The ‘write’ time

Corné Krige’s autobiography, “The Right Place at the Wrong Time”, sent a chill down my spine as I read the chapter about the infamous “Kamp Staaldraad.”

Although he and his biographer Peter Bills perpetuate the irritating mistake of translating “staaldraad” into barbed wire, which is “doringdraad” in Afrikaans, rather than steel wire I could not believe what I was reading.

Many details of the sordid goings-on in the bush have been published in the Press but Krige’s candid descriptions of what he and his Springbok teammates were subjected to in the name of preparing for the 2003 Rugby World Cup had me open-mouthed in disbelief.

It was with a sense of outrage that I read the chapter first, and in one sitting (which I can guarantee you will do too!), and I can now see why the Springbok team performed so badly in Australia; finally leaving in shame after being trounced in the quarter-finals by the All Blacks in Melbourne.

Well I remember the first time I heard of the training camp in the bush. At the Springboks’ hotel in Fremantle, Perth, an Australian journalist and I were interviewing Louis Koen when he made reference to “psychological” training the team had undergone.

Both of us, the Australian and I, immediately sensed Koen had stumbled into territory that made him uncomfortable. He visibly blanched, became evasive and there was a haunted look in his eyes as he answered “I’d rather not talk about it…”

My curiosity alerted I tried to find out about this exercise and met many a blank stare and the kinds of sidestep that were missing on the field during the tournament. I had already become irritated by the stifling methods of the team’s ultra-suspicious security officer Adriaan Heijns, dubbing him the “Gestapo”, and it was clear to me that what had gone on at the so-called “war games” in the bush had been unpleasant, even repulsive, to some of the players.

Rudolf Straeuli, who used to be one of the jokers in the Springbok teams I toured with, had become distinctly paranoid and my instinct told me that something was very wrong in the Bok set-up.

Eventually my former colleague on the Sunday Times, Clinton van den Berg, broke the story of what would become a blot on the good name of Springbok rugby – right down to details of the players being put through their ordeal at gunpoint.

In his book Krige berates himself for not having put a stop to the madness although it is interesting to note that he did not believe he had the full support of, in particular, Joost van der Westhuizen.

Krige, whose tenure coincided with one of the worst periods in the annals of Springbok rugby during which we suffered a string of record defeats and humiliations, gives an account that is brutally frank.

Knowing him reasonably well I found the Anglicisms of his ghost writer a little jarring but overall the vastly experienced and respected Bills has done a fine job in telling a tale that needed to be told.

Almost every page contains a revelation (of some kind) and yet, as honest as Krige tries to be, I finished his book with a sense that we have not yet heard the whole truth.

Like all South Africans he is uncomfortable and careful when talking about transformation and the quota system but for the first time there is an assertion, from someone who was actually there, that Geo Cronje did behave in a racist way towards Quinton Davids.

Krige does not go into great detail about what really went down at the Tukkies’ high performance centre in Pretoria and, thanks to my old-fashioned journalists’ training to reflect both sides of a story, it worries me that we have yet to hear Cronje’s, or for that matter Straueli’s, version of that unhappy episode.

Much of Krige’s tale reads like a confessional as he apologises for that inexplicably dark side of his nature that too often came to the fore and for that I laud him. It takes a big man to say you’re sorry and the man known in Western Province as “Captain Courageous” makes a sincere effort to atone for his sins and wipe the slate clean.

Autobiographies, by their very nature, are self-serving and this one is too, but it has appeared in the right place at the right time.

Anyone with anything to do with South African rugby should get a copy and study it carefully – if only to ensure that the lunacy that so often blighted Corné Krige’s career is never repeated.

*”The Right Place at the Wrong Time. The autobiography of Corné Krige with Peter Bills. Published by Zebra Press.