Connecting with the French

Funny how one’s mind plays games. In my memory he was a giant; the antithesis of his own diminutive physique.

His name was Guy Camberabero. The year 1967. The French were on tour in South Africa and I was at school in Kimberley… and obsessed with the Frenchman whose name the late Gerhard Vivier pronounced with such gusto on the radio.

Every school break, every afternoon before and after rugby practice, would be spent trying to kick a battered old Super Springbok ball in what we came to know as Camberabero’s “round-the-corner” style.

It was the first time any of us had seen a rugby place-kicker kick the ball, soccer-style, with the instep of his foot and to say we were fascinated would be an understatement.

We tried to copy him and went at our imitation for hours. The better kickers among us discovered that they were not only more accurate but could also “place” the ball from further.

Harry Viljoen, however, would be interested to know that convention in South African rugby in the 60s was no different to what it is today. Foreigners and their customs were viewed with suspicion and in matches no-one dared to kick “a la Guy.”

Today, of course, everyone kicks like “The Flea,” his nickname when he arrived in the country, or “Monsieur le Drop” as he had been christened by the time he left.

What amazes me is the Guy Camberabero made such an impression; not just on we “pikkies” in Kimberley, but on our ilk in every place where the game is played. South Africa, as a rugby-playing nation, seemed utterly preoccupied with the little French “demi d’ouverture.”

Strange. We had no television – that didn’t arrive until the All Blacks were here in ’76 – and formed our impressions from radio broadcasts or newspaper photographs of the French kicker.

And now for the memory part. One’s recollection is that Camberabero was utterly dominant, yet the record shows that he played in just six games on tour, including three of the four tests.

He scored just 40 points in his tour appearances and kicked only four dropped goals; yet in some sections of the media he was portrayed as the devil incarnate come to corrupt the saintly Springboks.

His greatest achievement did not arrive until the third test when he contributed two conversions and two drops to guide the Tricolores to a 19-14 victory after they had slumped to heavy defeats in the first two.

And yet… I thought he was wonderful. Innovative, imaginative, radical, different… all things one has come to expect from the French.

In a few days a new French team will arrive; one that appears to be on the kind of mission that should have been left to the Foreign Legion. They arrive in Johannesburg on the 10th, play the Springboks at Ellis Park’s altitude on the 16th, travel to Durban for the next international the following Saturday and then they pack their bags, retrace their steps to Johannesburg so that they can head off to Auckland, New Zealand, to play the All Blacks.

Why? “Because we are French.” So said Jean-Pierre Rives with a flick of his wild blond hair and a trademark Gallic shrug when I asked him in 1980 why he and his team had agreed to play a test against South Africa in Pretoria in the summer heat of November.

Ah the French. How they have thrilled and impressed us. “C’est magnifique!” Abdel Benazzi, Jean-Luc Sadourny, Thierry Lacroix, Philippe Sella, Olivier Roumat, Laurent Cabannes, Jean-Pierre Rives, Serge Blanco, Pierre Villepreux, Roger Bourgarel, Jo Maso, Claude Spanghero, Walter Spanghero, Benoit Dauga, Pierre Albaladejo, Michel Crauste, Michel Celaya, Pierre Lacaze, Lucien Mias… and more, many more.

Makes you wonder how many of this new crop will enter the realms of fond memory. Perhaps it will be the 19-year-old centre Clément Poitrenaud, the 20-year-old wing or fullback Nicolas Jeanjean or the man with the glorious name, Elvis Vermeulen. We can but hope.<