SOUTH AFRICA'S sporting bandwagon has picked up yet more momentum following Saturday's 2-0 victory over Tunisia in the African Nations Cup final in Johannesburg.

As jubilant black and white supporters of the South African team partied in the streets, there was already talk of completing a hat-trick by winning this summer's cricket World Cup in Pakistan. Having won first the rugby World Cup and now the African soccer championships, both on the first attempt, South Africans are beginning to believe that years of isolation and neglect are good for your game.

South Africa's latest sporting hero is the Wolverhampton striker Mark Williams, who scored twice in two minutes after coming on as a second half substitute. Although they dominated the game from the start, South Africa squandered a lengthy series of chances until Williams bundled the ball in from a goal-mouth scramble in the 75th minute.

Two minutes later he finished Tunisia off with a carefully-placed shot from the left edge of the penalty area. While most of the other dignitaries around him applauded politely, President Nelson Mandela joined the 90,000-strong crowd in delirious celebration, Jumping around the VIP box with uninhibited delight.

The victory sparked a night of partying across the country, with black and white supporters mingling and dancing in celebration. The soccer team is already proving a more hopeful symbol of the new South Africa than the victorious rugby and cricket teams, which can still only manage one non-white player apiece. For Saturday's game Bafana Bafana - Zulu for "the boys" - fielded three white players, three mixed race "coloureds" and five blacks, while their coach Clive Barker is also white.

Most South African whites have traditionally shown disdain for soccer as a "black game", but they also like winners, and interest intensified after last Wednesday's 3-0 victory over Ghana in the semi-final. Approximately ten per cent of the audience at Saturday's game was white, a higher proportion than at earlier games in the series.

Nevertheless, sporting ecumenicism still has a long way to go in post-apartheid South Africa. Over 8,000 people in the Eastern Cape, for example, opted to forego the football in favour of attending an exhibition game between the Eastern Province cricket team and the national side.

The most intense celebrations on Saturday night were in Soweto, the massive Johannesburg township which is home to millions of blacks. Parts of the township were blocked to traffic all night as people danced in the roadway. Young men were seen firing AK47s and pistols into the air in celebration. Despite a reputation for lawlessness only one serious incident was reported, however, when a local band failed to play at a street party and the angry crowd set an ambulance alight.

The win on Saturday has greatly improved the international stature of the South African soccer team, newcomers to international competition who were previously ranked only 10th in Africa. After the game, Barker said he hoped to lead the team to the World Cup finals in France in 1998 when the number of African countries represented will increase from three to five.

The victory and the successful hosting of the tournament have also greatly boosted South Africa's bid to host the 2006 World Cup, and perhaps the Olympic Games as well.

Barker dedicated victory to President Mandela, the man he believed had started the rebirth in South African football. He said: "I hope I have paid my debt to Mr Mandela. I thank you for your patience and I thank you for the opportunity to get back into international football."

South African had been in the football wilderness till July 1992 when more than three decades of white only rule came to an end.

Barker believed South Africa could get better and better. "Web have at last arrived on the world football stage. We did it for the nation and for football. We are now a powerhouse nation in Africa, and may eventually be a powerhouse in the world."

President Mandela, just as he had appeared at the Rugby World Cup dressed in a Springbok shirt, wore Neil Tovey's number nine shirt as he did a lap of the stadium with the South African skipper half an hour before kick-off.

Tunisian coach Henri Kasperczak said afterwards: "South Africa played a magnificent match. But I have a young team with an average age of 22 who have only been together a year and a half. I was surprised to get to the final and I'm proud of my players."