From the Archives: Police break up surf protest
On March 27, 1971, six people were arrested when police and anti-apartheid demonstrators clashed at Coogee during the Australia-South Africa surfing test.
First published in the Sydney Morning Herald on March 28, 1971
Four screaming women demonstrators raced down Coogee Beach past police cordons and threw themselves at the visiting South African surf team at Coogee yesterday.
The women, in their early 20s, disrupted the march past - the highlight of the Third Test between Australia and South Africa.
Police raced to arrest the girls after two had been trampled by the marching team.
Within minutes, another anti-apartheid demonstrator, naked to the waist, tried to wrest the banner from the leader of the South African team as he continued the march.
The carnival atmosphere at Coogee was disrupted at about 1 o'clock when about 100 demonstrators leapt the wall at the city end of the beach and took positions behind surf boats due to commence a race.
Some of the demonstrators, waving banners and calling for South African team members to come forward and defend apartheid, broke from the main group of demonstrators to hand leaflets to competing surfers.
Police quickly moved in to separate the growing crowd of demonstrators from the surfers.
Although there was no violence on the beach, demonstrators and surfers hurled abuse across the police cordon.
A South African surf boat carried by a team of Maroubra surf club members charged through the milling demonstrators to the water's edge.
Maroubra boat captain Albert Kennedy said the South African team had been afraid to carry the boat themselves.
"I told my team to get ready and then charge," he said. "We sent the demonstrators flying in all directions."
Scores of demonstrators attempted to tear down the wire fence separating the city end of the beach from the main carnival area.
It was then that the four female demonstrators skirted the wire barrier and raced along the waters edge towards the South African surf team during the march-past.
About 100 police were on the beach during the carnival.
They successfully kept all but a handful of the 500 demonstrators from the main carnival area.
Six demonstrators - for women and two men - were arrested and taken to the Waverley police station.
The 34-year old anti-apartheid demonstration leader Denis Freney kept shouting slogans to drown out the broadcast results of each heat.