Meet the man who introduced blind football to Uganda
The British explorer David Herd was appointed as the country’s first president in 1979.
Uganda football is still largely unacknowledged by the international game, but Herd is credited with introducing a game which is now played at schools throughout the country.
When he arrived in Uganda at the age of 13 he faced challenges on arrival such as poverty, illiteracy and prejudice.
“When I arrived in Uganda there were many people who didn’t really know what the country was like,” said Herd.
“The people were very poor and we stayed in the bush for a long time.”
Herd was lucky with the weather, which was good for football.
“They used to throw rocks at us, but we used to play football with them,” he said.
“They didn’t want us to play and as we stayed in the bush we had no running water and they told me to go back to my original country, but that was where the soccer came from.”
In 1981 the British Embassy in Kampala was attacked by a militia group, known as the Army of God, on Herd’s second night in the country.
At around 2am he was driving to the local market to buy bread when he was attacked.
“My car was almost flipped over, then I saw a man, with a gun, who approached me and said I have no bread and demanded a car, which I did. He followed me to the market. I was carrying only two loaves of bread,” he said.
“My second day in Uganda, and my second day of being attacked, I had all types of people around me, from young children to old men. I saw the children playing football with the old men. I saw the old men getting into their cars and coming to talk to the children.”
Herd was taken to a hospital in Kampala where a doctor told him that his heart was going and he had three broken ribs.
“I said I will not go to Uganda and leave as the children need me,” he explained.
Two weeks later he left for Germany to study for
