South African club rugby has a protean durability at the best of times, this is true. Estimates suggest, for example, that the country possesses 150 000 players at approximately 1500 clubs scattered across the land, making the South African club system second largest in the world behind France.
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South African club rugby has a protean durability at the best of times, this is true. Estimates suggest, for example, that the country possesses 150 000 players at approximately 1500 clubs scattered across the land, making the South African club system second largest in the world behind France.
Donate to The Luke Alfred Show on Patreon.
Get my book: Vuvuzela Dawn: 25 Sporting Stories that Shaped a New Nation.
Get full written episodes of the show a day early on Substack.
Check out The Luke Alfred Show on YouTube and Facebook.
One of the spinoffs of the Springboks winning the Rugby World Cup in 2023, is that club rugby in the country is booming. Quietly, without fuss, and without much wider public or media attention, the numbers are climbing.
They have done so for the last four or five months. And it’s good that they’re doing so now, because we stand poised on the cusp of club rugby season.
South African club rugby has a protean durability at the best of times, this is true. Estimates suggest, for example, that the country possesses 150 000 players at approximately 1500 clubs scattered across the land, making the South African club system second largest in the world behind France.
All agree, however, that numbers probably went down before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020. They declined precipitously 15 months later when the quarantine was relaxed, with young players wondering why they bothered to lace up their boots, let alone get out of bed to face the day.
The ‘Bok victory that heady October night in Paris changed that. Now they couldn’t wait for practice because it meant they could smash the living daylights out of the tackle bag by pretending to be “Swartland Assassin” Pieter-Steph du Toit.
So bad did the club rugby crisis become that Wanderers in Johannesburg, one of the most storied clubs in the land, and the oldest club in Johannesburg by six months, were close to closing down their rugby section in 2018. It was touch and go for a couple of years, but with the return of coach Neil Kalify from Roodepoort, the ship was steered into calmer waters.
Until two weeks ago, however, relegation for the club was still an option. In early March five Wanderers sides played five teams from Randfontein in an eagerly-awaited promotion-relegation clash between the clubs. Twelve points were on offer across the five fixtures, with the fixture between the respective clubs’ senior sides being preferentially weighted – and counting for four points, in other words – the other four fixtures counting two points each.
According to Wanderers coach, Kalify Wanderers first XV beat Randfontein first XV 25-18 and, with two other wins in the five rubbers, they ensured they would stay up by the margin of eight points to four.
“There’s an excitement around,” says Kalify. “I’m seeing it in club rugby and I’m seeing it in the schools. In 2018, pre-Covid, we were probably down to 90 players at Wanderers. Now we’re back up, I’d say, to 135-140.”
The upsurge countrywide has come mainly from players in the 18–21 age-group. They are keen to find their inner Cheslin or Siya, keen to unleash the goose-step and keen to barrel downfield a la Jessie Kriel.
These young first-timers or returnees to club rugby aren’t entirely sure what they can and cannot do. They still harbour the dream. Whether it’s a vague dream or a dream in sharp relief, they’re hoping to catch the eye of someone other than their mates and progress into the Garden of the Elect where they will walk proud and tall.
Brad Guymer, the chairman of Pirates Sports Club in Greenside, talks unabashedly of “unbelievable numbers”. He attributes these solely the inspiration provided by the Springboks’ one-point World Cup final victory over the All Blacks, as well as the long-running saga that saw the Boks scrape through the knockouts in three consecutive matches by a single point last year.
Two-and-a-half thousand fans packed into Pirates that giddy final evening, which made it both a festive occasion and a fine night for the bar, but the night also provided unforeseen rewards down the line. “We’re seeing a return to pre-Covid-19 numbers,” says Guymer. “We’ve had 50 new registrations just this year. There are 230 members in the rugby club and at the moment we’re running five men’s sides and a women’s team.”
Formed in Kimberley in 1886 and moving to their current location in Lionel Phillips Park in 1942, Pirates are an attractive proposition. They’re well run and centrally located in Johannesburg’s north-western suburbs. Their facilities are good and last season their senior side won the Pirates Grand Challenge for the first time in 21 years.
Annual membership fees cost R650 bucks. For that you get kit and the chance to train between six and eight three times a week. Matches are on the weekend and woe betide if in a moment of ill-considered madness, you shout afterwards for the Stormers or the Bulls. At Pirates you are in Lions country.
“We like to communicate as much as possible with the players because everyone likes to know where they stand,” says Guymer. “We take coaching seriously and we’re proud of our club and the way we go about things.”
No stranger to alliteration, Guymer talks of the club and club rugby being “a personal passion point”, and listening to him tell his and Pirates story re-inforces his claim.
As a younger man he spent a year in New Zealand, playing at Takapuna Rugby Club on the North Shore. After that he spent several seasons playing for London Scottish.
He says he didn’t bring back everything he discovered, but two things were paramount: club culture and the involvement of old boys. “Culture is important,” he says, “and it takes the form of things like post-match functions, where you can get to know the opposition and share ideas. Old boys are also vital. You never know, they might be the sponsors of tomorrow.”
Guymer realised, too, that not all rugby players can be Springboks, but this doesn’t mean they need to walk away from the sport. Increasing professionalism of the sport at younger and younger ages has the unintended consequence of telling a player in a variety of ways that he isn’t good enough as he progresses through the system.
For those who are told they aren’t good enough it’s easy to believe they aren’t good enough, and so rejection and self-rejection becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy or feedback loop. It’s something that can very easily get into your head.
Club rugby addresses this. It gives players who have been deemed unworthy – or simply not good enough – at a young age another chance. As we know, those who have been given another chance sometimes make it by other means. And these left-field sagas, often make for the greatest of stories.
Think of CJ Stander, rejected by the Bulls, who went on to play 51 times for Ireland, once for the British and Irish Lions, not to mention making Pat Lambie’s life very different to the one he might once have envisaged.
If Pirates are the portrait of a well-run and successful metropolitan club, SAFCOL United are the portrait of a well-run, successful club away from the periphery.
They come from Grabouw, in apple, pear and forestry country on the Bot Rivier and Caledon side of Sir Lowry’s Pass in the Western Cape.
SAFCOL is an acronym for the South African Forestry Company Limited, by the way.
That’s a bit of a mouthful, everyone agrees, so SAFCOL’s 5000 or 6000 hard-core fans and the legions of floating voters around Grabouw area, know them simply as “Saffies.”
Like Pirates, Saffies had an impressive season in 2023. They won the Boland Grand Challenge amongst one of their several regional trophies and celebrated with a trophy tour in an open-topped truck normally used for carrying crates of apples and pears.
“We wanted one of those red, open-topped tourist buses,” says Dimitri Jacobs, who has been club chairman for seven of the last ten years. “The problem was that you need a permit for that to move out of the greater Cape Town area, so we decided we were going to do our own tour on a truck. We wanted to do something that was very Grabouw.”
Jacobs tells the story of a group of old-time forestry workers – or “bosbouers” in Afrikaans – sitting around waiting for their food to cook in a potjie, a three-legged cast-iron pot excellent for slow-cooking stews.
As they were waiting, shooting the breeze, a child walked past. He still bore the scars of a knife attack. This upset the old-timers and, instead of simply talking about the prevalence of crime in their community, they decided to take action to take the area’s youth off the streets. So “Saffies” was formed on the Lebanon Farm outside of Grabouw in 1998. Forestry workers provided the bulk of the club’s inaugural membership.
Given the club’s founding myth, their motto is significant. “A child in sport, is a child out of court,” is how it goes. The club colours are the colours of everyday life in Grabouw: black, white and green.
While Jacobs doesn’t dispute the story of climbing club numbers in the post-World Cup period, he has a theory of his own which runs at a slight angle to the prevailing narrative.
He says that the streaming of live matches for smart-phones and TV has come into its own in the Boland in the last two years, and although he doesn’t say as much, my guess is this probably pertains to the rest of the country.
Widespread streaming has increased awareness of club rugby tremendously. Watching numbers have sky-rocketed, leading to a virtuous circle, where those watching suddenly want to play or play again.
The only disadvantage, as far as he can see, is that live attendances have been negatively affected. Fewer bums on seats is a consideration. “Saffies” can make R50 000 from gate-takings at a home game. If that happens, it has a knock-on effect through the club eco-system.
Conversely, if attendances are down, it means that money flowing through the club slows to a trickle. Given that “Saffies” are in Grabouw, and unemployment in the area is high with forestry work declining and fruit export compromised by load-shedding and Transnet inefficiencies, the bottom line is always there or thereabouts.
While money might be in short supply, will and pride are not. Jacobs tells me that the club hired 12 buses to take supporters from Grabouw to Saldanha on the West Coast for a tournament last Easter. The club’s 120 players have done the community proud and, in turn, they support them in numbers wherever they play.
Although streaming has taken off in the Boland in the last few years, it is still in its infancy. Those advertisers who associate themselves with the three or four streaming companies tend to be happy with the mileage, while those who advertise with “Saffies,” are thrilled with the exposure that comes about via streaming. The streamers themselves charge a nominal subscription fee, so they’re happy too.
Television coverage is in short supply, whether this is on free-to-air SABC or satellite like SuperSport, so beaming the product to a wider constituency is a win-win for everyone – at least on the face of it. Whether free-to-air or satellite, South African TV stations have certainly been neglectful of club rugby to the point of disrespect in the last five years.
The absence of the Gold Cup, the only national club tournament of any significance, didn’t help matters, because it wasn’t played at all between the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March, 2020, and September 2023.
Finally, in September and October, after a period of three-and-a-half years, SA Rugby put on an abbreviated – and slightly apologetic – tournament that ran for five weeks. It was won by the Naka Bulls, a re-branded Oostelikes, in other words, who beat Durban’s College Rovers in the final.
SuperSport only televised the final – and that on a back channel – with the broadcast being marred by so-called “technical problems” and starting 30 minutes after the kick-off. To add insult to injury, SuperSport missed the ceremony in which the trophy was awarded – because they cut-away to adverts.
As far as streaming is concerned, no guidelines exist as to who owns what. Boland Rugby have appointed a task-team, of which Jacobs is a part, to look into the commercialisation of streaming. For the time being, streamers can’t change users a subscription fee, although Boland Rugby are allowing streaming to go ahead.
Without saying what they are, Jacobs says he’s proposed two models to the task team. One of them presumably involves a model in which the union, the clubs and the streamers all get a slice of the pie.
There is, however, a third way. Boland Rugby haven’t exactly been pro-active in cottoning-on the vast commercial opportunities in live streaming. The phenomenon has been going on for at least two years in the region yet task teams and models are only coming up for discussion now.
If the clubs were brave – and this is only an idea – they would cut the late-reacting union out of the loop completely, and do business with the streaming services directly.
In the course of interviewing club rugby people for this podcast, it became obvious that grassroots administrators are cynical about both provincial unions and the national mother body. There is even talk in some parts of the country of sponsorship deals being negotiated for club rugby but that money not percolating down to the clubs for whom it was meant.
Digital technology has provided the long-suffering clubs, so often the last to get anything meaningful in the past, with an opportunity to be architects of their own destiny. They can now negotiate what are, in effect, their own broadcast rights deals. Their unions will respond by banning them. But if a group of strong clubs form a breakaway, there is very little that a union can compel them to do to bring them back into the fold.
Private streaming deals with selected high-quality service providers have the additional advantage of dis-intermediating the television stations. The broadcast of club rugby has been neglected contractually by both SuperSport and SA Rugby, which means the clubs are free – if brave enough – to do as they please.
Could the rise of digital and the general gatvol attitude to administrators drive club rugby in the coming years in a completely different direction?
Duane Heath, who was the architect of both the Community and the Gold Cup when employed by SA Rugby, certainly thinks so. Heath doesn’t talk in inflammatory terms but senses that club rugby, and its intersection with the digital age, means that it’s on the edge of something new and profound.
“After years of being satisfied with crumbs, the clubs are re-discovering their power,” he says. “It’s the Wild West – these conversations really are the new frontier. As far as the boom in club rugby is concerned, we live in interesting times.”
He adds the corrective that the clubs’ view seldom see further than the provincial boundary. A national perspective is rare.
The question is how to harness the 150 000 club rugby players and 1500 clubs in such a way that they use digital technology to enhance their product and make some money for themselves. They need it, and need it badly, because their provincial stipends are nothing more than a pittance.
Boland would appear to hold the key because they are the cradle of rugby-playing in the land. With 216 clubs across the province – and that’s the official count – they have the most rugby-playing clubs in the country, in a geographical area that has needed to be sub-divided into six because it’s so large.
It extends from Citrusdal in the north to Bredasdorp in the east, Saldanha in the west to Hermanus in the south. That’s a big sweep of the country, so perhaps it’s not surprising to hear Heath say that if the Boland were a country, it would be the ninth-largest country in terms of rugby-playing numbers in the world.
That’s a great deal of rugby, a great deal of interest and a great deal of commercial opportunity. And this from a province that gave us the slick Errol Tobias in the 1980s, to the astonishingly brave, quick-stepping Kurt-Lee Arendse of today.
Up above this debate, at the top of the rugby pyramid, we’re witness at the moment to a deal we hear about but know no details of – the equity deal that will see private off-shore investors soon own at stake in South African rugby.
For all the cloak-and-dagger secrecy, now is surely the time to attract investors. The Springboks are World Cup champions twice over. In the next World Cup they might be knocked out in the quarter-finals. At that point they are going to look a great deal less attractive as an investment proposition.
There are murmurings at the bottom of the system, too, where clubs have become increasingly jaundiced about the administrators meant to serve them. Take one example.
I mentioned earlier in this podcast about a crucial promotion-relegation contest between Wanderers and Randfontein in Gauteng featuring five teams from each club, won by Wanderers at the beginning of the month.
But after all the sound and fury, Randfontein were deemed too good to stay down, although they lost to Wanderers, who were fighting to stay up. Randfontein, it was decided, would also be promoted. Talk about two bites of the cherry. It’s enough to make you kick the dog on the way to the kitchen to make yourself a soothing cup of tea.
So where do we find ourselves? Club rugby is at a cross-roads in this country, although it is more accurate to say it’s at a long crossroads, because what pertains today, in 2024, has basically been the status quo for any number of years.
A new generation of young administrators, combined with the advantages of streaming via digital technology, means that the clubs could walk away from the ties that bind them. South African society is historically slow to see revolution as an option, this is true, but perhaps someone with savvy, dynamism and drive will take a punt – to use a rugby metaphor – on club rugby and the commercial opportunities that lie therein.
For his part, Heath thinks that the Community Cup and the Gold Cup never really had the institutional support it deserved, although he only has praise for out-going SA Rugby chief executive, Jurie Roux, who was quick to jump at the Community Cup idea.
“In 2017 we had matches starting at the same time in Windhoek, Harare and various places across South Africa,” Heath says. “It was almost like an international tournament. The Zimbabwe players couldn’t get enough or it. They loved coming down to Cape Town. We had traction but no real support.”
The new generation of club administrators appear irritable with the endless hand-wringing and compromise that seems to characterise day-to-day sports politics in South Africa. They sense change is in the air but aren’t quite sure how this is best approach in a country that is too large to sit easily in the mind.
In the meantime, club rugby grows, and that’s no bad thing. After all, how cynical can one be of a system that has a Malmesbury-based club in the Boland called “Never Despair”?
Once upon a time not too long ago, club rugby did seem to despair collectively. That is the case no longer. As a result of those long nights through the spring of 2023, the Springboks gave club rugby in this country a welcome shot in the arm.
That’s enough for us, and we should rejoice, as the young men of the land don their jerseys, blink into the floodlights and allow themselves to dream of what they might yet become, if only for a passing and precious moment.