Sport brings people of one nation together, no matter what background they come from. Whether you are black or white, you’ll passionately cheer on our cricket, rugby or soccer team on with an ice-cold Castle in the one hand and a boerewors roll in the other. With Mrs Ball’s Chutney on, of course! And a few Nik Naks to snack on as well…
Ok, so we lost the Twenty20 semi final to Pakistan last night by only seven runs, but like Graeme Smith said: we are not chokers! There are other tournaments to come, new opportunities to explore and plenty of games to win.
As for rugby, it used to be predominantly for white people, but now there are millions of black fans out there – as well as a great number of excellent black rugby players.
“When Nelson Mandela was president of the nation one year after apartheid ended, he symbolised unity by donning the once hated Springboks rugby jersey and handing the 1995 World Cup to captain Francois Pienaar. A dozen years later, it was winger Bryan Habana who led South Africa to a second World Cup – yet another move toward turning the rainbow nation into reality. And now, the football World Cup is coming,” reports SA Good News. “The road from apartheid to racial reconciliation in South Africa has passed by dusty fields and grand football stadiums. Across the rainbow nation, there is hope that next year’s World Cup will bring black and white in an ever closer embrace.”
South Africa’s population is close to 50 million of which about 80 % is black. Football has long been a close representative of that, but it’s slowly changing and will without doubt change even more with the 2010 Soccer World Cup on home ground. What a fantastic opportunity to show the world that we have progressed, put the apartheid era behind us and embraced freedom and unity!

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