A travelling chimpanzee trained to ace ten-pin bowling would have a suite in the hotel but there was no room for a very popular team of black basketballers known for their jaw-dropping skills and laugh-a-minute entertainment. This was America in the early part of the last century. Racism was rampant and the discrimination against Blacks was nauseatingly inhumane.

Sports too, back then, was ghettoised. The blacks weren’t allowed on courts with whites, were told to play in their ‘hood and their competitions were officially called Negro Major League.

But the team that was once seen less worthy than a chimp went on to change the world. That’s the Harlem Globetrotters, the pioneers of magical basketball, the kings who also doubled as court jesters. They were show-boaters and tricksters with i

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