In this paper, we explore specific elements of the right-wing British response to the sporting boycott of apartheid South Africa. Starting in the early 1960s, and intensifying as the anti-apartheid campaign to end British sporting contacts with South Africa began to unfurl, right wing politicians, groups, media, and members of the public, tended to connect their opposition to the sports boycott with a broader critique of contemporary British society. For a generation of beleaguered white Britons who felt victimised by the rapidly changing social landscape of post-imperial Britain, we argue, the sport boycott animated fears that white culture was under attack by pernicious, alien, and radical forces (i.e., the liberal media and clergy, student radicals, and subversive minorities).
Some of the most influential speakers to articulate this view came from the right wing of the Conservative Party and were members of a powerful political pressure group called the Monday Club. Founded in 1961 in opposition to Harold Macmillan’s apparent commitment to the post-war consensus, the Monday Club developed a growing tolerance and sympathy for white South Africa and Britain’s sporting relations with the pariah state. From the mid-1960s onwards, we intend to show, the Club rallied in opposition to anti-apartheid efforts to disrupt sporting links, and did so by frequently interpreting the actions of the anti-apartheid movement as part of a wide-ranging liberal attack on core Conservative values, white culture, and the historical foundations of British society.
Matthew P. Llewellyn, Ph.D., was born and raised in Cardiff, Wales. He earned his undergraduate degree at Cardiff Metropolitan University and his Master’s degree at the California State University, Long Beach. He followed this by completing a Ph.D. in the Historical and Philosophical Aspects of Sport and Physical Activity at the Pennsylvania State University. He has published numerous papers in refereed journals including Modern British History, Journal of Policy History, Journal of Southern African Studies, South African Historical Journal, Contemporary British History, and the International Journal of the History of Sport, as well as numerous textbook chapters. He has published nine books and edited collections, including British Sporting Relations with Apartheid South Africa: The Politics of Racism and Anti-Racism, 1948-1994 (Oxford University Press, 2024). He currently serves as editor of the Journal of Olympic Studies, a co-director of the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research (CSSOR), and is a professor in the department of kinesiology at the California State University, Fullerton.
Dr. Toby C. Rider was born and raised in East Sussex, England. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Birmingham and his Master’s degree at the
University of Brighton. He followed this by completing a Ph.D. in the sociocultural study of sport and exercise at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. An award winning author, Toby’s research interest focuses on the dynamic historical role of sport in international relations, politics, race, and empire. He has published multiple articles in peer reviewed journals, contributed several chapters to scholarly books, and presented his research at numerous conferences. He is the author of Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy (University of Illinois Press, 2016), co-editor of Defending the American Way of Life: Sport, Culture, and the Cold War (University of Arkansas Press, 2018), and Sport and Apartheid South Africa: Histories of Politics, Power, and Protest (Routledge, 2022), and co-author of British Sporting Relations with Apartheid South Africa: The Politics of Racism and Anti-Racism, 1948-1994 (Oxford University Press, 2024). In addition to this, Toby is the Co-Director of the Center for Sociocultural Sport and Olympic Research and the Associate Editor of the journal of Olympic Studies.