When football became a symbol of hope against apartheid's brutal repression

Bill Shankly, the one-time Huddersfield manager, once waxed lyrical about sport's place in society during his gloriously successful reign at Liverpool.

"Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that," said Shankly with typical eloquence.

Yet, while some contend that the Scot's drollness was a precursor to the misplaced hype which now surrounds so much of contemporary football, sport became a symbol of hope for those political prisoners incarcerated on Robben Island when South Africa's intolerable apartheid regime was at its most oppressive.

And football's simplicity – the beautiful game's finest attribute – meant that the jail's brutish warders were powerless to stop their prisoners pursuing their passion and, eventually, setting up their own league that adhered to rules laid down by Fifa, the sport's governing body.

The inspiration behind this was Tony Suze, a football-mad teenage student whose heroes included Bobby Charlton, the epitome of English football.

Knowing that South Africa's white supremacists would deny him the right to fulfil his potential as a possible professional player, he had joined a banned political organisation.

He was arrested by the security police while he played football in a Pretoria township. His crime? Treason? Murder? Burglary? No, it was the colour of his skin in a country where more than three million coloured people were forcibly evicted from their homes by their white masters as South Africa became ruled by racial segregation, and the resulting dividing lines.

But, as he was chained on to a rickety boat that would carry him, and other freedom fighters who were violently sick as oil swished around in the hull, to South Africa's Alcatraz, a wind-swept lump of rock seven miles off the Cape Town coast, he made a silent vow – Robben Island would not break him; it would be the making of him.

While the ingenuity of inmates knew no bounds – they played cards with scraps of paper – the prison authorities refused to tolerate this. What they could not stop, however, were the impromptu games of football in the cells when Mr Suze, and others, decided to bundle up a couple of shorts to create a makeshift football.

Bedding – if that is what the flimsy and filthy mattresses could be described as – was pushed to one side as five-a-side matches broke out. The cell games enlivened the long, dull evenings, with one inmate acting as a lookout.

This was football at its most improvised – the players included Jacob Zuma, now the President of South Africa and the man who will preside over the opening ceremony on Friday week.

But it was to begin a chain of events that would lead to the

dismantling of apartheid, and South Africa's re-emergence into the global community and the host of the 2010 World Cup – the first time that football's biggest prize will be contested on African soil.

It is an uplifting and humbling story that has been painstakingly researched, and lovingly told, by East Yorkshire scriptwriter Marvin Close in a documentary and book appropriately entitled More Than Just A Game. Football V Apartheid. The Most Important Football Story Ever Told.

This assertion is fully justified. "Football was something that all the prisoners played while at home," said the Hornsea writer who co-wrote the book with Chuck Korr, a research professor who only discovered football's importance to Robben Island in university archives in South Africa.

"It also brought a degree of wonderful mundanity to their existence. It also gave them the opportunity to show the authorities how they could organise themselves. If they were going to play football, it wasn't going to be a kickabout – it was going to be to Fifa rules. It's amazing to think how something as prosaic as football could pull people together in this way."

It was to take the inmates three years of relentless requests before their chief warder, in December 1967, granted them permission to play football for 30 minutes every Saturday. "They had won," said Mr Close.

Yet it is the tactics of these negotiations that are, perhaps, most revealing about life on the island where inmates would spend hours each day, under the burning sun, digging out lime quarries with the most rudimentary of tools.

By passing scraps of paper between cell blocks, the inmates presented a united front. Their only request was the chance to play football. And, when the International Red Cross ordered the prison's library

facilities to be improved, they demanded books and literature on their favourite sport. Fifa's rule book was included in an early consignment.

However, the chief warder's approach was different. His charges were too malnourished to play such a vigorous sport – and this venture would not last more than two weeks. "What better way to appease opinion in the West, and the Red Cross than to make such a magnanimous gesture? said Mr Corr.

There's no record of the outcome of the very first match that was contested by two teams picked at random on this wind-swept morning.

"One side chose the name Rangers, the other Bucks, and they ran proudly on to the playing area that had been cleared next to the cell blocks," said the author who met many of the inmates, and heard their stories, as he put together a narrative of their experiences.

"It had less grass than the township pitches the men had played on as free men and was treacherously bumpy. The prisoners had no kit or football boots, so they played in their prison uniforms and most were barefoot."

This was football at its most impoverished – goals were made out of planks of wood. Fishing nets that were washed up on the island became makeshift goals.

Players like Mr Suze soon proved their warders wrong. Their lack of fitness made them even more determined to return to peak condition – training sessions started to take place surreptitiously in cells. Meetings were held to set up the league structure, transfer policy and ensure games abided by Fifa rules.

Mr Close said: "At one gathering, a motion put forward by Tony was

adopted unanimously: The association would be called the Matyeni Football Association. 'Matyeni' meant stones, a nod to one of the

central features of their lives – the quarry."

It metamorphosised into the Makana Football Association; the name derived from an Xhosa warrior-prophet banished to Robben Island in 1819 by the British military for fighting against colonialist powers. It meant nothing to the warders who were renowned for their ignorance.

There were, of course, setbacks as the fledgling league took shape.

Staff shortages – deliberately timed – often meant there were insufficient guards to monitor the matches, and spectators.

An influx of new prisoners, following the 1976 Soweto township uprising, saw attitudes change. The new prisoners, much younger than the Suze generation, believed they should not be part of football matches that, by then, were endorsed and encouraged by the warders.

Gentle persuasion convinced them to become part of the team – and establish some much-needed young blood to the teams who had become less mobile as years of toil, and malnourishment, took their toll.

Indeed, sport was to become a powerful force for good. Even though he was held in isolation, ANC leader Nelson Mandela – South Africa's first post-apartheid president – became fascinated by the football. Even

though he could only hear the shouting from a distant pitch,

his "charges" gave new energy to his political cause.

Indeed, he was winning his own sporting battle. For he won the respect of his warders by becoming conversant in rugby union, even though it was predominantly a sport for white players.

It was exemplified when he wore the shirt of Francois Pienaar – the Springboks captain – at the 1995 World Cup final when South Africa beat the New Zealand All Blacks. No words can do justice to President

Mandela's show of unity that encapsulated the mood of the Rainbow Nation and sport's power to break down barriers.

For many years, Ahmed Kathrada shared a cell adjacent to Mandela's – no more than eight by eight feet in size – on the isolation wing.

Previously agnostic towards football, he became a dedicated reader of Shoot magazine and an ardent follower of Leeds United. "He explained to comrades that he thought the Leeds manager Billy Bremner was a radical who rejected authority," said Mr Corr.

What particularly troubled Kathrada were reports of Leeds United fans rioting after they lost the 1975 European Cup final to Bayern Munich.

He said the behaviour of fans "burst upon the prisoners like a bombshell" before adding: "We have always thought the English were so polite and even tempered. Have they changed so much or have we been wrong all this time in our opinion?"

Yet, while English hooligans wrecked football for so many, the Robben Island inmates had to wait for years before they even had a chance to see the same.

Even though football had, for decades, been the most popular game in non-white South Africa – a player from the townships., Steve Mokone, became an idol to an entire generation after joining Coventry in 1955 – it was simply a means to pass time for those locked away on Robben Island. They could only dream of joining their families at a match on a Saturday afternoon.

Hornsea-based Mr Close, a dramatist who has previously written scripts for Emmerdale and Coronation Street, says More Than Just A Game is the most inspiring story that he's ever written.

The story behind the solidarity of the prisoners, he hopes, will be told to a global audience during the World Cup – and be used as a motivational tool for those multi-million pound players who are, perhaps, unaware of football's role in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Yet, while the BBC has spent a fortune on securing a vantage point so the idyllic Table Mountain can form the backdrop to the studio where Gary Lineker will host its coverage, Mr Close believes – rightly – that the cameras should, instead, be pointing towards Robben Island.

"It is probably the most important part of this World Cup's narrative," he said.

"It is a story of what sport can do, what sport can represent and how it can be a force for good in such a troubled world."

This month's tournament is already being billed as a showdown between the game's brightest talents – the mercurial artistry of Lionel Messi, the dribbling trickery of Cristiano Ronaldo and the bulldog belligerence of England's talismanic Wayne Rooney.

But the accomplishments of today's heroes, however great, will always be eclipsed by Robben Island's footballers. Their skill may have lacked

the artisan characteristics of today's players, but their determination changed the course of history.

And that is a feat of greatness that this year's World Cup winners will never be able to attain. For this was when football was – in the truest sense – a matter of life and death; a struggle for survival, respect

and recognition.

'Even today, the huge prison walls, barbed wire and foreboding cells send shivers through the spine'

Antony Suze was one of the former inmates who returned to Robben Island on the eve of the World Cup draw when Fifa, football's governing body, honoured the sacrifices made by the prisoners in their long struggle for freedom.

"When we set out in the boat, and the wind began to blow, I thought back to 1963 when I first arrived here. It was cold, and our food was waiting for us on the ground. Being here is truly an emotional rollercoaster," said the man whose political activism within a prohibited organisation earned him a 15-year jail sentence.

His views were echoed by Tokyo Sexwale. Incarcerated for 13 years, he is now South Africa's Minister of Human Settlements and a member of Fifa's Committee for Fair Play and Social Responsibility. He is now one of the main organisers of the World Cup.

"Even today, the huge prison walls, barbed wire and foreboding cells sends shivers through the spine," he said.

"Fifa kept their word on several counts: first of all, by boycotting South Africa during apartheid. Then, by allowing South Africa back once Nelson Mandela was freed. Next, by declaring the Makana FA an Honorary Member Association. And finally, by awarding the World Cup to South Africa."

But, understandably, the most uplifting words came from Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, who said: "Sport has the power to inspire and unite people.

"The people of Africa learnt the lesson of patience and endurance in their long struggle for freedom. May the reward brought by the Fifa World Cup prove that the long wait for its arrival on African soil has been worth it... Ke Nako! It's time."

Robben island – where nelson mandela stood defiant as a prisoner

Robben Island is seven kilometres off the coast of Cape Town, The name is Dutch for "seal island".

Five kilometres square, it is flat and only a few metres above sea level. It was first used for isolation purposes at the end of the 17th century.

Among its first permanent inhabitants were political leaders from various Dutch colonies, including Indonesia.

The island was also used as a leper colony and animal quarantine station.

During the Second World War, the island was fortified and guns were installed as part of the defences for Cape Town.

Yet it will always be synonymous as the prison where anti-apartheid campaigners – including Nelson Mandela – were held.

The last inmates left the prison in 1991, coinciding with Mr Mandela's triumphant release after 27 years.

Robben Island is now a world heritage site and museum.