How did Orlando Pirates get their name? – Goalpedia

Known as one of the oldest football clubs in South Africa, Orlando Pirates were officially established in 1937.

It is often forgotten that Pirates were initially known as the Orlando Boys Club having been originally formed in 1934 by a small band of teenagers based in an urban area of Soweto, Orlando.

Orlando was named after England-born politician Edwin Orlando Leake, who served as the Mayor of the biggest city in South Africa, Johannesburg from 1925 to 1926.

Little did the teenagers know that the football club would grow into one of the biggest teams in the country and among the giants of African football. 

Founding Fathers 

Bethuel Mokgosinyana one of Orlando Pirates founders pic.twitter.com/zPpxdcP2LH

— Mxolisi (@jolsjoloza) May 16, 2020

Andries ‘Pele Pele’ Mkhwanazi and Bethuel Mokgosinyana are known to be the founding fathers of Orlando Pirates FC having played instrumental roles in the club’s early existence. 

Mkhwanazi encouraged the official formation of a club in 1937 and the team was then able to start competing in the Johannesburg Bantu Football Association (JBFA). 

The boxing instructor teamed up with Mokgosinyana in 1939 and the latter went on to become the club’s first president in 1940.

The club was named ‘Pirates’ after the 1940 film The Sea Hawk starring Errol Flynn which was popular at the time in South Africa. 

Mokgosinyana and other club officials were dazzled by the fierceness and tenacity of the fighters they were watching in the film hence they decided to name the team, Pirates. 

The team got their first kit which was black and white and from their ambitious leader, Mokgosinyana, who was a social worker, and the jerseys had a big P on the front.

Mokgosinyana went all out for Pirates as he also built a room at his home in Orlando East, Soweto which became the club’s first clubhouse where the team could camp before their matches. 

Pirates legend Sam Shabangu, who was one of the original 11 team members, described Mokgosinyana as a respected community leader in Orlando.

“He was a very respectable man, one of the elder people we consulted when things were going wrong,” Shabangu told Sunday Times. 

“Clean-living and always smartly dressed, Mokgosinyana was a respected community leader who placed other people’s needs above his own.”

A key member of the team, Andrew ‘Hassie’ Bassie, who was a goalkeeper by trade, then came up with the name, ‘Orlando Pirates’ which was accepted in the early 1940s. 

Club badge and nicknames 

The famous skull and crossbones were then introduced onto the team’s jersey as the club’s badge in the late 1940s and since then they have been associated with the Soweto side. 

Skull and crossbones symbol has been used by pirate ships for many years to inform targets they are about to attack and Pirates players make their trademark of crossing their wrists to greet their fans before their matches start.

One of the team’s first nicknames was ‘AmaPirates’ and the club now has bynames such as the Sea Robbers, Bucs, Buccaneers and Ezimnyama Ngenkani (the black ones in isiZulu).

Today, Bucs and their Soweto rivals Kaizer Chiefs, who were formed in 1970 by a former Pirates player Kaizer Motaung, are widely considered to be the two biggest football clubs in South Africa. 

Soweto Derby matches between Pirates and Chiefs are one of the most fiercely contested derbies in world football and they attract a large following in the Southern African region. 

Bucs have won nine national league titles and only Chiefs (13) and Mamelodi Sundowns (14) have won more and the three clubs are called the Big Three in South African football circles. 

Pirates’ fans, who are also known as the Ghost, often boast about their team being the first club from Southern Africa to have won the Caf Champions League title having achieved this in 1995.