Bloemfontein looks to World Cup to shed backwater image

BLOEMFONTEIN - Once a bedrock of conservative Afrikaner culture during South Africa’s apartheid years, Bloemfontein is embracing its status as a World Cup host city while attempting a much-needed image overhaul.

In part, the strategy involves highlighting certain lesser-known aspects of the city’s past, ones that promoters of the campaign hope will appeal to prospective visitors, especially those coming from abroad.

So, while the “Lord of the Rings” universally conjures up images from the fantasy saga of that name, and the series of Hollywood blockbusters it inspired, it was assumed that very few knew that its celebrated author, J.R.R. Tolkien, was born in Bloemfontein in 1892.

This fact is recounted by dozens of guidebooks and tourist brochures specially printed for the World Cup. Even the tournament’s official Media Guide, lists it among a handful of essential “Did you know?” items about the city.

Few of these sources, however, mention that Tolkien’s stay in the city was a short one. He left when he was still a small child and reportedly never returned.

Bloemfontein is also being billed as “the heart of the country,” a reference to its location, one that provides travelers with a gateway to some of the spectacularly rugged scenery of the central Free State province of which the city is the capital.

But the slogan can also be viewed as a nod to the foundation here in 1912 of the African National Congress (ANC) - the anti-racist liberation eventually movement driven underground by the apartheid state.

Decades later Nelson Mandela led the ANC to victory in South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.

A variation of the theme, and one with a decidedly World Cup flavour, sees Bloemfontein proclaimed as the “heart of Africa”.

At its extensively refurbished Free State Stadium, the city hosts matches involving some of the continent’s tournament hopefuls: Cameroon and Nigeria.

More importantly for local fans, it will also witness South Africa play France June 22 in what could be a decisive showdown for qualification to the second phase of the competition.

Another nickname for the city that abounds from billboards to promotional leaflets, is: “city of roses”.

The moniker unwittingly draws attention to racial and economic divisions, that while no longer institutionally entrenched, still exist in the city as they do in many parts of South Africa.

If the formerly whites-only “suburbs” are indeed adorned with many lovely gardens, the outlying “townships” where most of the city’s black population still resides, are largely dusty parcels of land.

In Bloemfontein, the legacy of apartheid lingers on in other spheres too.

Before their country’s transition to a multiracial democracy, for most South Africans the city symbolised some of the ruling-white minority’s instruments of repression - as judicial capital it was the seat of the highest appeals court.

But it was also emblematic of the politics of racial segregation in sports.

In the most poignant case - one that made international headlines - a local white school-girl and bare-footed running sensation, Zola Budd eschewed the ban on South Africans participating in the Olympics and amid protests from anti-apartheid activists, competed in the 1984 Los Angeles games as a British citizen.

During those years, the city’s top schools directed abundant resources towards coaching, training equipment and facilities, such as playing fields, allowing them to produce some of South Africa’s top rugby and cricket players.

Meanwhile most of the country’s budding footballers, who where playing the country’s most popular sport - and its most racially integrated sport - remained mostly relegated to the townships.

The coming of World Cup to Bloemfontein signals that those days are well and truly over.