Although Wolves, Newcastle United, Aberdeen and Motherwell had previously played in South Africa, Preston North End were the first Lancashire team to visit the country. The cost of the tour was reported to have been between £15,500 and £17,000, paid for by the South African FA. PNE Manager, Mr. Cliff Britton, had visited South Africa before the war as a member of a Football Association team, playing in Durban and Johannesburg.

The opening game of the tour was against Northern Rhodesia with a 4pm kick-off. This was due to two minor representative games being played prior to the main attraction. The opposition's captain was Charles Watkins, who had played over 200 games for Luton Town. Preston started well and went on to comfortably won the match 5-0.

As the tour advanced the publicity preceded them, with no less than 16,000 (or 18,000 depending on which report one read) attending the third game. Captain Thompson ghosted in after just 90 seconds to start the rout and the Johannesburg Sunday Times reported, "Preston were a team of thoroughbreds. They play a brand of football which has never before been seen in this country. They are football chessmen, thinking about the next moves before they happen. It is a good job Finney is not playing." North End eased up towards the end, running out 5-0 winners again.

For game six, Preston travelled to the city of East London to play under floodlights. East London was the home to nine individual football clubs with PNE playing Border, a select eleven from those East London teams. The visit coincided with the diamond jubilee celebrations of one of the city's leading clubs, Crescent AFC.

Tommy Thompson, representing the Club, and The Mayor of East London, planted young trees to commemorate the occasion. Tommy respectfully suggested that he return on an all expenses paid trip, just to see if his tree is still alive! The "select" amateurs could not cope with the skill and precision of the British visitors and lost by 11-0, thus setting a new record defeat score. It was also North End's best score away on foreign soil since the Club had beaten Basle 11-2, in Switzerland back in 1913.

During the game in Johannesburg against the South Africa X1, promoted as an international match, violence erupted between the segregated "coloureds" and the "non-whites" with bottles and such like being thrown. Although Preston overcame the hosts, the experience put a slight dampener on the trip. Ironically, after seven straight wins, the final two games were lost.

The Fixtures

Date	Venue	Opponents	Result
May 11th	Kitwe	Northern Rhodesia	5-0
May 14th	Salisbury	Southern Rhodesia	2-0
May 17th	Johannesburg	Southern Transvaal	5-0
May 21st	Pietermaritzburg	Natal	1-0
May 24th	Cape Town	Western Province	6-1
May 28th	East London	Border	11-0
June 4th	Pretoria	Combined East and Northern Transvaal	1-2
June 7th	Kingsmead, Durban	South Africa X1	3-5

Statistics

Played 9 Won 7 Lost 2 Goals for 36 Goals against 9

Preston North End's 36 goals were scored by Dennis Hatsell (8), Jimmy Baxter (8), Tommy Thompson (6), Sammy Taylor (4), Derek Mayers (4), Alex Alston (3) and Gordon Milne (3).

South Africa's tour of the UK

The South African squad toured Great Britain & Ireland during October 1958 and paid a visit to Deepdale on Wednesday 22nd October. Preston North End won 9-1 in front of 7,881 spectators, with Tommy Thompson scoring five goals and Dennis Hatsell scoring the other four. Once again Tom Finney missed playing against the South Africans as he was playing for England against Russia. Over in Ireland, the South Africans lost 0-1 to a Republic of Ireland 'B' team in Dublin and won 5-2 against an Irish FA team in Belfast. So Preston North End did us proud.

By Ian Rigby