Let us now praise famous men.
In recent weeks I’ve been getting a bit above myself; rabbiting on about highbrow issues such as the economy and things like business and entrepreneurship, even politics.
In the greater scheme of things, these matters are neither here nor there. Politicians, like the poor, will always be with us and the economy – or what’s left of it – is as hostage as ever to Greek tax evasion and how much steel the Chinese can get through in any one year.
Today, instead, I want to talk about something really significant. Something of great historical import. I refer, of course, to the Golden Lions Rugby Football Union.
For as long as I can remember, supporting the Lions has been one of the most thankless, hopeless tasks in sport. People (including this paper’s celebrated sports editor) used to snigger at us and calls us names – usually “loser”.
Since he was born I’ve indoctrinated my eight-year-old son into believing something that, as the years unfolded, became increasingly exposed as a shameful, baseless lie: that the Lions were any good and were ever going to amount to much. How would he resent me when he realised the gravity of the deception I’d repeatedly inflicted on him?
There were even dark days when I considered changing allegiance to Western Problems. I could at least claim to support them by virtue of my place of birth and upbringing. But as the dwindling number of people willing to admit their Lions’ allegiance used to say to each other: “They might be the world’s k*kkest rugby team, but they’re our k*k team.”
Now that interminable, endless disaster has turned to blazing, glorious triumph, few can remember just how bad the Lions once were. “Bad” is not a good word with which to describe how utterly execrable my team were. In 2009 Jake White recommended that then coach Eugene Eloff be kicked into touch. Which is what happened. The Lions promptly plumbed new, previously unimagined depths when the 2009 British and Irish Lions mauled them 74-10 on a bleak, numbingly cold Wednesday night.
All of this was forgotten last Saturday, though, when the Lions not only won the Currie Cup for the first time in 12 years, but did so by thoroughly clobbering a Sharks team stuffed with current Springboks. The score was something like 420 to us and 16 or so to them.
Who needs Boks when you have giants such as Josh Strauss, Cobus Grobbelaar, Elton Jantjies, Doppies la Grange and Jaco Taute? For years Doppies and Baywatch have flattered to deceive and, until last year, Strauss (does anyone know what he really looks like?) and Taute were nobodies. Jantjies has rare talent, but it seemed only a matter of time before he was poached by one of those unions where they occasionally won something.
The glorious events of October 29 2011, no one seriously doubts, were down to the efforts of one man – a New Zealander as fate would have it – who welded this bunch of no-hopers into a Currie Cup-winning class act. But how does poor John Mitchell feel about going to work in one of the unloveliest locations in sport – poor, grimy car guard-infested Doornfontein? Many fans take out extra life insurance before going there, especially for games that end after dark.
Next door to Ellis Park is a splendid stadium. Down the road is the Standard Bank Arena, and there is even something called the Johannesburg Cricket Club, complete with floodlights, nogal.
On non-match days the only people making a buck in Doornfontein are Chinese traders who peddle sweets and toys. On match days the only ones making money are the rugby union, the bad concession holders selling the same old boerewors rolls, sliced, deep-fried potatoes and carbonated sugar water. (For at least a decade those running the bars at Ellis Park have employed people who can’t do basic mental arithmetic so you wait until your beers are warm before you get your change.)
Ellis Park and its precinct might be a citadel of sporting triumph right now but it is a dark, forbidding business wasteland. It should be the sporting mecca of the greatest city in Africa, a place thronged with tourists sipping lattes and buying sporting paraphernalia every day of the week.
