Raymond Harold Walter Batchelor (1924–2006), often misspelt Bachelor, was an English athletics and
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
coach and administrator who was active in Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. He is known for being the first ever manager of the
Kenya national football team
The Kenya national football team, colloquially known as the Harambee Stars, represents Kenya in association football. It is controlled by the Football Kenya Federation, the governing body of football in Kenya, and competes as a member of the ...
.
Early life
Raymond Harold Walter Batchelor was born in 1924 and registered in the September–December quarter of the GRO indexes in
West Ham
West Ham is a district in East London, England and is in the London Borough of Newham. It is an inner-city suburb located east of Charing Cross.
The area was originally an ancient parish formed to serve parts of the older Manor of Ham, a ...
.
Over the years, his name was often misspelt Bachelor in the media.
Career
Kenya
Batchelor coached both athletics and football in Kenya and other African countries.
Kenyan athletics
During the 1950s Batchelor founded the Achilles Athletics Club in
Mombasa
Mombasa ( ; ) is a coastal city in southeastern Kenya along the Indian Ocean. It was the first capital of British East Africa, before Nairobi was elevated to capital status in 1907. It now serves as the capital of Mombasa County. The town is ...
, Kenya, where many
Goan
Goans ( Romi Konkani: , ) is the demonym used to describe the people native to Goa, India, formerly part of Portuguese India (''Estado Português da Índia''). They form an ethno-linguistic group resulting from the assimilation of Indo-Aryan, ...
athletes trained, including sprinter Seraphino Antao, Albert Castanha, Joe Faria, Pascoal Antao, Alcino Rodrigues, Jack Fernandes, Laura Ramos, Phila Fernandes, Juanita Noronha, Meldrita Viegas, Alfred Vienna, and Bruno D'Souza.
Batchelor is especially known in Kenya and among Goans for his role in coaching Antao to the 1962 Commonwealth Games in
Perth
Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...
, Australia, to his win when he won
100
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In mathematics
100 is the square of 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standard SI prefix for a hundred is " hecto-".
100 is the b ...
and 220 yards gold medals, making him the first Kenyan athlete to win a gold medal at an international level.When Kenya was still a British colony, Batchelor was employed as a sports officer by the
Coast Province
The Coast Province () was one of Kenya's eight provinces prior to 2010. It covered the entire country's coastline on the Indian Ocean. Its capital city was Mombasa. It was inhabited by the Mijikenda and Swahili peoples, among others. The provin ...
administration.
Kenyan football
In 1961 he was appointed the first ever manager of the
Kenya national football team
The Kenya national football team, colloquially known as the Harambee Stars, represents Kenya in association football. It is controlled by the Football Kenya Federation, the governing body of football in Kenya, and competes as a member of the ...
. He was their manager when they played at the Uganda Independence Tournament in 1962, after Kenya was invited to replace Egypt in the competition. Peter Oronge (a former Kenyan international player) was appointed coach in 1963, not longer after Kenyan independence was declared.
On Saturday 11 December 1965, as part of the
Jamhuri Day
Jamhuri Day (Republic Day) is a national holiday in Kenya, celebrated on 12 December each year.Ghana's Black Stars at the game, which was attended by president
Jomo Kenyatta
Jomo Kenyatta (22 August 1978) was a Kenyan anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its Prime Minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as its first President from 1964 to his death in 1978. He played a significant role in the ...
. At the time, Batchelor was the
Rift Valley Province
Rift Valley Province () of Kenya, bordering Uganda, was one of Kenya's eight provinces, before the 2013 Kenyan general election.
Rift Valley Province was the largest and one of the most economically important provinces in Kenya. It was dominated ...
sports officer, and also coaching the Nakuru AllStars. After being contacted by the Kenyan Football Association, Batchelor was able to spend just four hours with the team before kickoff, and the Ghanaians were a very strong team with a dangerous striker in the form of
Ben Acheampong
Benjamin "Ben" Acheampong (2 February 1939 – 2019), also known as Ben Simmons, was a Ghanaian international football player. As a player, he won the 1963 and 1965 African Cup of Nations titles with Ghana
Ghana, officially the Re ...
. Two days later, after Batchelor had reorganised the team, the Kenyans and Ghanaians drew in a
friendly match
An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...
.
He later managed Kenyan club side Nakuru AllStars, first ever winners of the
Kenyan Premier League
The Kenyan Premier League (KPL), officially known as the FKF Premier League, is a professional league for men's football clubs in Kenya. Standing at the top of the Kenyan football league system, the league was formed in 1963 under the Kenya Foo ...
. in 1964.
Malawi
From 11 November 1967 to 10 October 1971, Batchelor coached the
Malawi national football team
The Malawi national football team () represents Malawi in association football and is controlled by the Football Association of Malawi. Before 1966, it was known as the Nyasaland national football team.
Known as the Flames, Malawi has qualif ...
.
In 1968, he was Director of Department of Sports in
Malawi
Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...
. In this role, he announced that Malawi had applied to participate in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico, most African nations threatening to boycott the games because of South Africa's participation, owing to the
apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
regime.
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
In the 1970s, Batchelor acted as an athletics coach in the copper mining town of Mangula (now Mhangura) in then
Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
(now Zimbabwe). He coached, among others, sprinter Artwell Mandaza.
He was also football coach for the "Copper Stars", the local Mangula football team, and coached Black Aces FC star
Byron Manuel
Black Aces Football Club, the successor to Chibuku Shumba, was a Zimbabwean professional association football, football club based in Harare. It was founded in 1972 and dissolved in 2001.
History
Black Aces was formed from the ashes of Chibuku ...
at some point.
Other activities and personal life
Batchelor acted as a presiding officer in the Mombasa polling booths in elections held by the British in 1956.
Batchelor was described in a 2012 ''
Daily Nation
The ''Daily Nation'' is a Kenyan newspaper. It was founded in 1958 and is published in Nairobi.
History
The ''Daily Nation'' was started in the year 1958 as a Swahili weekly called ''Taifa'' by the Englishman Charles Hayes. It was bought in 1 ...
'' article as "one of those White people who believed in the African cause and had thrown his lot in with black Kenyans full-bloodedly", and "always wore a cheerful smile".