Wenger style of football many years prior.

I was fortunate enough to do a thesis on "Globalised Football Fandom: Choosing English football over South African soccer" last year in Pretoria, where I live. I found the findings of the study fascinating and very beneficial for further studies into this subject. The statistic that stands out in this entire study is that 86% of respondents preferred watching the English Premier League to our South African Premier Soccer League. It was shown that Manchester United is the most supported English football team, with the best brand power.

The majority of fans started supporting an English Premier League team between 1996 and 1997. This is fascinating as the 1996-97 English Premier League season was the most competitive title in English Premier League history.  It was eventually won by Manchester United, after Liverpool and Newcastle's failure to win in their penultimate games of the season and leaving Newcastle, Liverpool and Arsenal level on points.

I’ve had the great pleasure to watch Arsenal at Highbury in 2003. My greatest memory of watching an Arsenal game in South Africa was the 2005-06 Champions League Final versus Barcelona. A local “Irish” pub was overflowing with fans of both teams. A lucky few had seats, otherwise you were standing.

The atmosphere was electric, mimicking the feel of being in the stadium with rival fans singing and chanting. Apparently the commentary from the television was on full volume, I never heard a word. We might have been on another continents and miles apart but for 90 minutes we were right there, living and breathing every kick.

"Nidlala Ibhola" means you play soccer in the Zulu language. It’s a very simple expression, but one that Arsenal does best at and that’s why South Africa loves Arsenal.

Arsenal, you play soccer!

Shyam Parthasarathi and Maire Ofeire of the Arsenal Community got this series of stories going. If you live somewhere other than England and love Arsenal, we’d be fascinated in reading how your country supports Arsenal.