Jewish Guild (South Africa)
The Jewish
Guild was a social and sports society that was founded in 1897. In its
organisation, it had founded a football team. It’s club colours were blue and
white, blue being the colour of their home kit, with a white being their away
colours. Whilst the social club was founded in 1897, it wasn’t until 1960 when
Jewish Guild was created. The Old Arcs, the original name of the football team
in the organisation, asked the Jewish Guild to run their football team, and the
name change came about.
Only four years
after the name change, Jewish Guild reached the final of the Castle Cup in
1964, This was the domestic cup competition ran by the Football association in
South Africa under Apartheid, between the years of 1959 until 1977. The
competition was only eligible to teams made up of white South Africans. It was
known as the Castle Cup because of the sponsorship of Castle Breweries. The won
it that year in Durban City, whilst still playing their football in their
provincial football league. It was the first time the club had won a major
trophy, and it seemed to set them up for a future in the higher leagues of
South African football.
It wasn’t until
1969, when South Africa’s National Football League voted to create a second
division in their football pyramid, Jewish Guid were one of ten football clubs
to join. Their first season ended in a respectable mid-table finish of 5th.
The club were determined to build on that success and did so the following
season when they were runaway winners of the league by nine points in the 1970
season, ahead of second placed Durban Celtic. It saw Jewish Guild promoted to
the top flight of South African football, albeit in Apartheid South Africa
where only white players were permitted to play in the league.
The club
competed in the top division for the next five years, finishing mid table in
most of the seasons, with their best finish coming in their final season, in
1975, when they finished 5th out of the fifteen clubs that competed.
But that was to be the end of Jewish Guild, as after that season that the club
decided to merge with another football club, Johannesburg Corinthians, a club
that seems to have literally been forgotten about. The only information I could
find about them was a small snippet about how they were a consistent side in
the second division, gaining promotion and nearly winning the league one season
while also reaching the semi final of the NFL cup in the 60’s. The newly formed
club was now known as Guid Apollo, which was then renamed again in 1977 as
Roodepoort Guild who competed in the last NFL season. It was then that a
non-racial league was created as the NFL (The White League) and the NPSL (The
Black League) merged together to create the new common NPSL.
The player who
I had mentioned in the opening paragraph who had played for Jewish Guild was
non other than George Best, a player who has played for other ‘Forgotten Clubs’
like Cork Celtic from Ireland, LA Aztecs (Two Spells), Fort Lauderdale Strikers
and San Jose Earthquakes from the United States, and Sea Bee from Hong Kong. He
played for many other clubs, but they are the clubs, alongside Jewish Guild,
who he played for five times and scored once for, who qualify as ‘Forgotten
Clubs’. They were the first club he joined after he left Manchester United in
1974. All five games he played for Jewish Guild were competitive matches and
not exhibitions matches like he would participate in for other clubs. Whilst he
attracted thousands of spectators to the matches he played in, he also drew
criticism from club officials who were not happy at the fact he kept missing
training sessions n favour of going out and partying. He didn’t last long in
South Africa and was put out on loan back to England, where he played for
Dunstable Town and then Stockport Town.
Best, while
being the most high-profile player to play for Jeish Guild, was not the only
British player to do so. It was common practice for South African clubs to sign
British players to raise their profile and try to attract a few extra
supporters to the matches. Amongst them was Tommy Henderson, a Scottish
footballer, who played right wing. He joined Jeish Guild in 1974, whilst also
having played for Leeds United, Hearts and ‘Forgotten Club’, Cork Hibernians.
Another foreign import and one that was probably more known in South African
football for his part played in the quadruple winning Kaizer Chief side of
1981, was Portuguese born South African midfielder, Frank Pereira, or also
known as ‘Jingles’ Pereira, a nickname he got when he was ten years old for
having kept two pennies in his short pockets while playing football matches.
The coins would hit of each other as he played, making a jingle sound. He made
29 appearances for Jewish Guild from 1972 until 1973, scoring 23 goals in that
time. Former Liverpool goalkeeper, Doug Rudham, also played for Jewish Guild.
Rudham played for Liverpool in the 1950’s, and was a South African, who made
one appearance for their national team.
Jewish Guild, a
club created by a social club in South Africa, who ended up winning a major
trophy and then merged with another football club and ceased to exist. It was a
football club that came as quickly as they went. There was no financial reason
for their exodus from the football world, and in fact, it just seems as though
they were happy enough to pass on the mantle of running a football club, like
they were passed it back in 1960. Very little information is left to find about
Jewish Guild, other than what I have told in this chapter. A club who ran
themselves well and seemed to step out just as South African football was about
to merge and put it’s racial divide behind it. Could they have foreseen this
and opted out of being part of the progressive future of South African
football? Or was there another reason behind their dissolvement? However, they did win a major trophy and
because of that they have forever cemented their place in South African
football history. That, and they are now in this book as a ’Forgotten Club’. I
don’t know which one is a bigger achievement.
#NeverForget