ONCE A TEAM, ALWAYS A TEAM
Former UWC rugby players reminisce about the impact the University’s rugby club had made on their lives By Lyndon Julius
R
ugby at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) has a rich and enticing history. Apart from the many great and legendary players it has produced, there are individuals that have left an indelible mark on this proud Cape Town-based university’s sporting annals. The institution is known for the robust yet constructive manner in which it has tackled inequality since its inception; in 2020, it celebrates 60 years of this history with the memories made by and within the rugby club remembered fondly by every player that has passed through its programme. Offering a beacon of hope, many great leaders, activists, politicians and sports stars found their niche at UWC. Great stalwarts of our society that amassed legendary status, such as UWC co-founding fathers Prof Adam Small, Dr Jakes Gerwel, Dr Allan Boesak, Prof Julian Smith, Tobias Titus and Dr Danny Jordaan. Many of these men and so many others played an active part in not only shaping UWC but also giving the institution a reputation that generations to follow can be proud of. Under the guidance of the late Springbok World Cup winner, Chester Williams, the University recently gained promotion to South Africa’s premier intervarsity rugby competition, the FNB Varsity Cup. In doing so, it became the first historically disadvantaged tertiary institution
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to enter the competition. Sports has been integral in shaping many great men and women, specifically the formation of the rugby club, which had to fight not only the already stringent apartheid system in everyday life but for its rightful place as a rugby club in a predominantly non-white university setting. Not only did great players don the UWC jersey but the rugby club birthed a crop of great leaders, sports administrators and entrepreneurs that helped shape South Africa’s sporting landscape as it is known today. While UWC did not start out as a powerhouse of consciousness, Prof Smith – who is highly regarded by some of his peers as one of the most talented scrum-halves of his
time – describes it as a “site of struggle and contestation where students started to challenge the ‘system’ and the ‘establishment’. “It would be historically inaccurate to typify UWC as a beacon of hope when I enrolledin 1972,” he adds. “While the contestation of the apartheid system gained momentum, the rugby club started to reconsider its affiliation to the (coloured) Rugby Federation, whom we regarded as having been coopted by white (Springbok) rugby to legitimise white rugby exclusivity.” It was, therefore, a no-brainer for UWC Rugby to join the newly established Tygerberg Rugby Union in 1974 as this union broke away from the Federation to join the non-racial South African Rugby Union, which was a SACOS (South African Council on Sport) affiliate. In this way, the University club deliberately joined the nonracial fold, intending to use sport and rugby as part of the struggle for liberation and social justice. “I became captain of the first team in 1974 and enthusiastically encouraged and supported this move, which contributed a lot to the UWC reputation as a vanguard of the struggle and eventually a beacon of hope.” The “brotherhood” that has existed within the rugby club throughout the years all have their own stories of the struggle
