How do you get to be a Springbok from our areas?

I looked at the way Chalumna (Tsholomnqa) Rugby Union runs its rugby and what keeps the people of Tsholomnqa involved in the sport for so long. This place is just outside East London along R75 on your way to Port Alfred. It is important to look at the success stories of the union. Rugby, in this region has been the dominant sport prior the 1970s. Each team is run by its village; the governing structure of a village supports the sport as they used to play themselves. These are people who just understand that there must always be a rugby team in the village no matter what. If the team needs a new kit; the village makes sure they raise the funds even if each home must fork out a R10. The amazing support goes as far as keeping the alcohol or meat if there’s Umcimbi (ceremony) for the players that are going to a match. These are just few of the things the villages do for their sons and daughters that are keeping the sport alive.

This how much the sport is loved.

It is also amazing how much the people follow the Super Rugby; they know all the recent and old developments of the division. It is also shocking for a rugby crazy region like this one to not have had a single Springbok and it is still too distant for that dream to ever be realised. The further they go as far as producing a superstar is EP Kings,  a team that is not doing very well at all.

This region consists of 21 villages that have representation in rugby. The rugby teams are not referred to with the village names; they are named in English. Currently the 2015 season is closed and there had been 16 teams in the lower league called Sunday League and the region had three teams that were campaigning in the First Division in East London (a division higher). For one team to get promoted to the next the First Division, the team that topped the Sunday league must face 16 other teams from other regions during play offs and only one gets promoted to the first division. This means that the region might have a team that topped, but if that team gets promoted is another story all together.

When a team tops the league at the end of a season, it gets gold medals and a trophy. The team gets nothing financial for winning the league; the team must again ask the village for transport money to go play in the play-offs. The play-offs tournament usually takes two days and the possibility of playing three games in two days means you must have depth. The lack of rewards from playing the sport and the urbanisation by the youth going for better education and life in towns and townships means that a team form a village will have to borrow players from other villages. If the team gets knocked out during the tournament it heads back to the Sunday League.

If it manages to enter the first division and succeeds for promotion; it will have to play against other winners of other first divisions from King Williams Town, Queenstown, and from the King Sabatha Dalindyebo Municipal and one winner of the play-offs will be promoted to Premier Division. After this division the team then goes for Super League and this is the end. Players here play and play and play while hoping they get singularly selected to play for the Border and represent Border that is campaigning in the Vodacom League and facing problems of its own. And I ask myself if I will ever see a player that is from the rural areas of King Williams Towns, East London, Queenstown or even the King Sabatha Dalindyebo Municipal?

It is painful to watch people  putting so much into their development and there is not a single official from the sport union of the country recognising their work and supporting them. Here rugby is played no matter the weather and that it would take one special/influential person with vision to help alleviate the standard of the game by pledging their support. The system is designed to enforce lack of progress for the people that we know and grew up with to never feature in the springboks. In order for one to cut these divisions he must go study at a white school or a white university and that he must be 10 times better than his team or even better, leave the province. What I still find amazing is the never-ending spirit of Tsholomnqa (and these places they constantly compete with for relegation and play-offs) towards the sport. The people are crazy about rugby; they cannot play anything else.

It is utter shame when the boss of sport in the country who happens to be black and from this province; hates the people whom he promised transformation. The minister managed to duck the interview he promised to Robert Marawa on Metro FM. The interview was meant to map the way forward regarding transformation that was not adhered to in the world cup in England this year. The minister went as far as trying to have the show segment "Room Dividers"canned from talking about rugby again. I start to wonder whose team I am watching when I am watching the Springboks. The people in places like Tsholomnqa and other places do not get discouraged by such news instead they carry on like nothing has happen. One starts thinking the Gods are also looking at this “lack of transformation” thing; the sponsors are pulling for whatever reasons.

Are we the fans of mediocrity?

When a nation is almost thinking it does not have enough talent, it is always important to narrow it down to communities. South Africa has celebrated a lot of things, including mediocrity. This is when a former champ (Springboks) celebrates coming up third in a world cup in England 2015, the host of the 2010 soccer world cup (Bafana) tournament celebrates breaking the wrong record of being the first host to be knocked out in the first round and the number one ranked team (Proteas) always fails to deliver a trophy at major tournaments.

The Eastern Cape used to be known for being the home of Boxing.That title is escaping the province as Johannesburg is slowly dominating in this contact sport. The province has produced a long list of world class boxers. This long list includes the likes of Vuyani Bhungu, Happy Boy Mgxaji, Mbulelo Bhotile, etc, who were putting the Republic on the map. Welcome Ncitha opened a boxing gym few years after his retirement and tried to produce some youngsters. Something went wrong somewhere because it seems like these legends have not felt the need to reproduce their kind to sustain the stronghold of the Eastern Cape as the “home of boxing.” This has led to the nation losing its plot in the boxing game. People no longer fill the theatres like they used to and it is very common these days to find people who do not even know who is holding which belt. People have lost interest.

This pattern is dominant in every sport in the province and everyone has learnt to accept the situation. There used to be pride in wearing a Border shirt or tracksuit whilst in your community, because it meant that someone important noticed how well you are in your sport. If you got your border gear you wanted to cling on it because it was your light at the end of the tunnel, your ticket to the big time. Every weekend you had to be on the lookout because the border scouts were always around and you could be picked. This was compromised greatly when you had to first know somebody from the scouts or have friends in high places before you were considered for selection. This was the beginning of unfortunate things to come for the province. The key word is “administration” and it does not matter how good you are with the words. The province is vastly known as the poorest among the nine in the country. This statistic does not exclude the former greats of the boxing game. They also fall under the misfortunes of maladministration like the whole province does. You must know that if you don’t maintain what you have, then you are quickly drawing closer to its end. 

Now and then you’d hear our former greats talking about giving back to the game and when you look closely at this “giving back,” you’d see that it is actually asking the game for help. I say this because these “giving backs” are not voluntary, people expect to get paid. It is also sad to see someone you used to see on TV being poorer than you are because the perception is that being on TV means you are around a lot of money. This makes me wonder what the “managers” or “agents” good for? Or do they fall under overall maladministration?