A United Kingdom-based rugby player who left South Africa after playing for the SA Africans side in the 1950s to pursue a professional league career in the United Kingdom was officially given his Springbok colours at a function on Tuesday.
The event was part of the South African Rugby Football Union’s (Sarfu) Yesterday’s Heroes programme, which gives due recognition to all players who plied their trade for the various, racially divided national sides during the apartheid era.
Enslin Mabandla Dlambulo, one of the featured players in the official Springbok history book, 112 Years of Springbok Rugby, is in Cape Town on a short visit to attend his brother’s funeral. His wife, Iris, joined him at the ceremony.
Now retired, and still living in Keighley with his family, he will arrive back in the UK as a fully-fledged Springbok, an honour he could not enjoy in his day, because he was a black player.
Dlambulo played in three Tests as part of the SA Africans team, against the SA Coloureds side that featured, among others, Goolam Abed, who also left for the UK to pursue a league career in the 1960s. Sarfu held a capping ceremony for Abed last year, honouring him with Springbok colours.
”In a sense, things have come full circle,” says Dlambulo. ”I had played many times against Goolam in South Africa, and there was mutual respect among us. When he arrived in England, he was asked by Bradford Northern to recommend a player from South Africa, and he gave them my name. That’s how my professional league career started in 1962.”
Sarfu CEO Mveleli Ncula said his organisation is pleased to honour Dlambulo.
”It’s a great pleasure that we bestow such well-deserved honour to Mr Dlambulo — one of our greatest sporting legends during the dark days of apartheid,” said Ncula.
”He is recognised as one of the most disciplined and fittest players of his era. As a player, he was hungry for success, with his strength, agility and athleticism setting him apart from fellow loose forwards.”
Dlambulo enjoyed a successful career with Bradford Northern and Keighley, before he retired in 1968.
He first made his mark playing for Langa High School in Cape Town, earning Western Province colours with the WP Bantu Rugby Board and later SA Africans, alongside legends such as Eric Majola and Ben Malamba.
After retiring from professional league rugby, he remained in the UK, playing squash and practising martial arts. He later became a karate instructor, earning a black belt.
He now resides in West Yorkshire with his wife, children and grandchildren. — Sapa