In 1927 Aberdeen became the first Scottish club to visit South Africa.

Aberdeen were no strangers to taking on such exhaustive tours, having previously broke new ground in 1911 when they toured the virtual unknown territory of Eastern Europe.

Football in South Africa began as early as 1862 when the first recorded football match was played in Port Elizabeth. The match was played between a home XI and a side from the colonies, both teams resplendent in long trousers, shirts and hats!

There was no doubt that the game of football originated in Port Elizabeth and it was significant that a Mr Fullerton, a former player of Scotland’s oldest club Queens Park, who started up his Wanderers side in 1881, the same year as the original Aberdeen Football Club came into being.

While development of the game in South Africa was understandably slow, in 1899 a team of Zulus from Basuto made an historic trip to Britain in what was the first contact between South Africa and Britain in a football sense.

The trip to Britain was fraught with troubles as the Boer war was well underway and the tourists had little preparation and were defeated by every side they played. The furthest north they travelled was to Dundee where they lost 6-4.

It was only a matter of time before Britain would return the favour and in 1897 the famous Corinthinians from England embarked on a groundbreaking tour, which brought the first organised football to Africa. The English influence continued in 1910 on the back of the South African FA being formed, an English national team played 23 games, winning every one with relative ease.

In May 1927 Aberdeen became the first Scottish side to visit and their arrival was greeted with great enthusiasm from the locals.

South African football had come a long way since the early part of the century and was now an established sport, despite rugby remaining as the predominant sporting activity.

The 1927 tour was certainly a trip into the unknown for Aberdeen and the marathon trip to arrive in South Africa was rewarded when they were given the grandest of welcomes from their curious hosts.

manager Pat Travers

What many of the touring party had not accounted for was the scorching heat which most had never experienced before so sunburn was a new problem for many of the Aberdeen players.

The touring party in 1927 along with chairman William Philip and manager Pat Travers was;

Harry Blackwell, Duff Bruce, Malcolm Muir, Willie Jackson, George Ritchie, Mike Cosgrove, Jock Edward, Sam Spencer, Jock McHale, Bob McDermid, Alec Cheyne, Bobby Bruce, Tom McLeod, Andy Love and Benny Yorston.

Once the Aberdeen party got used to the heat and the lighter ball, the tour was a hugely successful and popular one.

The Aberdeen players were greeted with great enthusiasm wherever they went to play.

Although Aberdeen suffered four defeats from their 14 matches, they had brought along a relatively untried centre forward in Benny Yorston.

It was during the tour that Yorston showed his touch in front of goal and he had impressed the manager Pat Travers so much that he would immediately be elevated to the first team on their return to Scotland. Yorston weighed in with 16 goals on the tour and he also managed to find the net in a couple of the clubs defeats against the powerful Transvaal sides.

The success of Benny Yorston was undoubtedly the highlight of the tour for Aberdeen and manager Travers was happy that the tour had gone down well in all aspects and he cited the experience gained from playing against players from another continent would help his team on the domestic front.

The Aberdeen party would have little time to recharge their batteries as the voyage home would take almost two weeks and that would not leave them much time for their opening league game on 13th August 1927.

The Dons would return to South Africa ten years later, but sadly the tour would end in tragedy. Story to follow later this week.