South Africa marks 30 years since return from footballing wilderness

On Thursday, South African football celebrates 30 years to the day since the country's national team returned to the playing field after decades of apartheid-enforced isolation.

The game against Cameroon, who had captured Africa's imagination - including that of pariah state South Africa - with their run to the 1990 World Cup quarter-finals, was the first of three and ushered in an exciting time full of hope and expectation.

Four days before it took place, on 3 July 1992, South Africa's membership of world governing body Fifa - which had been suspended in 1964 prior to expulsion 10 years later - had been restored.

This came after the demolishing of apartheid had led to the creation of a new multi-racial South African FA (Safa) a year earlier.

The first meeting was in the rain at Durban's King's Park on 7 July, with a strike by the Media Workers Association of South Africa meaning there was no television coverage. Today, some 30 years on, there are, sadly, minimal visuals from that game.

Nonetheless, history records that giant striker Phil Masinga, later to play in England for Leeds United and in Italy's Serie A for Bari, was the first South African man to touch the ball.

The game was no classic; rather, an edgy affair with Cameroon unsure what to expect and South Africa looking a little aimless in their approach, as if international football was far removed from the domestic game.

But despite the horrid weather, it was a celebration with some 40,000 braving the elements and the result, perhaps to script, going in South Africa's favour after a late penalty.

"When the ball hit the back of the net, the stadium went wild and I celebrated more out of relief than anything else‚" Doctor Khumalo, who tucked away the spot-kick, told BBC Sport Africa.

"Even after the game‚ it was just another penalty scored and I was relieved that I had not missed!

"But then the next day or the day afterwards, someone said to me‚ 'Man‚ what does it feel like to make history?'. It was only then that I really thought about it and the significance of that goal to South Africa and to me."

Yet to be nicknamed Bafana Bafana, the side took on a Cameroon squad that bore little resemblance to the one at Italia '90 but local fans quickly fell in love with France-based midfielder Jean-Claude Pagal on account of his play and dreadlocks.

Roger Milla, meanwhile, had originally been invited as a guest with the Cameroon delegation but donned his boots for the first time after his World Cup exploits (and ended up playing every minute of all three internationals).

Cameroon extracted revenge two days later in Cape Town, despite having two players sent off, before the last match of the series, two days after that at Soccer City, ended 2-2.

This article originally appeared on BBC Sport

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