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'I didn't have to read them to know I had something'

Korr is an expert on 17th-century European history, but it is sport that really grips him. A Philadelphia Phillies fan, he was in his element in baseball press boxes. Leonard Koppett, one of the most influential sportswriters in America, was a personal friend.

When Korr was a visiting professor in London, he stayed in Upton Park and promptly wrote a social history on the area's soccer club, West Ham United.

So when he came across a heap of 63 stored cardboard boxes in the Mayibuye Institute at UWC 16 years ago, he realised its significance almost immediately.

Andre Odendaal, then head of the institute at the Bellville South campus and now chief executive of Western Province cricket, had steered Korr in the direction of the boxes, the contents of which he was more or less aware.

These turned out to be the meticulous, handwritten records of the Makana Football Association, named for a Xhosa leader jailed on Robben Island in the 19th century.

The association had been formed in 1967 by prisoners on the island and they had taken great care to record minutes of meetings, scores, logs and disciplinary reports. Indeed, the 63 boxes contained the kind of records that are vital to every well-run sports association.

"I didn't even have to read them to know I was on to something," said Korr.

When he did get down to studying the archive, he found astonishing details of an unknown soccer league run by political prisoners on the island.

As a result of the discovery, he kept coming back to South Africa to document the story of the league.

He met and interviewed some of its players, former prisoners with whom he forged everlasting friendships.

The research became a book, and the book became a movie called More Than Just a Game, produced by Anant Singh.

It is part documentary and part drama, with Tsotsi star Presley Chweneyagae playing one of the five former prisoners around whom Korr constructed the book.

When the film premiered in his home town, Korr told the audience: "This is more than just a film about sports. It is a film about dignity, justice and striving."

With his research and the film, Korr has given those less obscure players in the Makana FA eventual recognition. It has also led to the Makana FA becoming an honorary member of world governing body Fifa.

On Thursday, Korr and a few of the footballers he wrote about will be honoured when the Fifa executive meets on the island.