Roan United is a Zambian football club based in Luanshya, in the Zambian Premier League and mostly successful during the early years of Zambian football. Indeed, they were the inaugural winners of the ZPL, clinching what was then called the Northern Rhodesia National Football League in 1962. They play their home matches at Kafubu Stadium. History Early years: (1935–1961) Bisa Gallants At the establishment of the Roan Antelope Copper Mine in 1927, African soccer was organised on tribal lines. One such team in Roan Township was Bisa Gallants which initially comprised members of the Bisa ethnic group from Northern Zambia. It was this team that became the nucleus of the African football club that the Roan Mine Compound Manager Mr. Cecil F. Spearpoint put together to form Roan Mine team. Roan Mine African Football Club The earliest organised African mine soccer team was formed in the early 1930s shortly after the opening of the Roan Antelope Copper Mine. This team was a merger of tribal teams that played gruesome non-league soccer games that were often concluded with fist battles to define tribe superiority. Ben Evans, the European Welfare Officer in charge of African Affairs was behind this merger. In 1935 Roan Mine was affiliated to the Copperbelt African Football Association which was divided into three leagues (A, B and C). They competed against Chingola Eleven Wisemen, Luanshya All Blacks, Kitwe Lions, Rhokana Mine, Ndola Black Follies and Mufulira Blackpool. Roan Mine FC also excelled in the Colony Cup and the Chamber of Mines competitions, the only silverware of the time alongside the CAFA league. Roan Antelope Callies Football Club (1929–1961) During the colour bar (Northern Rhodesia equivalence of the apartheid system) there existed an all European side Roan Antelope Callies FC which played in the Congo Rhodesia Border Football Association and its successor Northern Rhodesia Football Association. They used Roan Soccer Field at mine recreation club. Birth of Roan Antelope United The two Roan teams were instrumental in pushing for multi-racial participation in football and the promotion of a national football league. In 1961 a select side from both teams challenged an all European side Mufulira United to a friendly game and won 1–0. An African player Ginger Pensulo scored the lone goal. In 1962 Roan Antelope United FC was born. The same year the National Football League was inaugurated with Roan's player-coach Ron Patterson as its first chairman. At