Professional football in apartheid South Africa:leisure, consumption and identity in the national football league, 1959-1977

A growing body of academic and popular literature considers the history of South African football. These and existing publications pay little or no attention to the emergence of white professional football in apartheid South Africa. The National Football League (NFL) challenged the amateur game and introduced professional football to the country. During its 17-year existence, the NFL grew each season with large attendances until its demise in 1977. In addition, the NFL imported a range of international players, invited foreign teams and actively engaged in the political debates in South African sport at the time. The NFL was instrumental in popularising the game across the country for all South Africans. The NFL became the most popular sports entertainment of choice for South Africans during this period. Finally, the NFL actively engaged in a campaign of destroying rival non-racial anti-apartheid leagues while simultaneously co-opting less progressive organisations. © 2013 Taylor and Francis.

From apartheid to unity: white capital and black power in the racial integration of South African football, 1976-1992

This article analyses the complex process that deracialised and democratised South African football between the early 1970s and 1990s. Based mainly on archival documents, it argues that growing isolation from world sport, exemplified by South Africa's expulsion from the Olympic movement in 1970 and FIFA in 1976, and the reinvigoration of the liberation struggle with the Soweto youth uprising triggered a process of gradual desegregation in the South African professional game. While Pretoria viewed such changes as a potential bulwark against rising black militancy, white football and big business had their own reasons for eventually supporting racial integration, as seen in the founding of the National Soccer League. As negotiations for a new democratic South Africa began in earnest between the African National Congress (ANC) and the National Party (NP) in the latter half of the 1980s, transformations in football and politics paralleled and informed each other. Previously antagonistic football associations began a series of 'unity talks' between 1985 and 1986 that eventually culminated in the formation of a single, non-racial South African Football Association in December 1991, just a few days before the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) opened the process of writing a new post-apartheid constitution. Finally, three decades of isolation came to an end as FIFA welcomed South Africa back into world football in 1992 - a powerful example of the seemingly boundless potential of a liberated and united South Africa ahead of the first democratic elections in 1994.

Change in third sector organisations: the impact of European Union funding in cross-national perspectives

This is a study of third sector organisations and organisational change resulting from European Union funding. While there is a growing body of research which shows how governmental funding can contribute to the organisational challenges that third sector organisations encounter, research on how European Union funding affects third sector organisations is limited. This thesis contributes towards closing this gap in knowledge by identifying a number of organisational changes which can be attributed to the use of European Union funding. A qualitative approach was taken to explore organisational change resulting from the use of URBAN II funding in nine third sector organisations which were studied in the context of the URBAN II programmes of Belfast, Berlin and Bristol. The conceptual framework for this study draws on organisation theory and resource dependence theory, together with concepts of co-production and multi-level governance. URBAN II funding was found to have affected organisational structures, processes, services, goals and participants, as well as the interactions of organisations with their external environment. In contrast to earlier research however, the findings from this study suggest that many of these organisational changes improved the capacity of third sector organisations to carry out their work. The cross-national comparison of the findings further showed that organisational impacts resulting from the use of URBAN II funding can vary significantly between different countries. Programme Managers were found to have played a critically important' role in enabling third sector organisations to obtain benefits from URBAN II funding. Many positive organisational changes arose from a close collaboration between Programme Managers and third sector organisations. Conversely, many negative organisational impacts were found to be due, not to the regulations associated with European funding, but primarily to the approach adopted by the Programme Managers and Local Development Partnerships towards engaging third sector organisations in programme delivery.

A talent for living:exploring Ghana's 'new' urban childhood

This paper considers the lives of children living in a large informal settlement in central Accra, Ghana. Its contention is that children remain largely absent from the renewal of interest in slums and that where they do feature it is largely as objects of risk and vulnerability. Such an exclusive focus, it is argued, risks effacing the ways in which children are capable of actively confronting the terrible constraints posed by slum environments and the 'talent for living' that this involves. Drawing upon the findings of a small qualitative exploratory research project, the paper examines sources of support and cooperation between children and how their decisions to work are perceived as a strategy to actively support mothers and families struggling for a subsistence. © 2011 The Author(s). Children and Society © 2011 National Children's Bureau and Blackwell Publishing Limited.