ABSTRACT
Introduction Recent works reported on the history of Physical Education at mission schools in Cape Town, South Africa, but neglected sport.1 This study attempts a sport-historical review of sport at mission schools in Cape Town until 1955, with emphasis on the Coloured2 community. These were church schools in village centres or rural districts. Sometimes these were infant schools, sometimes industrial schools, sometimes partly school, partly churches. They were generally attended by Coloured children and often also by the poorer classes of White children.3 Although the curriculum of mission and public schools were the same, the latter was supported financially by the state with the taxes of all citizens, while the former was financially dependant on churches.4 Until 1955 school sport organisations in South Africa acquiesced to official state policies and seldom overtly challenged segregation and racism in society. State racism intensified after the First World War and climaxed in 1948, with the brutal implementation of Apartheid when the National Party was voted into power. After the removal of Coloured people from the voters roll and closure of their schools that were in White residential areas, school sport organisations had no option but to radicalise.
