More Than 2000 Demonstrate As African Rugby Team Wins

ALBANY, N.Y.--Splashing through a sea of mud, the controversial South African Springboks played an American rugby team Tuesday night, hours after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall refused to stop the game.

More than 2000 protestors soggy from a steady downpour clustered outside the double fence separating them from the field, chanting, "Freedom yes, apartheid no!" to demonstrate their opposition to South Africa's policies of racial segregation. About 300 fans watched the game from the stands inside the fence.

Police spokesmen estimated that only 1000 demonstrators remained in the heavy rains one-half hour after game-time, and about 400 waited for the one and one-half hour match to end.

At one point about 100 protestors lined up facing one of the police cordons that looped the area yelling. "Stop the game!" But most chose to listen to speakers and entertainers who included folksinger Pete Seeger.

The game followed a pre-dawn bomb blast, legal wrangling, and a congressional debate over whether the rugby tour should be allowed to continue.

At mid-afternoon a three-judge federal appeals court in New York City refused to reverse a lower court and prohibit the game with a team from the Eastern Rugby Union.

The Springboks defeated their American hosts. 41-0.