I am calling it. I am officially announcing that I have no rugby friends.
I mean that I have no tjoms that I grew up with who I know, come cut-off low or super El Nino, that will gather for a Bok Test at someone’s home, have a lekka braai, talk sh*t (skinder) and then sit down together before a huge television set, on leather couches, surrounded by beers and pudding plates, and proceed to scream and bellow at the ref, as they battle it out in the scrummaging we call the alpha-male pecking order.
I actually know some of these ous, and that one even decided he missed his rugby-watching mates so much he sold up from an idyllic setting after discovering he was alone, all alone in the hills.
If I was so inclined, I could inveigle my way into these circles, but that is not how it is done.
You have to get the mysterious secret handshake and don your green and gold mask before they answer the doorbell and let you into the club.
To be fair, I am not, as someone else said, exactly good club member material.
I recall the late Eddie Botha, a former boss at the Financial Mail, fellow biker and also a columnist right here, saying that when you are a journalist, after a while you don’t get invited to braais.
Another editor said: “You will always be an observer.”
Truth is, I have decided, my status as a rugby single has been designated by me. I did it all to myself.
This shocking self-discovery led me further into the closet — I am actually a rugby snob.
I don’t want to sit with people whose loud opinions I do not agree with, and not only about the game, but our entire social fabric.
And of course, I will never be able to afford the rugby subscription which many of my fellow travellers can afford, enjoying the game in the pleasure of their own brilliant company.
Class, it is everywhere.
I have watched Bok games since the very beginning when a dear man from then-PE sat in my lounge in then-Grahamstown with his jersey cleaved in half — he loved the All Blacks for their rebellion against apartheid when they held coaching clinics in the townships and coloured areas during their tour.
And he loved Nelson Mandela being at the game in Bok colours to spur Francois Pienaar and the boys on so they could give Madiba the World Cup — which was actually a cup, and not one from these days when the trophies look like they were purchased at Adult World.
Just bokking — I love creative trophies — they become an art item all by themselves. Will it be a polished wooden bitter aloe with a wave breaking in its flowers?
For my coloured tjom, history had split asunder and was going in opposite directions.
But hey, the game is indeed sacred up until the final whistle, when we find ourselves feeling absolutely drained, hungover and thinking about the work week ahead. And if we lose, it feels even worse.
But it does not last long — and there is always another game to anticipate.
Once the revelation had set in, I stopped hankering to be part of the men’s club.
According to Kevin Harris, our local lone ranger campaigning to Save Nahoon, having your own opinion when the opinion of others leads to a dark hole of intellectual oblivion and slavish acquiescence, it takes mettle to step out, have your own opinion and be marginalised.
It is an act of moral courage, not social suicide, to become an outlier.
Ah, but Kev, don’t we humans also crave collaboration as our best way to survive the apocalypse?
Don’t we love to unite around common good?
Don’t we work in teams or as a collective to achieve a common goal — like the end to fossil fuel madness, or racist, hateful apartheid?
It’s all about spilt screen, and decisions, decisions.
Mine is to call for the rugby commentary.
I am parked at my solo table at the Bluewaters Hotel about to watch the Bulls take on the All Blacks.
But the barman has three screens showing Premier League soccer and one depicting the teams coming out onto Loftus through a shower of fireworks.
I sidle up to the bar and politely ask for the rugby commentary. I get what I expect: the people here want soccer.
Noooooooo! I think to myself.
Sociologist Max Weber and others have written about the pathological effects which take hold when social bonds break down — terrible things happen.
And I turn to the crowd of nine and loudly say: “Who wants to watch the rugby!”
This could go badly, and later the barman says there have been “racial incidents” over this thorny issue.
Even worse is that they are playing some really horrendous rave music. So 90s.
I feel exposed, bombastic, a troublemaker until the black ou in front whips around and gives my appeal full-on approval.
He even grabs his jersey near his heart — it states “Bulls”.
The other couple to my right say, ‘ja!’
The barman ignores my victory claim and heads back into the innards and switches on the sound.
I pray I have not embarrassed the poor barman and sidle up to try and say sorry.
He is matter of fact about it and tells me about the race incidents and points to a table where three guys sit, saying those patrons are living in the hotel and have been there all week.
I look over at this table, pfff, they are not at all interested in the screen above. They are looking distracted into their beers.
Now last week, in this same bar, we were a racially divided bunch, socially speaking.
But when Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika was sung, I went at it with gusto.
My black fellow SA rugby fans looked at this, and suddenly we were all best friends, singing away at the tops of our voices, expressing all our hopes and desires in one very weird anthem, which takes in as many languages as is possible.
You know, there is something wonderful about going solo — you can meet the best people.
Recently it was my landlord who brought in a very sweet Afrikaner okie, so quiet, intelligent and humorous, and I, above the cacophony of the sound and my growing deafness, thought he had a great read of the game, which he delivered in an understated tone.
That was last week. Today I am again alone. But not.
In walks a very cool okie, and he knows me.
He asks to join my table, I say sure and he proceeds to make me feel even more senile and forgetful — he worked with me, at the Daily Dispatch in the advertising department.
And wait for it — how is RK, my then-reporter daughter. I think I told him she was my best rugga-watching tjom.
She came in cold, said: “Dad it is rather meaty”, and watching the World Cup at the Beacon Bay Country Club became our favourite hangout.
Then my companion starts telling me about the old days at the Dispatch where he was a union representative.
Unions! Who remembers those days in a time of Gini coefficient oligarchy?
I remember trade unionists from the 80s who rose to become MECs and I am fascinated by recent historical analysis, which says the 1933 Franklin D Roosevelt New Deal, which ushered in real social and economic reform, was the basis upon which America became the only successful middle-class nation in the world.
We had the RDP, but it got destroyed faster than a Jeep crushing an African oyster-catcher egg on Glengariff beach. Wonder what happened to that case …
Anyway, I am in a perfectly happy space — the Bulls are doing OK against the All Blacks, the company and conversation are convivial and free-flowing.
My friend then proceeds to add to the story of the All Blacks, saying they went beyond simply coaching, and in his then-coloured area of East London, partied hard with all the mense and gals.
He mentioned one of the All Blacks — that winger guy with the thick thighs ... Yes, I say, I watched him as a kid playing at the BRU!
Actually, he was Sir Bryan “Beegee” Williams, renowned for his thunderous thighs, powerful bursts and incredible side-step.
When the whistle blows and the Bulls go down with honour, my friend asks: “Will you be watching here again?”
I was going to start a rugby singles dating site, but instead I will follow the rest of you solo stars and just keep heading out to my local on my own and see what happens.
It is the very, very best way to travel.
Daily Dispatch
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