Random picture thread

[Saxon]

This is the Oldham Athletic tour group, visiting Rhodesia in 1967.
Tall man, hands together, center of front row is Rhodesia Prime Minister Ian Smith, to his left with beard is Oldham Chairman Ken Bates.
No doubt Ken Bates business dealings in Rhodesia, and his government contacts led to the tour being organized.
UK Prime Minister at the time, Harold Wilson, met with Bates on HMS Tiger, and expressed his disapproval of the tour, but there was nothing UK could do to prevent it as private citizens traveling to Rhodesia was not illegal.
Oldham played 9 games in Rhodesia, and 2 in neighboring Malawi, recording 10 wins and 1 defeat.
After one of the games, not sure if it was a club game or Rhodesia national team, my Wife, would have been 19 years old, was invited to the post game banquet and met all the tour group.Ironic that she might have met Bates at that time and then crossed paths and worked for him almost 40 years later. She also saw and met a touring team from Scotland, Clyde, who also decided to skirt the UN economic sanction laws.
Around this time my Wife also saw the great Pele playing for Santos on one of their World tours.
There were also other touring teams, Malcolm Allison took an all star team, A West Brom coach took an all star team, and another team called Essex or Wessex.

[Sniffer]

This is the Oldham Athletic tour group, visiting Rhodesia in 1967.
Tall man, hands together, center of front row is Rhodesia Prime Minister Ian Smith, to his left with beard is Oldham Chairman Ken Bates.
No doubt Ken Bates business dealings in Rhodesia, and his government contacts led to the tour being organized.
UK Prime Minister at the time, Harold Wilson, met with Bates on HMS Tiger, and expressed his disapproval of the tour, but there was nothing UK could do to prevent it as private citizens traveling to Rhodesia was not illegal.
Oldham played 9 games in Rhodesia, and 2 in neighboring Malawi, recording 10 wins and 1 defeat.
After one of the games, not sure if it was a club game or Rhodesia national team, my Wife, would have been 19 years old, was invited to the post game banquet and met all the tour group.Ironic that she might have met Bates at that time and then crossed paths and worked for him almost 40 years later. She also saw and met a touring team from Scotland, Clyde, who also decided to skirt the UN economic sanction laws.
Around this time my Wife also saw the great Pele playing for Santos on one of their World tours.
There were also other touring teams, Malcolm Allison took an all star team, A West Brom coach took an all star team, and another team called Essex or Wessex.

The mantle of the pioneers has fallen on our shoulders to sustain civilisation in a primitive country.

— Ian Smith, 11 November 1965, upon the announcement of UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence)

I don't know enough about Rhodesia/Zimbabwe to pass comment on its minority white rule or what Mugabe's Zimbabwe became but it is sad to see Smith's exhortation of The White Man's Burden was within my lifetime (just).