Making green and black memories
Making green and black memories
he first time I watched the Springboks play the All Blacks was in 1992. It was the Boks’ first match after sporting isolation, and Danie Gerber scored two tries. Two years later, in 1994, the Boks toured New Zealand, and I remember my dad waking us up at 4:00 in the morning to watch the tests on TV. Again, two years later in 1996, he took my brother and me to Loftus to watch the All Blacks play the Boks live for the first time. An experience I will never forget as long as I live.
Today’s piece is not a history lesson about the Boks playing the All Blacks. Rather, I’ve found myself thinking about the memories my dad and I made while watching these two teams play each other, in the lead-up to the Greatest Rivalry Tour that kicks off in all seriousness on Saturday afternoon. We watched a lot of rugby together (and I mean A LOT), live and on television. If we could not watch together, he would phone me after big matches to talk about the standout moments from the game, which often resulted in us talking about the match longer than the actual 80 minutes it took to play.
No match, in our estimation, was ever bigger than the Boks playing the All Blacks. These were always the standout occasions on the rugby calendar, and we would arrange our lives around watching these matches. Nothing, to us, seemed more important. For us, they were bonding experiences. In October 2023, I flew to Gauteng especially to watch the World Cup Final with him. Little did we know that he would pass away unexpectedly less than three months later. That was the last match we would watch together.
Last year the Boks handed them the biggest losing margin the All Blacks had ever experienced in the history of that famous team, smashing them 43-10 in Wellington. I watched the match on my own at home, although the neighbours probably thought 27 people were watching with me, given the noise I was making. Absolute elation does not completely describe how I felt. 15 minutes or so after the final whistle, walking around the living room with the biggest smile on my face, my eye catches my phone, and the thought jumps into my head: “Pa gaan nou bel” (Dad is gonna call now). I could imagine the first thing he was going to say, something along the lines of “My kind, ek kan nie f*kn glo wat ek nou gesien nie!” (My child, I cannot f*****g believe what I just saw!), with tears in his eyes and the most enormous smile on his face. In that moment, I burst out crying. And I mean ugly crying. He was not going to call. We would not experience this one together.
I still get teared up writing this now.
My point is this: Make the effort. Make the memories.
Whether you care about rugby or not, I hope this weekend you get the opportunity to spend time with people you love and care for. And if you get that opportunity, use it!
If you want some help slowing down and making memories, get in touch. You can reach us at info@purposeworks.co.za.
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