4 Football on the Zambian and Katangese Copperbelts: Leisure and Fan Culture from the 1930s to the Present

To placate and discipline their new workforce, colonial and mining authorities in Katanga and Northern Rhodesia adopted welfare schemes. They were concerned by urbanising African mineworkers’ leisure activities that focused on beer drinking, traditional dances and visiting neighbours, which authorities considered as increasing misconduct, criminality and other disruptive behaviours.3 Ibid., p. 59. A central aspect of these welfare schemes was the provision of recreational and sporting amenities in new mine townships, and football was identified as one of the leading leisure activities.4 Alegi, ‘Katanga vs Johannesburg’; Patience N. Mususa, ‘There Used to Be Order: Life on the Copperbelt After the Privatisation of the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines’, PhD thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014, p. 26; Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals, p. 59. In Katanga, a combination of the Roman Catholic Church, Belgian colonial authorities and the Anglo-Belgian copper mining giant Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK) used sport to create ‘a disciplined, efficient, moral and healthy African working class’.5 Ibid. Similar welfare schemes were developed across the border in Northern Rhodesia after the 1940 Copperbelt strike, with sports as one of the main activities.6 Patience Mususa, ‘Mining, Welfare and Urbanisation: The Wavering Urban Character of Zambia’s Copperbelt’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies. 30, 4 (2012), pp. 571–87. Hortense Powdermaker reveals how welfare centres in the Roan Antelope African mine compounds in Luanshya offered a variety of activities such as literacy classes, knitting, nutrition, cinema, dancing, with sports, and particularly football, being the most popular of these.7 Hortense Powdermaker, Copper Town: Changing Africa – The human situation of the Rhodesian Copperbelt (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 107.

In the minds of colonial and mining authorities, sports such as football were important aspects of colonial domination because they inculcated discipline, consciousness, endurance and courage in African mineworkers.8 Emmanuel Akyeampong and Charles Ambler, ‘Leisure in Africa: An Introduction’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 31, 1 (2002) pp. 1–16, p. 11. They believed that vigorous sports activities provided a cheap and effective means of social control.9 Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 59. The British imperial notion of a ‘games ethic’ was centred on ethnocentrism, hegemony and patronage.10 J. A. Mangan, The Games Ethic and Imperialism Aspects of the Diffusion of an Ideal (New York: Viking, 1985), p. 17. As elsewhere in Africa and other parts of the world, local mineworkers in the Copperbelt abandoned their traditional leisure activities, appropriating and adopting football as a part of their popular culture in the mining towns. Crowds of fans flocked to open grounds and new stadiums in the mining compounds every weekend to watch their favourite teams.11 Gerard Akindes and Peter Alegi, ‘From Leopoldville to Liège: A Conversation with Paul Bonga Bonga’ in Chuka Onwumechili and Gerard Akindes (eds), Identity and Nation in African Football: Fans, Community and Clubs (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), pp. 254–68; Akyeampong and Ambler, ‘Leisure in Africa’; Peter Alegi, African Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World’s Game (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010); Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 57.

While leisure on both Katanga’s and Northern Rhodesia’s mine towns has attracted extensive attention from scholars, there appears to be none that have explored how football became a popular leisure activity, playing an essential role in the lives of African mineworkers and their families.12 See for example J. Clyde Mitchell, The Kalela Dance: Aspects of Social Relationships Among Urban Africans in Northern Rhodesia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956); Powdermaker, Copper Town, p. 107; Albert B. K. Matongo, ‘Popular Culture in a Colonial Society: Another Look at Mbeni and Kalela Dances on the Copperbelt’, in Samuel N. Chipungu (ed.), Guardians in Their Time: Experiences of Zambians Under Colonial Rule, 1890–1964 (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 180–217; Charles Ambler, ‘Alcohol, Racial Segregation and Popular Politics in Northern Rhodesia’, Journal of African History 31 (1990), pp. 295–313; Charles Ambler, ‘Popular Film and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia’, American Historical Review 106 (2001), pp. 81–105; Mususa, ‘There Used to Be Order’; Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals, pp. 55–73; Johannes Fabian, Jamaa; A Charismatic Movement in Katanga (Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 1971); S. E. Katzenellenbogen, Railways and the Copper Mines of Katanga (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973). There is however a growing body of historical and anthropological literature on football fandom in Africa in general. This work has explored practices and rituals of spectatorship, rivalries, violence, how the game constitutes fans’ social identities, and the role of media and migration in the increasing identification of African fans with European teams.13 See Peter Alegi, Laduma! Soccer, Politics, and Society in South Africa, From its Origins to 2010 (Scottsville, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010), p. 51; Gerard Akindes, ‘Football Bars: Urban Sub-Saharan Africa’s Trans-local “Stadiums”’, International Journal of the History of Sport 28, 15 (2011), pp. 2176–90; Chuka Onwumechili, ‘Nigeria, Football, and the Return of Lord Lugard’, International Journal of Sport Communication 2 4 (2009), pp. 451–65; Onwumechili and Akindes, Identity and Nation, p. 96; Tafadzwa Choto, Manase Kudzai Chiweshe and Nelson Muparamoto, ‘Football Fandom, Ethno-Regionalism and Rivalry in Post-Colonial Zimbabwe: Case Study of Highlanders and Dynamos’, Soccer and Society 20, 1 (2017), pp. 153–67; Manase Kudzai Cheweshe, ‘Till Death do us Part: Football as Part of Everyday Life amongst Dynamos Football Club Fans in Zimbabwe’, African Identities 14, 2 (2016), pp. 101–13. Nevertheless, apart from the South African mines, little historical analysis has been carried out on how the game played a role in building colonial and postcolonial African urban mine communities.14 Alegi, Laduma!; Alegi, ‘Katanga vs Johannesburg’. Drawing on archival documents, press articles and oral interviews, this chapter explores how playing and supporting football became a popular leisure activity for black mineworkers in Katanga and the Rhodesian Copperbelt from the 1930s to present. It also shows how looking at football closely can shed some light on colonial and postcolonial politics in the region and formation of collective urban identities.

As Belgian colonial racism permeated all areas of Congolese society, early football in Katanga was played on segregated lines, leading to the formation of the Europeans-only Ligue de Football du Katanga in 1911 in the provincial capital Elisabethville.5 Akindes and Alegi, ‘From Leopoldville to Liege’; Alegi, African Soccerscapes, 4. In 1925, four teams competed in the European-only B. Smith Cup.6 Alegi, African Soccerscapes, p. 3. African football, on the other hand, only took off with the support of Father Coussement, who organised a football league for Africans in Elisabethville in 1925. 7 Ibid. It was only after the Second World War that the Elisabethville Football Association (EFA) was formed to govern black football.8 Akindes and Alegi, ‘Leopoldville to Liege’.

Similar activities were happening across the border in British-colonised Northern Rhodesia. The birth of its Copperbelt in the early 1920s led to an influx of European mineworkers that introduced modern sports such as football in the area.9 Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 57. The first form of organised football started with the formation of a whites-only Rhodesia Congo Border Football Association in 1927 that administered both football and rugby until 1930, when the Rhodesia Congo Border Rugby Union separated from it.10 Hikabwa D. Chipande, ‘Introduction and Development of Competitive Football in Zambia (1930–1969): A Historical Perspective’, Master’s Thesis, Norwegian School of Sport Science, 2009, p. 62. When the authorities first introduced football to African mineworkers however, some were unenthusiastic about playing the game, regarding its introduction as part of their mine work, and therefore believed it would require payment, as revealed in the Roan Antelope mines compound manager’s report of January 1932:

This reveals the efforts that mining authorities were making to introduce ‘modern’ sports to African mineworkers on the Copperbelt and the resulting differences between Africans and the European employers regarding the conceptualisation of leisure. Scholars such as Phyllis Martin, Emmanuel Akyeampong and Charles Ambler have revealed the divisions that emerged between Europeans and Africans in the early colonial period over the conceptualisation of leisure time and space.12 Akyeampong and Ambler, ‘Leisure in African History’; Phyllis Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 99. In her work on leisure in colonial Brazzaville, Martin convincingly argues that studying sport sheds light on ‘the multi-faceted colonial experience’, showing how cultural and political life were interconnected.13 Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville, p. 99. Looking at sport can reveal both everyday colonial experiences and the underlying struggles of definition between coloniser and colonised. Similarly, Laura Fair’s work on football and politics in colonial Zanzibar reveals how, despite Europeans’ hope that football would inculcate values of discipline and colonial order, it became an arena of daily struggles between colonialists and the colonised. The locals used football to challenge colonial hegemony by defeating their supposed European superiors in front of thousands of fans, publicly defying European referees, and using the game to define the shape of life in their communities.14 Laura Fair, ‘Kickin’ It: Leisure, Politics and Football in Colonial Zanzibar, 1900s–1950s’. Africa 67, 2 (1997), pp. 224–51.

As the game established roots in African mine compounds, the Governor of Northern Rhodesia offered to sponsor a competition in 1936 that came to be called the Governor’s Cup. Qualifying matches for the Governor’s Cup involved African teams from all the main mining towns such as Luanshya, Nkana (Kitwe), Mufulira, Nchanga (Chingola) and Bancroft (Chililabombwe). The inaugural final of the competition took place between Nkana and Luanshya on 4 October 1936 at the Rugby Football Club in Ndola, with Nkana beating Luanshya 2–1. The significance of this event can be seen in the presence of the Governor, Sir Hubert Winthrop Young who, accompanied by the Senior Provincial Commissioner, District Commissioner, and other colonial and mining officials, attended the final match and presented the Cup to the winning team.5 ‘Climax of the Copperbelt Football Season’, Mutende, November 1936. While the Governor’s Cup gave colonial and mining authorities’ symbolic control over the game, it also played a vital role in the development of organised football and raised enthusiasm among Africans in the mining towns. This can be seen in the presence of what the Mutende newspaper described as large numbers of fans.6 Ibid. The successful organisation of the Governor’s Cup also led to the creation of an (all-white) Native Football Committee made up of mine compound managers and charged with the responsibility of controlling African football on the Northern Rhodesian Copperbelt in 1937. As Africans began to enjoy the game, Europeans feared that its popularity in black mine communities could serve as an avenue for anti-colonial rebellion. This was not unique to Northern Rhodesia; French colonialists imposed strict control on football in colonial Brazzaville’s black townships of Bacongo and Poto-poto fearing that the game might be used as an opportunity for political agitation.7 Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville, p. 43. The Native Football Committee evolved in the 1940s into the Copperbelt African Football Associations that managed football in the region.8 Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, pp. 57, 62.

Parallel to these processes in Northern Rhodesia, the growing popularity of football among Africans in the Katangese mining towns led the President of UMHK, M. Gillet, to introduce a football competition in 1956 for what came to be known as the Gillet Cup.9 ‘Trophée President Gillet’, Mwana Shaba, May 1957. Significantly, the competition involved both African and European teams from across the mining towns of Katanga: Elisabethville, Jadotville, Kolwezi and Shinkolobwe. The white football governing body Ligue Royale de Football du Katanga managed the Gillet Cup, but as well as featuring African and European teams, the football matches drew what Mwana Shaba magazine describes as large crowds of both African and European spectators.10 Ibid. Like the Governor’s Cup in Northern Rhodesia, the Gillet Cup became the biggest football competition in Katanga in the 1950s.11 Chipande, ‘Chipolopolo’, Ch. 1. Following the successful introduction of the Gillet Cup, Henry Buttgenbach, the administrator of UMHK, introduced another football competition for Katangese teams that came to be known as Buttgenbach Cup in 1957.12 ‘Trophée Buttgenbach’, Mwana Shaba, 1957. The Buttgenbach Cup was played in the same way as the Gillet Cup involving African and European teams in Katanga. The introduction of these competitions popularised the game in the Katangese mines: the Panda mine (white) team from Jadotville (today Likasi) was the most successful in 1957, winning the Gillet Cup, the Fiftieth Challenge Cup and the newly introduced Buttgenbach Cup.13 Ibid. Leagues were still racially segregated in Katanga throughout the 1950s, but competitions like the Gillet Cup and Buttgenbach Cup began to break down the football colour bar. In contrast, in Northern Rhodesia racial segregation in football continued until 1962.

The interest that both colonial and mining authorities across the Copperbelt region showed in sponsoring African football would not have been possible if Africans had not themselves engaged with the sport, both as players and spectators. This mass popularity, however, could be viewed as a danger as well as an opportunity. This necessitated efforts to direct its development and project symbolic control over it by organising competitions named after colonial and mine company officials, as detailed above.14 Chipande, Mining for Goals’, p. 57. On the other hand, African mine communities enjoyed football, and the game generated a lot of fun and excitement among mass gatherings in mining towns in both parts of the Copperbelt region.15 ‘Climax of the Copperbelt Football Season’, Mutende, 1936; ‘Trophée President Gillet’, Mwana Shaba, May 1957. Phyllis Martin argues that, in Brazzaville, ‘[n]o other form of popular culture could rival the excitement generated by football matches. To be part of the crowd was to be at the heart of a city experience.’16 Martin, Leisure and Society in Colonial Brazzaville, p. 118. Similarly, people in Northern Rhodesia and Katanga found football to be fun and exhilarating, and being part of the crowed during matches meant being part of the urban excitement. Competitions in open township grounds and newly constructed stadiums usually brought communities to a standstill as hundreds of people assembled to cheer on their local teams.17 Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 62. The game’s sociability also helped African miners to build new urban social networks, bonds and neighbourhoods.18 Fair, Pastimes and Politics, p. 247; Alegi, Laduma! pp. 54–5; Chipande, ‘Copper Mining and Football’, p. 29. These networks and bonds extended across the colonial border separating Katanga from Northern Rhodesia.

The Copperbelt African Football Association and the Elisabethville Football Association also began organising cross-border football competitions for Africans in the 1940s.4 ‘Copperbelt Outclassed Congo in a Big Soccer Tussle’, The African Eagle, 22 October 1957. The number of such competitions increased in the late 1940s, leading to Elisabethville hosting what was characterised as the ‘first sub-Saharan African football championship’ in 1950.5 Alegi, ‘Katanga vs Johannesburg’, p. 58 This football contest involved select teams from Johannesburg and other areas of South Africa; the Northern Rhodesian mining towns of the Copperbelt and Broken Hill, and those in Katanga. The final of the tournament was played between teams representing Katanga and South Africa in the Léopold II Stadium. Katanga beat South Africa 8–0 to win the championship.6 Ibid. Elisabethville subsequently hosted other regional soccer competitions that involved select teams from Northern Rhodesia, Katanga and Congo Brazzaville, making it the centre of regional football competitions in the 1950s.7 ‘Brilliant Victory by Brazzaville in the Elizabethville Tournament’, Mwana Shaba, August 1958.

As these football tours became increasingly fashionable in the 1950s, a Northern Rhodesian Copperbelt select team even travelled as far as the Belgian Congo capital Léopoldville (Kinshasa) in 1951 on invitation of the Congo Football Association. In Léopoldville, this team was given an excellent reception by the Congo Football Association, the British Consul and Belgian colonial officials. Exciting football matches were all won by the Léopoldville select team.8 National Archives of Zambia (hereafter NAZ), WP 1/5/1, Luanshya African Welfare 2nd Quarterly Report, Luanshya, June 1951. The long distances that teams covered to these competitions, and the prestige with which their visits were marked, demonstrates both their significance to the authorities and also how African communities perceived the importance of the game. It became an avenue through which local people aspired to another material and symbolic existence, as it was one of the few areas where Africans could stand out in the setting of colonial and mining society.9 Nuno Domingos, Football and Colonialism: Body and Popular Culture in Urban Mozambique (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2017), p. 4 John Ginger Pensulo who played for the Copperbelt African Football Association in the 1950s in Northern Rhodesia, emphasised during an interview that sharing cultural experiences, and playing the game with fellow Africans in Katanga, was an exciting experience.10 Interview, Pensulo, Luanshya, 7 March 2014. The cross-border football events, and the fanfare associated with the visits and tournaments of African football teams, provided a space where Africans could compete for prestige and success on an ‘equal’ playing field.

Even after the Congo gained independence in 1960, football exchanges between the two regions continued. In 1962, a racially integrated team from Luanshya called Roan Antelope United FC, under the leadership of former Portuguese international Tony Castela who acted as both captain and coach, made a tour of Katanga and played a select team in Jadotville (today’s Likasi). The thrilling match was played at Panda Stadium, in which Jadotville led Roan 2–0 in the first half, while Roan managed to equalise in the second half, with the match ending 2–2.11 ‘Roan Antelope United… a Panda’ Mwana Shaba, December 1962.

Although there are no exact figures for attendance at these competitions, such matches are widely reported to have drawn thousands of spectators from their host cities. For example, a match organised by the Northern Rhodesia Football Association between teams from Elisabethville and Northern Rhodesia, held at the Nchanga Sports Club in 1962, attracted about 3,000 spectators.12 ‘Nchanga Incident: N.R.’s Soccer Prestige will Suffer’, Inshila, 19 June 1962. In the context of mine town populations in the 1960s, this was a huge number of fans and it reveals how the game had become a central part of leisure practices in the mines. It is also important to note that these matches (and their crowds) were widely reported upon in newspapers and magazines. This means that they had an afterlife in newspapers, which memorialised star players, and the excitement of the events. The match reports inspired people to read the newspapers so they also helped to broaden the audience and increase followers. The matches themselves, and the matches as memoralised through newspapers, therefore, became unmistakable communitarian spectacles in the African mining towns of both Northern Rhodesia and Katanga.13 Domingos, ‘Football and Colonialism’, p. 2. The popularity of football, as Chiweshe demonstrates for Zimbabwe, also shows how the locals used the sport to create their own spaces under colonialism, limiting colonial and mining authorities’ control over their lives.14 Kudzai Chiweshe, ‘Till Death do us Part’. Football would continue to be a popular activity in the changed circumstances of the postcolonial period.

Each mining town – such as Elisabethville (later Lubumbashi) or Jadotville (later Likasi) – had a social services division overseen by the personnel manager, whose primary role was to provide and promote leisure activities.2 ‘The Sports and Entertainment Circles’, Mwana Shaba, 244, 15 December 1975. Welfare committees coordinated different activities, each with a president, vice-president, secretary and a treasurer. Social welfare centres provided libraries to encourage a reading culture, and other amenities such as musical and cinema shows and occasionally art exhibitions. Katangese social centres, like those in Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, provided a wide range of sporting amenities that included football, volleyball, basketball, swimming, tennis, boxing, rugby, chess, darts and many others.3 Ibid. These facilities were however only available to the employees of companies and their families, who had to accept the strict regulations that governed the centres.

Following Zambia’s independence in 1964, its booming copper-dependent economy made it possible for President Kenneth Kaunda’s socialist-leaning government to continue with Copperbelt social welfare schemes that Europeans started in the colonial era. The mine companies, with support from government, provided mineworkers with housing and recreational facilities that included well-managed football grounds and stadiums, in line with Kaunda’s policy of redistributing copper wealth to build a prosperous Zambia.4 Alastair Fraser, ‘Introduction’ in Alastair Fraser and Miles Larmer (eds), Zambia, Mining, and Neoliberalism: Boom and Bust on the Globalized Copperbelt (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 6. This policy was further reinforced by the nationalisation of major companies, including the copper mines, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With government encouragement, these nationalised corporations, particularly Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), increased support of football.5 The first stage of nationalisation resulted in the creation of Roan Consolidated Mines (RCM) and Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines (NCCM) in 1969. These structures were merged into ZCCM in 1982. In his speech at the United National Independence Party (UNIP) 3rd National Convention in 1984, President Kaunda stated ‘the party and its government should continue to encourage sport and recreation, especially among young people in order to get them off the streets. … parastatals and other working places should endeavour to provide these recreational facilities’.6 NAZ, Kenneth Kaunda speech at United National Independence Party (UNIP) 3rd National Convention, 23–25 July 1984,

Following these directives, ZCCM developed a comprehensive football programme in the early 1980s that involved the recruitment of sports advisers and employment of full-time mine divisional coaches by its Department of Community Services.7 ZCCM-IH, Minutes of Divisional Coaches meeting held on 5 September 1984. They hired experienced British football coach Jeff Butler as a Sports Adviser with the responsibility of offering guidance on effective planning and successful implementation of mine sports programmes.8 Ibid. The company also employed eight full-time experienced local football coaches, one for each of the ZCCM mine districts.9 The eight divisions referred to are: Nchanga, Mufulira, Nkana, Luanshya, Kalulushi, Konkola, Kabwe and Ndola Lime Company. Apart from being provided with the best available advisers and coaches, ZCCM supplied its sports clubs with equipment and necessities on an annual basis even when the company was not making profits, following the fall of the copper prices on the international market from the late 1970s. In 1989 ZCCM was financing five professional football clubs, namely Nkana Red Devils, Power Dynamos, Roan United, Mufulira Wanderers and Nchanga Rangers, at a time when the company was making a loss.10 Hikabwa D. Chipande, ‘The Structural Adjustment of Football in Zambia: Politics, Decline and Dispersal, 1991–1994’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 33, 15 (2016), pp. 1847–65.

With such plentiful and powerful sponsorship, it is no surprise that mine-sponsored football clubs continued to dominate competition, making the Copperbelt the hub of football in both Congo/Zaïre and Zambia. On the other hand, the continuation of mine social welfare structures to support soccer can be understood as a continued use of colonial-era methods to control African labour in the mines.11 Alegi, ‘Katanga vs Johannesburg’, p. 58; Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 57, p. 61. It also suggests that postcolonial African states and nationalised enterprises had simply substituted for colonial structures that had socially and economically exploited the local population, which resonates with Frederick Cooper’s argument that the end of colonialism in many African states involved ‘a mere change of personnel within structure[s] that remain[ed] colonial’.12 Fredrick Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past and Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 4. On the other hand, it is difficult for one not to see how much the local people in the mining towns enjoyed and participated in football, creating their own fan culture that owed little or nothing to the demands of company or state patronage.

Towards the end of the 1960s, Tout Puissant Englebert became the most successful club not only in Katanga and Congo but the African continent as a whole. The club had been formed in 1939 and was initially called Saint Georges Elisabethville. A few years later; a tyre manufacturing company Englebert began sponsoring the club, leading to the change of name to Englebert. The club started performing well and earned itself the label Tout Puissant (meaning ‘all powerful’ in French), and changed its name to Tout Puissant Englebert.7 ‘The Secrets of TP Mazembe’s Success’, FIFA Club World Cup UAE 2010, 18 December 2010: www.fifa.com/clubworldcup/news/the-secrets-mazembe-success-1353395 (accessed 25 November 2019). After Congo’s independence in 1960, it was renamed Tout Puissant Mazembe (meaning ‘Crows’ in Swahili) under the influence of President Joseph Mobutu’s Africanisation policy.8 Goldblatt, The Ball is Round. ‘TP Mazembe’, as the club came to be popularly known, won both the Katangese and Congolese football league championships and the African Champions Cup for two consecutive years in 1967 and 1968, and reached the finals of the latter competition for four successive years from 1967 to 1970.9 Chipande, ‘Copper Mining and Football’, p. 39.

With this success, TP Mazembe attracted a large army of fans that could be seen and heard during matches through its impressive display of traditional regalia, dancing, singing and beating drums throughout matches. According to Brian Mulenga, who watched TP Mazembe play against Mufulira Wanderers in 1979 in Zambia, the organisation of their fans was far ahead of any Zambian team: they came to Mufulira with marching majorettes and a band all dressed in black and white, the team’s official colours.10 Interview, Brian Mulenga, Lusaka, 25 November 2019. In the early 1980s, the fans became even more organised and were then known as ‘Les cent pour cent’ meaning ‘The 100 percenters’. The 100 percenters created a lively and festive atmosphere during matches regardless of the score.11 ‘TP Mazembe’s Tales of the Unexpected’, FIFA Club World Cup 2015, 12 December 2015: www.fifa.com/clubworldcup/news/tp-mazembe-s-tales-of-the-unexpected-2743835-x3734 (accessed 25 November 2019. The great atmosphere they consistently created during matches shows how TP Mazembe’s fans’ singing and dancing is deep rooted in the club’s culture, and survived despite the team’s decline in the 1980s and early 1990s.12 Manase Kudzai Chiweshe, ‘Online Football Fan Identities and Cyber-fandoms in Zimbabwe’ in Onwumechili and Akindes, Identity and Nation, pp. 236–53, p. 236.

The emergence of TP Mazembe’s 100 percenters is today associated with financial support from Moïse Katumbi Chapwe, who later became chairperson of the club and Governor of Katanga Province. Katumbi started supporting TP Mazembe when he was nine years old when his older brother was chairperson of the club. His brother banned him from watching matches for misbehaving, but he would sneak out and climb trees to watch games. Katumbi subsequently made his fortune from the mining, transport and fishing businesses that he ran in both Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.13 Arnold Pannenborg, Big Men Playing Football: Money, Politics and Foul Play in the African Game (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 2012), p. 1. In 1997, he was elected president of TP Mazembe and immediately embarked on the vigorous transformation of the club in order to regain its lost glory. In 2007, building on the high profile achieved by his association with the club, Katumbi was elected Governor of Katanga. Meanwhile his investment in TP Mazembe started producing results: the club won five Congolese club championships, as well as the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League title in both 2009 and 2010.14 Ibid.; Ossu Obayiuwana, ‘TP Mazembe the Building of a Giant: After Conquering the African Summit, Does TP Mazembe Possess a Sustainable Plan to Stay at the Top’, New Africa, November 2012. Katumbi invested about $12 million in the club, enabling the renovation of the Stade TP Mazembe in the Kamalondo area of Lubumbashi and realising his goal of making TP Mazembe one of the largest football clubs on the continent. While Katumbi denied the connection between investment in TP Mazembe and his political ambitions, anthropologist Arnold Pannenborg argues that, ‘Katumbi understands the political ramifications of the club’s massive following, having stated that “TP Mazembe is the hope of the Congolese people”’.15 Pannenborg, Big Men Playing Football, p. 1. Katumbi’s profile was such that he declared his aim of standing for the Congolese presidency in 2018, although he was prevented from doing so by the government of the day.

The presence of famous musicians such as Franco during soccer matches in Lubumbashi stadium, and the drumming, singing and theatrical performances by TP Mazembe’s fans, suggests not only the Africanisation of Katangese football, but also the prominence of football in the formation of fans’ identities as Katangese, mineworkers and urbanites. As Katumbi himself pointed out, the club symbolised hope for many Congolese people following a period of economic and political crisis and military conflict, and has become central to the identity of Congolese football. 16 Ibid. Football has generated a lot of fun, excitement and an urban popular culture and experience for many people. It has also played an essential role in strengthening individuals and groups’ existential attachments and community identities in Katanga’s copper mining towns.17 Chiweshe, ‘Till Death do us Part’, p. 105. The game constructed similar identities across the border in Zambia’s mining towns.

In Mufulira for example, there were three major football clubs in the 1970s and 1980s: Mufulira Wanderers FC located in Kantanshi mine compound, Butondo Western Tigers FC in Butondo mine compound (both sponsored by the mines), and Mufulira Blackpool FC, located in Kamuchanga township and sponsored by the municipal council. The three clubs competed for Mufulira’s football fans and players. Mufulira Wanderers emerged as the town’s leading and famous club. During their home matches at Shinde Stadium, passionate fans who could not afford tickets climbed rooftops, electric poles and trees around the stadium to get a glimpse of their favourite team. In March 1976, following an accident in which two fans fell from the roof of a shelter they had climbed to watch a match, Mufulira Wanderers management warned that they would not accept responsibility for any deaths or injury of fans as a result of such undertakings during games.5 ‘Club warns soccer fans’, Mining Mirror, 5 March 1976. The large numbers of fans and their desperation to watch matches shows how popular the game had become in the mining towns.

In Kitwe, the arch-rivals in the 1980s and 1990s were Nkana FC, located in Wusakile mine township inhabited mainly by underground mineworkers, and Power Dynamos FC located in Ndeke village where Copperbelt Energy Corporation employees resided.6 Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 63. Those who watched these matches argue that, whatever the result on the pitch, Nkana fans dominated their Power Dynamos neighbours. Former Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) chairperson Simataa Simataa, himself a staunch Nkana FC supporter, explained in an interview that the combative mentality of Wusakile mine compound residents made Nkana FC fans notoriously boisterous. This conduct was in turn reflected in the club’s 1982 change of name to become Nkana Red Devils FC.7 Interview, Simataa Simataa, Lusaka, 3 July 2014. Nkana FC fans were known for their dominant presence in the stadium and for being well organised.

Like TP Mazembe fans, Nkana Red Devils fans developed well-rehearsed and entertaining chants and drumming during matches in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Their success inspired the fans of other clubs, transforming football fandom in Zambia. Their fan base included such well-known individuals as Malama, who was a dancer, singer and composer. Malama could spend the entire match singing, during which he danced facing fans and away from the match. When the Nkana team scored, he would always ask the nearby fans in Chibemba (the Zambian Copperbelt lingua franca) ‘ninani aingisha?’ meaning ‘who has scored?’ After that, he continued singing and dancing in the same way until the final whistle.8 Interview, Simon Stone Chibwe, Kitwe, 18 July 2018; interview, Leonard Koloko, Kitwe, 19 January 2014. Popular songs were adapted to acclaim the club and they engaged the famous Serenje Kalindula Band to play live music during home matches. This fan culture led the band to compose the famous song ‘Ba Nkana ba wina’ meaning ‘Nkana has won’, that was regularly played on the radio. The song calls upon everyone to support Nkana while praising football players and administrators for the success of the club.9 Interview, Leonard Koloko, Kitwe, 19 January 2014

Although anyone could become a member of the fans’ club, most members of Nkana FC from the 1960s to the 1990s were mineworkers and their families, reflecting the strong integration between mine company sponsorship, place of employment, area of residence and club affiliation. For Nkana FC and other mine-sponsored supporters’ clubs, the mines deducted monthly subscriptions from the salaries of fan club members, showing close integration of football participation and fandom with mine companies. The money was used to buy regalia, food and transport during games.10 Interview, Simon Stone Chibwe, Kitwe, 18 July 2018. For example, Moses Chabala Mandona migrated from Kawambwa in Luapula Province in the 1950s to work in the mines in Kitwe in the Personnel Department, where he became an Nkana FC fan. His son Edward Chabala was born in 1964 in Kitwe and grew up in Mindolo mine compound, where his father introduced him to Nkana FC at a young age. Edward grew up as a supporter and became a member of the Nkana FC football fans community. Towards the end of the 1980s, he joined the leadership of Nkana Football fan club and later became chairperson of one of the sub-groups of the club.11 Telephone interview, Edward Chabala, 17 July 2018. Chabala’s family history shows how football fan culture can illuminate the broader history of migration and urbanisation on the Copperbelt.

The close relationship between the mining sector and football fandom also helped to structure the gendered nature of football fandom. Until recently, the vast majority of copper mineworkers were men, and playing and watching football were important elements of mineworker sociability. Football fandom was associated with mining, miners’ shifts and cohorts that excluded women.12 Chipande, ‘Mining for Goals’, p. 66. However, the picture slowly started changing in the post-independence period with the emergence of vibrant supporters’ clubs in which specific women were important organisers and singers.

While men dominated the game in the mines, the Copperbelt also contributed to the development of women’s football. A Zambia national women football team was organised in 1983 and played a curtain raiser match for the men’s African Nations Cup qualifier between Zambia and Uganda at Dag Hammarskjöld Stadium in Ndola.13 ‘Women Soccer is a non-starter’, Mining Mirror, 30 September 1983. This match raised enthusiasm about the women’s game, leading to the formation of the Zambia Women Football League in February 1984.14 ‘Lumbuka Retained To Steer Women’s Soccer League’, Times of Zambia, 6 February 1984. Just like men’s football league, the Copperbelt provided the best teams in the league that included teams such as Kitwe Flying Angels from Kitwe with fullback Victoria Mutondo as one of the best players. Other good Copperbelt women football clubs included Mufulira Flying Queens from Mufulira and Konkola Blades from Chililabombwe.15 ‘Women’s Soccer Final On’, Times of Zambia, 31 October 1984. Most of the Copperbelt women football teams disbanded in the 1990s because of the collapse of the copper mines that sponsored them. However, these teams sowed the seeds that popularised women’s football in Zambia, leading to the Zambia national women’s team qualifying for the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games in Japan.

Apart from having fun supporting one’s favourite football club, the benefits of being a member of the fan club (and other similar fans’ groups) went beyond the football stadium. Simon Chibwe was born in Wusakile mine compound in 1948, played for Nkana FC from 1966 to 1977 and later became an assistant coach and team manager of the club. Chibwe recalls that the benefits of being a member of Nkana Football fan club were numerous. When a member of the club was in distress or financial difficulty, such as a family funeral, other club members came to their aid by providing support in the form of money or provisions.16 Interview, Simon Stone Chibwe, Kitwe, 18 July 2018. According to Chibwe, ‘it was a community that supported each other as a family’.17 Ibid. As other scholars have pointed out, football played a role in forging new loyalties, urban networks, social identities, neighbourhoods and communities for Africans who had migrated to the mining towns.18 Fair, Pastimes and Politics, p. 247; Alegi, Laduma! p. 100. In this way, fan clubs replaced the role that neighbourhoods and clans played in rural areas and provided support as mutual aid societies. Mutual aid practice shows that football fan club activities in the mining towns went beyond the playing fields. In this respect it can be compared with the mutual aid role played by dance societies such as those who – as anthropologist James Clyde Mitchell explored – danced Kalela in the 1950s and subsequently.19 Clyde Mitchell, Kalela Dance, p. 20.

Following independence, powerful groups of football supporters emerged and developed different forms of fan culture. In Katanga, football fandom sometimes went together with Congolese rhumba music played by stars such as Franco and his O.K. Jazz Band. This helped to underpin the transformation of the identities of African mineworkers from rural dwellers into urbanites with a shared culture. With their theatrical fans, the 100 percenters, and support from influential businessman Moïse Katumbi, TP Mazembe became one of the most successful clubs on the continent. In Zambia, teams like Nkana Red Devils FC also developed similar fans clubs. These organised football followers not only cheered on their teams but also provided mutual aid to their members in times of distress, helping to generate new urban social identities, networks and communities.1 Alegi, Laduma! p. 126. This shows how the study of football in Africa can reveal ordinary people’s experiences and how the game shaped their urban culture, in ways that could never have been imagined by its first colonial sponsors.2 Marc Fletcher, ‘Reinforcing Divisions and Blurring Boundaries in Johannesburg Football Fandom’ in Onwumechili and Akindes, Identity and Nation, pp. 133–51, p. 134.