FALSE! 1956 tour of England by Ugandan football team not Africa’s first

Ikechukwu Oyemike

Claim: The 1956 England tour by a Ugandan football team was the first by an African team.

Verdict: FALSE. Available records show that more than two football teams in Africa had earlier embarked on a tour to England before the Ugandan barefooter team did it in 1956. 

Full Text

Football also referred to as soccer, has over a thousand years of existence and is arguably the most popular and most watched sport in the world, with billions of followers. Although modern-day football is said to have started in Great Britain, the earliest form of football was said to have started in villages and regions. For more on the sport’s history and other details, visit the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) website. 

Like other parts of the world, Africa has its share of history in the game of football. For instance, here is how football started in Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya. Soccer in Africa, without any doubt, has made its mark and is still on the path to becoming more global, and as the nature of the sport is, competition is something you will always find at the centre of it. The push to be the best or first side to do it will always be in the conversation. 

Recently, a user on X, Africa Fact Zone (@AfricaFactsZone), posted about Nigeria’s 1989 classic football comeback against the Soviet Union at the FIFA under-20 World Cup held in Saudi Arabia. 

Under the post, another user, Fred Worth (@Itiiri_jr), commented that the 1956 England tour by a Ugandan football team was the first by an African team. This comment generated over 2,800 engagements in views, comments, reposts and likes. 

Under this claim, another user, D. (@Sonni_011), also replied, “I don’t think they were the first African team to tour England.”  

In response, the claimant, Fred Worth (@Itiiri_jr), requested that facts be presented, not argument.

Due to the number of engagements and the controversy in the comments, DUBAWA decided to fact-check the claim and set the records correctly. 

Verification

First, we did a Google search to see if there had been other football teams from Africa to tour England before 1956. We found a report titled ‘The Story of the First African Football Team to Tour Britain’ by Outsidewrite.co.uk that revealed a team of black footballers from South Africa did a tour of Great Britain and Europe as far back as Sept. 1899. The team was called the Orange Free State team. 

About a quarter of a century later, in 1924, a football team from South Africa also visited England on a tour. 

We also discovered that in August 1949, the Nigerian first-ever national football team called the UK Tourist embarked on a tour to the United Kingdom and arrived in Liverpool via a ship 13 days later. 

Meanwhile, we found that the write-up by the claimant was lifted from a June 2019 article by Inalandlockedcountry. Among the four sources we found on the Ugandan football team’s tour of England in 1956, only one (which the claimant copied) reported that the event was the first for any African team. 

However, all four sources were in sync on the number of games played, barefootedness, score lines, number of wins, draws and losses. The other three sources can be found here, here and here. 

Conclusion

The claim that the 1956 tour of England by the Ugandan football team known as the Barefooters was the first for any African team is false. Research has revealed that African football teams toured England at least twice.