Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker. Deep in our strictly regimented and divided country, Ali danced rings around apartheid. I had first heard about the inspirational boxer from a black man, Cassius, who sold bottles of beer from the illegal shebeen he and his friends ran across the road from our house.
Cassius and his crew kept their illicit stash hidden in the drains outside the corner shop owned by an irritable Greek man. Whenever my football was booted over the garden wall, Cassius chased after it. After a dazzling display of slightly drunken footwork he would return the ball with a cackle. One day, while showcasing his trickery, he sang a strange song: “Ali, Ali, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Ali, Ali, Muhammad Ali.”
Cassius flicked rangy left jabs into the winter sunshine as his huge feet danced. He wore a pair of battered brown sandals that had split at the seams. They fluttered over the tar while the soles flapped in a jitterbug of their own. He pretended to be outraged when I asked who he was singing about: “You mean the baasie [Afrikaans for little boss] don’t know?” When I shook my head he became serious: “Ali is the heavyweight champion of the world.”
A thrill surged through me. Cassius told me how he was nicknamed after Ali – who had been born as Cassius Clay. I struggled to understand how one man could have two names. Cassius explained that the master boxer was a black American who dreamed up those happy bee and butterfly lines.
Years later, in 1974, when I had just turned 13, I learned that Ali had been stripped of his world title in 1967 when he refused to fight in the Vietnam war. But he had become even more of a mythical figure to me because Ali entranced our frightening Afrikaans teacher with the same spell he cast over Cassius.
When we summoned the courage to ask him why he liked Ali so much, while suspecting he was a staunch racist, the teacher softened. He spoke of the beauty and brilliance of Ali in the ring. Rather than being “one of our blacks”, Ali resembled the king of the world.
On 30 October 1974, Ali finally had a chance to regain the title when he faced George Foreman. We were agog that the fight would take place not too far from us, in Zaire [now the Democratic Republic of Congo].
The Rumble in the Jungle was promoted by Don King who underlined his ingenuity by taking the bout “back to Africa”. Zaire’s dictatorial President, Mobutu Sese Seko, agreed to pay the boxers an unprecedented $5m each.
Although the rest of Africa felt as far removed from our privileged suburb near Johannesburg as it did in Hertfordshire or New Hampshire, King brought the continent into our classrooms. Other kinder teachers confessed their fondness for Ali and favoured him over Foreman. Ali was also hailed by the black cleaners and gardeners who serviced the school and our homes. And the shebeen corner – from the Greek shop owner to the biggest drinkers – still belonged to him. Only Ali could forge such an alliance.
