Phil Vasili argued that 'during the period 1949-1959, football, in particular, was seized upon by Britain’s ruling class, to be utilized for the greater good of Great Britain Ltd' (Vasili, 1995, 55). The Nigerian tour in 1949 was followed by tours from the Gold Coast in 1951, Trinidad in 1953, Uganda in 1956 and the Caribbean in 1959, and all served in part to illustrate the development of these areas under British rule and to highlight the continued role of the British throughout the Empire.

The 1949 tour sought to change perceptions of the Africans. Vasili argued that the selectors ‘wanted the players to present a collective face to the British public that went some way to dispelling racial myths about Africans and which would also stand testament to the positive contribution made by the expatriates, confirming the legitimacy of their presence in the colony’. As such, the players selected were largely representative of colonial society. Fourteen of the eighteen players were civil servants, and another two were teachers, while the team’s player/secretary Kanno had been educated in England and had thus, it was deemed, ‘acquired the refinements necessary for the public engagements’ (Vasili, 1995, 60-1).

The tour appeared, in some respects, as a further indication of the ‘westernisation’ of colonial Africa, as the tourists were also prohibited from wearing traditional African robes. The tour included a tea party at the Colonial Office, trips to Parliament, to Westminster Abbey and Wembley Stadium, and thus served also to illustrate British primacy in political, cultural and economic terms. It promoted an amateur ethos, which Vasili argued was aligned to the values of imperialism, while British reports on the tour repeatedly emphasised the social values displayed by the Nigerians – such as ‘sportsmanship’ – which were qualities popularly represented to define British identity (Vasili, 1995, 69).

Colonial Cinema, in a two-page report on the tour, argued that ‘the team did not take long to establish a fine reputation not only for fast, clever football but also for excellent manners and sporting behaviour on the field’ (Colonial Cinema, December 1949, 68). An editorial in the magazine further noted that ‘of even greater importance than their technical ability was the fine atmosphere of sportsmanship they left along their trail’ (Colonial Cinema, December 1949, 55). The reports, like the tour in general, sought to reconfigure the Africans, with the apparent intention of demonstrating the role of the British in ‘civilising’ and developing African society. An editorial in The Times suggested that the tour ‘has a sociological significance’. ‘The disappearance of tribal warfare and other inconvenient forms of self-expression has left a gap there’, the editorial stated, adding that ‘while exempt from terror and famine, the African peoples nowadays are powerfully afflicted with boredom. They need new interests, cultural and sporting’ (The Times, 29 September 1949, 5).

Nationalists within Nigeria argued that football was symptomatic of British control throughout society. The West African Pilot wrote that ‘through the avenue of sports the stranglehold on the African by alien peoples is strengthened and the control of the thinking processes of the African is thus assured for a long time yet’ (Vasili, 1995, 59). Yet, Nigeria was also gaining international recognition through sport. Nigerian athletes had visited London in 1948 (shown in Colonial Cinemagazine 20), but were deemed ineligible to compete in the Olympics. However, a small team did compete in the Empire Games in New Zealand in 1949 and in 1952 C. E. Newman, the President of the Nigerian Olympic and Empire Games Association, led a team of nine competing at the Helsinki Olympics (Newman, 1951, 131).

The film contains footage from the tourists’ first game against Marine Crosby in Liverpool, which was filmed by cameraman Sydney Samuelson. When recently discussing his work on this film, Samuelson recalled, in particular, filming the feet of the Nigerians as they came on to the pitch (Personal Interview, 15 June 2010). Newspaper reports of the tour also repeatedly emphasised that the Nigerians were playing barefoot. ‘If during the next month, you see a full back put a football on the spot for a goal kick and hoof it beyond midfield with his bare foot’, a Daily Mirror report began, ‘there’s no need to cringe. He likes doing it. In fact, he prefers it that way’ (Daily Mirror, 30 August 1949, 6). The widely discussed policy of playing without boots was acknowledged as the reason for the Nigerian’s heavy 8-0 defeat in their match against the Athenian League, which was played in slippery conditions in the rain.

This match in front of 7,000 supporters in Liverpool assumes particular significance as Liverpool had been the scene of ‘anti-Black riots’ in August 1948. White mobs, encouraged by the National Union of Seamen’s campaign to exclude black seamen from British ships, attacked hostels and clubs that catered for black seamen. Most of the arrests that followed were amongst the black community, which numbered approximately 8,000 in Merseyside. (Hesse, 2001, 100) Increased black immigration, exemplified by the arrival of 492 passengers from Jamaica on the Empire Windrush in 1948, further heightened racial tension in many parts of the country.