Gamat Steensma was a quick flyhalf representing SACS in the late thirties. He had a bee in his bonnet about scoring with drop kicks. His coach, Daddy Veater, could not convince him that there was no merit in beating the opponents to the line, breaking round the posts and slotting the ball between the posts with a neat drop.
The lesser of Two Evils
It had been a tough game and we had narrowly beaten our opponents. The coach felt he had earned a beer and made his way to Forries – in those days quite a small quiet Newlands pub. As he entered, the first person he saw was Bruce Ginsberg, the 1st team prop, who had had a similar idea.
Bruce was relaxing with a cigarette in one hand, and a pint of draft in the other, little expecting such company. He turned round to see his coach at the counter. With great presence of mind he held the cigarette behind his back, raised his tankard in an attitude of good cheer and said warmly, “Good afternoon, Mr Brown.”
Badenhorsts Team Talk
The opposing centre had been singled out as the man to watch. “See that you mark him,” said the coach. In the opening movement, the dangerman landed in the middle of the scrum, and when the whistle blew, he lay on the ground, bruised and bleeding. The captain took big Martin aside, “Why did you do that?” he asked accusingly.
“Didn’t Badie tell us to mark him?” retorted Martin, cut to the quick.
Scrum Guard:
Singer was asked by his domestic help what “this thing” was (jock strap).
Jy dra dit op jou kop as jy rugby speel,” he replied
Newlands Pride:
During 1955, the 1st team were playing the early curtain- raiser against Bishops at Newlands. Bishops were leading by a small margin when SACS intercepted a ball inside its own 25 yard line. The SACS left wing was Bender Davis who, amongst other attributes, was the Triangular 100 yards and 220 yards sprint champion. Naturally the ball was fed to him with the utmost speed and by the time he received the ball on the 25 yard line he already had half an overlap and Bender Davis was running at full speed. The gap between him and his opponents widened with every passing second – and the crowd was going wild.
Now, Bender Davis’s style was to run with his knees up and his head down and his shoulders almost hunched, which was not conductive to a good view of the way ahead.
Bender must have got extra help from above for it seemed as though he simply left the opposition standing. He could see the try line approaching, and with a magnificent swallow dive, that only great wings can perform, Bender admitted the coup de grace as he scored a great try. The crowd, instead of greeting this great run with the customary tumultuous applause, started laughing. Why? Well Bender Davis had misjudged the distance and had “scored” the try on Bishop’s 25 yard line!!!!!
It makes a good story and has probably earned its author (Nich Koch) a few beers over the years. But I was there, and Bender scored between the posts. The crowd cheered!! – D.B
“Forgive Us Our Trespasses”
Our first game on tour was against St John’s College and this game was refereed by the Head of the Junior School.
Mark Duckitt skippered the SACS side, and did not agree with several of the ref’s decisions. Towards the end of the game, which we were losing, Mark allowed his criticism to be heard, and was warned; and the side punished with a penalty. Mark passed judgement again and the irate referee ended the game there and then despite protests of the St John’s team.
Next day the team attended chapel at St John’s, and we noticed that the Headmaster had arranged that Mark and the ref. Sat next to each other.
Impi’s Team Talk
It was mid-winter in 1957. The 1st Team were playing at St. Michael’s. The weather wasn’t very pleasant – in fact the rain was sweeping across the field in sheets of continuous unrelenting rain. It had been raining like this for a number of days. We were getting ready for our game, and engaged in the usual banter to ease the “nerves”.
Suddenly, a silence descended upon the changing room. I looked up and in the corner noticed the figure of Impi Stierlin, our coach – the collar of his somewhat ageing brown overcoat turned up – his hands buried deeply in his pockets.
He looked up at me with a wry smile. His appearance in the changing room was a rare occurrence because team talks were a rarity in those days. In any event Impi was a man of a few words and he wasn’t going to waste them on the likes of us.
Then suddenly the “pearls of wisdom” fell from his lips.
“Koch,” he said with his Afrikaans accent, “you win the toss, you play with the tide.” With that he vanished to his usual spot – behind the posts.
“Ooooch, Jock!”
Jock Allan was Headmaster of the High School from 1926 to 1949 and had been “imported” from Scotland where he was a first league soccer player. Needless to say, his knowledge of rugby was practically nil.
Shortly after his arrival at SACS, the 1st Team were due to play the main curtain-raiser to the WP vs. Transvaal Currie Cup game at Newlands. This was a great event in the schools calendar with the Headmasters of both schools attending.
Jock Allan, because of his “rugby ignorance”, took a rugby master with him for moral support.
I didn’t know what the result was, but during the game the Bishops fly-half took a drop from near the halfway line – the ball soared through the air gaining a lot of height – and managed to go over by scraping the crossbar. You can imagine the roar from the crowd! Such a great kick – and from a schoolboy! Alas, Jock Allan was singularly unimpressed and was heard to mumble with a strong Scots accent, “Ooch, what a pity – just over the barrrr.”
A SACS Streak
The tighthead front ranker in 1958 was Brian “Porky” Mervis, who now resides in Boston, USA.
You have probably worked out already that Porky got his nickname from his size. So large was he that he had great difficulty in getting the right size of shorts.
Pork Mervis was a very organised sort of person. Prior to leaving Rosedale for the match, he would go through a ritual to be absolutely certain that he hadn’t left anything behind, because if he did, he obviously couldn’t borrow from anybody else. At times we would mock him for his “paranoia”, hence his second nickname of “nervous Mervis”.
One Saturday morning, after Porky had laid all his togs out on his bed and checked them for the umpteenth time, he duly packed them into his tog bag and left for St. Michael’s.
I, as Captain, had contrived that we changed later than usual by having one of our rather rare team talks, and because of the importance of the match, prolonged the team talk in order to cover every eventuality.
Then we all proceeded to the changing room and, as planned, got changed into our rugby togs as quickly as possible leaving Porky alone in the changing room with only a few minutes before kick-off.
Suddenly, we heard sounds of disturbance from the change room. Porky was shouting, “What am I going to do. I have forgotten my shorts at Rosedale?”
I was very “unsympathetic”, “You should have checked before you left Rosedale”, I said, and proceeded to run onto the field.
At that very moment the shorts mysteriously came flying through the window and within minutes Porky came running onto the field to join the team.
Daddy Of Them All
While watching a 1st XV game at the Strand, I was fascinated at the sight of a man well into his eighties exhorting the SACS forwards to get quickly to the point of breakdown and feed the backline. He was completely involved in the game and obviously knew what he was talking about.
I went to sit next to him at half-time, and asked if he had a grandson playing. It turned out that he was “Daddy” Veater, a SACS 1st Team XV coach for many years.
He proudly unstrapped his watch and showed me the inscription which read; “SACS rugby, 1941.”
This was forty years on.
Anne Brown, our Xhosa teacher in the seventies, was the very attractive daughter of a Somerset East farmer, and quite able – despite a slender figure – to hold her own when it came to any physical exercise. She coached the u16C side for two years, and in that time they were unbeaten – in fact SACS’s only unbeaten side. Her players were prepared to lay down their lives for her. The B team coach had the greatest difficulty persuading members of her team that they were due for promotion. On one occasion, Ann was not satisfied with her eighth man’s shove in the scrum. His subsequent efforts were equally unsatisfactory. “Get out,” she said. “Let me show you how I want you to pack.” The youth was reluctant, but had to stand back while Anne packed at number 8, and demonstrated what she wanted. Ann’s problem was solved, and the reluctant number 8 was reluctant no more.
The team travelled to Paarl one day, where their opponents found it very amusing that they were to play against a side that was coached by a lady. During his team-talk, their coach was heard to make a disparaging reference to this. When SACS came out of that encounter with their unbeaten record still intact, the members of the host side melted away, and the coach got into his car and drove off, quite forgetting to thank Anne for the game. Not long after that match, Anne became Ms Peter Munnik – but that is another story.
There was a sequel to this story:
On the way home in the bus, Anne met a good looking young student who was travelling with the u15A team, on the same bus. They got together in the front seat, “I suppose we were charming each other,” she laughed.
The boys on the bus were celebrating their victory. On the Monday morning, “Doodles” de Kock, Head of Rugby, approached Anne with anxiety on his face.
“What happened on the bus on Saturday?” he asked.
“Nothing. Why?” asked Anne, blushing a little.
“The bus company phoned this morning to report that a window at the back of the bus was broken. I asked the captain where the teacher had been at the time, and he replied:
“Oh, Miss Brown was charming Peter Munnik at the front of the bus,”
It remained a secret between “Doodles” and Mrs Munnik – until now.
