Bokkie kom huistoe

As things turned out it was probably the best rolling maul the Springboks ever faced – the day anti-Apartheid protestors caused the match between Wynand Claassen’s 1981 touring team and Waikato to be called off.

They came from the left, broke through a wire fence, surged up and over an embankment like a river breaking its banks, swarmed onto the field and then formed a circular huddle on the halfway line.

For a while there was an element of surprise – among those of us in the Pressbox, from the rugby fans in their beanies and lumber jackets, from the bewildered police and from the demonstrators themselves – as we tried to come to terms with a scene not even the most imaginative of us had expected.

Then the protestors linked arms to signal their intention not to be moved, the police milled about aimlessly, the rugby spectators began to jeer and shout threats and those of us charged with conveying the news picked up our telephones and began to dictate a story for the ages.

The Springboks of 2009 being in Waikato for the first ever test match they will play in Hamilton brought memories of that day – July 25, 1981 – flooding back.

I remember it as though it was yesterday – especially the sudden moment of real fear when frustrated rugby fans turned on us Pressmen sitting in what was literally a box perched on top of stilts on the open side of the field.

Someone hurled an apple which flicked my then luxurious mop of curly hair and smashed into the wooden boards behind me – splattering bits of apple over my shoulders. Years later some of the keys on my little portable typewriter became stuck and when it was opened I found bits of dried apple lodged under the workings.

The apple however was an annoyance – what was really scary is when the mob started to shake the stilts of the Pressbox and it started to sway precariously. I had visions of toppling to the ground and perhaps having the angry pack, who were helplessly furious at the match being cancelled and looking to vent their anger, setting upon us but fortunately the legendary Kiwi rugby writer T.P. McLean (later Sir Terry) rose up and in that stentorian voice of his ordered the shouting, gesticulating mass to desist because we were the rugby press.

Whenever Waikato play on television or on the occasions I have been back to Rugby Park in Hamilton (its now called Waikato Stadium) I glance over to the spot where the breach occurred and find myself reminiscing.

And always my thoughts are of the lonely Springbok left there to mark South Africa’s respect for doughty opponents.

In the lead-up to the abandoned match against Waikato in 1981 we were invited into the reception room in the stadium and our attention immediately drawn to the mounted Springbok head on one of the walls that will always represent one of the greatest days ever experienced by the “Mooloos.”

“In 1956 Waikato rocked the Springboks back on their heels by beating them 14-10 in the first game of their New Zealand tour,” read a line in the 1981 programme which had on its bright yellow cover a cartoon of the “Mooloo” (Waikato is dairy country) and a picture of the glassy-eyed Springbok trophy.

It used to be the custom, when tours occupied pride of place on the rugby fixture list, for a Springbok touring side to take along a Springbok head to be presented to the first team to beat them outside of the internationals.*

Waikato’s heroics in the opening game of the ’56 tour set the tone for an expedition in which the All Blacks broke the Springboks’ domination of world rugby and the locals were justifiably proud of its presence in their “shed.”

But for me I was quite said to see the “Bokkie” staring out from the wall. It may be silly sentimentality but I raised a toast to him and expressed the wish that Claassen’s class of ’81 would not provide him with a mate. And I must say I felt exactly the same emotions, in 1979, when I saw another Springbok head hanging in the reception room at Rodney Parade in Newport while on tour with Chick Henderson’s SA Barbarians; almost a feeling of betrayal.

Wynand Claassen, in his book More Than Just Rugby, recalls being at the ground five hours before the abandoned 1981 game and also being overcome by deep thoughts when he saw the Springbok hanging on the wall.

As it turned out Claassen’s team never actually got to run onto the field although they did stroll out later, having changed out of their rugby togs, to stand forlornly on the muddy, scarred spot left by the protestors looking at the pamphlets and “souvenirs” they had left – split tennis balls, lightly glued back together after having been filled with nails, tacks, shards of glass and drawing pins.

There are other Springbok heads in New Zealand to mark Springbok defeats – Wellington in 1965 and Dunedin in 1994 and there might even be one for Canterbury in 1921* – but hopefully John Smit and his men will not leave a symbolic partner for the one already in Hamilton.

Hamilton is going to be a tough one to crack for the Boks. An All Black side desperate for redemption, a small, awkward stadium, a fanatical crowd (clanging their cow bells and revving their chainsaws!), a number of injuries and unprepossessing trio of match officials consisting of referee Nigel Owens (Wales) and his assistants Wayne Barnes (England) and Stuart Dickinson (Australia) add up to a massive hurdle for the Boks to clear.

Waikato Stadium has undergone significant renovations and I don’t know if the Springbok head is still there although I’m sure he is, given the store Waikato set by his presence, but perhaps the Boks should seek him out and resolve that come Saturday night they’ll raise the glasses in his direction to signify that the 2009 Tri-Nations was won in Hamilton.

Bokkie kom huistoe - en bring die Koppie saam!

• In 1921 Theo Pienaar’s Springboks drew 0-0 with Taranaki in the second game of their tour and lost 4-6 Canterbury in the sixth, their only defeat outside the Tests.

• In 1937 Phillip Nel’s Springboks lost only one game in NZ, the first test, in compiling a record of played 17, won 16 but ironically lost 6-17 to New South Wales in Sydney to in all likelihood be stripped of the prize head before they even got to NZ – unless they took two so its mate would have returned home!

• In 1956 Basie Viviers’s Springboks lost the first game of their tour 10-14 to Waikato.

• In 1965 Dawie de Villiers’s Springboks also lost to NSW, as well as both tests to Australia, and were then beaten 6-23 by Wellington in the second game in New Zealand. Wellington did receive a Bok head – it was there when the ’81 side were forced to bunk down in the old Athletic Stadium ahead of the victorious second test against Andy Dalton’s All Blacks.

• In 1981 Wynand Claassen’s side did not lose a match outside the tests with the NZ Maoris coming closest in a 12-12 draw at McLean Park in Napier. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the tour in 2006 Claassen’s team arranged for the Maori captain Billy Bush to fly out to South Africa to attend the festivities and in a touching moment presented him with a Springbok head to be taken back to his people – a tacit concession that perhaps Colin Beck’s controversial dropped goal did miss!

• In 1994 Francois Pienaar’s Springboks lost 12-19 to Otago at Carisbrook in Dunedin - the match that signalled the beginning of the end for Ian McIntosh as it came after having gone 2-0 down in the series and the Johan le Roux/Sean Fitzpatrick incident in the second test in Wellington. Those of us present will never forget that when Springbok manager Jannie Engelbrecht handed over the Bok head the Otago official turned and immediately hung it on the wall – the nail was already there!