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- Herausgeber: Jonathan Ball
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
When Siya Kolisi leads the Springboks out onto the field at the Rugby World Cup in September 2019, it will be the crowning glory of an incredible journey that began on the impoverished streets of Zwide, a township outside Port Elizabeth. As the first black South African to captain a Springbok rugby team, Kolisi's remarkable story is unique and deserves to be heard. His mother was a teenager when he was born. She left him in the care of his grandmother who brought him up until she died (in his arms) when Siya was twelve. He found love and acceptance playing junior rugby with the African Bombers club until his talent was spotted by the prestigious Grey High School who offered Siya a full scholarship that changed his life. He adapted well to the posh private school, but it was on the rugby field where he excelled. Siya was rewarded with a call-up the SA schools team and a contract to join the Western Province rugby union. Author Jeremy Daniel tracks Siya's journey from running wild on the streets of Zwide, through some crucial games in high school, into the Western Province rugby set-up and his fight to become Springbok captain. He goes deep inside the systems that identify junior talent, the characters who shaped his journey and the moments where he showed who he really was. Siya never forgot where he came from, and ultimately adopted his mother's other two children after she died when he was in high school. His life has not been without controversy, and his marriage to a fiery young white woman was a lightning rod for racial politics. But he is a shining beacon of hope for South Africa, he is massively popular and there is a huge appetite from the public to know about his life and to support him as Springbok captain.
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Siya Kolisi
Against All Odds
Jeremy Daniel
Jonathan Ball Publishers
Johannesburg • Cape Town • London
Prologue
Green and gold. Twenty-three crisp uniforms hang in a locked change room, ready for the squad. Each jersey is identical, but one of them is historic. After 480 internationals, today, 9 June 2018, one will be worn by the first black Springbok captain.
That Saturday morning, the day began when the minivan carrying the Springbok logistics team pulled into the parking lot as the first pale rays of a wintry sun lit up Ellis Park Stadium.
In the front seat was JJ Fredericks, the 48-year-old former flanker and Springbok logistics manager. He was responsible for making sure everything was perfect for the team when they arrived before a game.
On match days, JJ has a ritual. He gets up at 5 am for a quick gym session, then has breakfast at the hotel, before heading off to work.
By 8.30 that morning, the logistics team was carrying the overstuffed kit bag through the echoing bowels of the massive concrete stadium towards the change rooms, and running through the pre-game routine. While JJ and his assistant laid out the match kit for every single player in the squad, Vivian Verwant, the physiotherapist, prepared a medical station and Lindsay Weyer set up the video feed and the communications system that the management team would use to stay in touch as they criss-crossed the stadium later in the day.
Rugby has always been part of JJ’s life. ‘I was the first black captain of a provincial franchise at the Griffons,’ he explains from his office at SA Rugby, where he is busy preparing for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
He joined SA Rugby as a driver for the Springbok squad gathered in Cape Town ahead of the 2007 World Cup, then slowly worked his way up to become tour manager of the Under-20 team before becoming the Springbok logistics manager.
On that cold winter morning, the Springboks were preparing to play England at Ellis Park. It was a crucial fixture for both sides. The logistics team worked quickly, setting out the uniforms in numerical order from 1 to 23: two shirts for each player, one hanging up and one folded on a bench, a pair of shorts and socks, towel and commemorative pennant with the details of the game on it. Players are always responsible for their own personal items, including boots.
The level of preparation for an international rugby match in 2018 would have been unimaginable to the earliest Springboks. For the first five games the national team ever played, against a touring English side in 1891 and then in 1896, the South Africans wore whatever they could lay their hands on. They lost both games of the first tour and the first three games of the second tour. Ahead of the fourth Test of the second tour, at Newlands, one of their star players, Barry Heatlie, headed off to the Old Diocesan club, known today simply as Bishops, and gathered up 15 myrtle-green club jerseys for the South African team to wear.
That historic sixth encounter between South Africa and England was the first victory ever recorded by a South African team, and the first time that ‘the colony’ had triumphed over ‘the motherland’. Although the nickname ‘Springboks’ would only be adopted ten years later, the green jerseys have been worn ever since that first win.
By 9.30 am, the dressing room was ready for the players and the coach. Before locking up, JJ paused and ran his hand over the number 6 jersey. As a flanker himself, and as the first black man ever to captain a Currie Cup side, it had special significance. Not to mention that this was the place where Nelson Mandela had worn Francois Pienaar’s number 6 during the historic 1995 Rugby World Cup final.
Every Springbok jersey is embroidered with the statistics of the player who will wear it. On that day, the captain’s jersey simply read:
Siyamthanda Kolisi
South Africa vs England
9 June 2018
Johannesburg
29th Cap
Part 1
1
Trial by Fire
Siya Kolisi kept his emotions under wraps as he walked out into the roar of the stadium. It was the 26-year-old’s first game as Springbok captain. He let out a slow, controlled breath and clasped the hand of the young fan accompanying him onto the field. There was no denying the electricity in the air and the significance of the moment.
Out on the field, his Springbok team-mates approached him one by one for a hug or a quick fist bump to let him know they understood what a big day it was.
Being the first black Springbok captain was not the only milestone that day. Siya tried to acknowledge the moment for all the players, and to let them know this was not only about him. This day felt like a fresh start for rugby in South Africa. Promising young stars such as Sibusiso ‘Sbu’ Nkosi, RG Snyman and Aphiwe Dyantyi were making their Test debuts, while Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira was just one game away from being the first black African to play 100 Tests for South Africa. The first game of the 2018 England tour was also of vital importance for the new coach, Rassie Erasmus, and for a nation desperate to regain its stature as a rugby powerhouse.
Siya draped an arm around his vice-captain, Eben Etzebeth, while the players lined up for the singing of the national anthem. He shut his eyes tightly, threw back his head, and let the lyric and melody consume him and build slowly up to the stirring ending …
Let us live and strive for freedom in South Africa, our land.
On the stroke of 5 pm, referee Matthew Carley blew the whistle, millions around the world tuned in on television, the crowd in the stadium roared with anticipation, and it was game on.
Boxing legend Mike Tyson famously said that ‘everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face’. The Springboks wanted to overwhelm the opposition with speed and power, apply sustained pressure, and rack up a famous victory for their new captain and coach. That plan started to unravel in the first two minutes.
England were ranked fourth in the world at the time, and had been improving steadily under the guidance of coach Eddie Jones. The team were unbeaten through 2016, they had won the Six Nations Championship, and they had recently equalled the world record of 18 games undefeated. But three successive defeats coming into this game had shaken their self-belief, and they were determined to get their campaign back on a winning track.
In the first minute of the game, the Springbok scrumhalf Faf de Klerk fed the ball out to RG Snyman, who gathered it cleanly and then went to ground. De Klerk jumped right back in, cleaning up and passing to flyhalf Handre Pollard, who was tackled hard. Jean-Luc du Preez charged into the ruck, but he was judged to be off his feet and conceded a penalty.
It was 61 metres to the goalposts, but at this altitude England fullback Elliot Daly was unfazed by the distance. The ball soared high in the thin Highveld air, then dropped just over the posts to give England three precious points in the first two minutes of the game.
Following the restart, the Boks were quickly forced on the defensive. England whipped the ball down their advancing backline with a series of quick passes until it was in the hands of winger Mike Brown, who bent low to gather the ball, beat two tackles, and scrambled over into the corner for an England try.
Daly sent the ball back over the posts with his second kick of the match, and in the first five minutes of the game, Siya and his team found themselves already down by ten points and staring defeat in the face.
Although reeling from these opening blows, the Springboks managed to settle and take the game to their opponents with an attack that led to a penalty, off which Handre Pollard collected three points. But the English onslaught was far from over and the Springbok defence was leaking badly. Once again, England built up pressure through ten phases of play that took them over the Springbok 22-metre line. The defence had lost its shape and cohesion and England knew it. Another series of neat passes down the backline released Elliot Daly, who sliced through the defence like a game knife carving through fresh Springbok biltong.
‘Another beautifully constructed England try,’ announced the local television commentator grudgingly.
Silence settled over the stadium, followed by some muted applause from the stunned home crowd. The fans had been sold the idea of a fresh start for Springbok rugby, but it appeared they would be getting a bruising defeat with a side order of humiliation instead.
The try was converted easily and the scoreboard broadcast the shame to anyone brave enough to look up: 17–3 to the visitors with over an hour left to play.
This was not the start that Siya or Rassie wanted. This untested Springbok team was now facing overwhelming odds, and England were fired up. The hits just kept on coming.
England won some more possession following a breakdown on the halfway line. The flyhalf, George Ford, looked up and to his right where he spotted Jonny May charging down the wing. He floated a perfect high pass that left three Springbok defenders flat-footed. May collected in one easy motion and charged forward before flipping an inside pass to the captain, Owen Farrell, who seemed genuinely surprised at how much space he had and cantered over easily for England’s third try.
Twenty-one points down in the first quarter of the match. One-way traffic. The Springboks were embarrassed, avoiding eye contact and unsure of how to respond.
Siya gathered his players together behind the posts for a team talk. As they waited for England to convert two more points, he spoke to the team, trying to calm them down and get them to remember why they were out there and what they were trying to do. He wasn’t the type of captain known for his passionate speeches, preferring to lead by example, but he understood this was a moment that required firm leadership. Time was still on their side if they began the turnaround right then.
The overworked scoreboard ticked up again, registering 24 points to 3.
What the team needed was for someone to step up and announce themselves. To create a special moment that would revive the team’s confidence. Slowly, they began to develop an attacking position down the right wing … winger Sbu Nkosi charged hard at the England defence, going down just metres from the corner flag. The ball popped out of the ruck and Faf de Klerk waited a few seconds before picking it up. Looking around, he saw the England lock Maro Itoje lose his footing and tumble to the ground, creating a small gap. De Klerk burst through and hurled himself towards the try line just a few metres away. With two pairs of strong arms trying to hold him back, he managed to wriggle free and strain forwards to score the Springboks’ first try. Now it was 24–8, and a sense of relief rolled across the stadium like thunder from a Highveld storm.
Sbu Nkosi could feel the relief. He was making his debut for the Boks that day. Having grown up in the small town of Barberton, Nkosi had left home at the end of Grade 9 to attend one of South Africa’s legendary rugby schools, Jeppe High School for Boys in Johannesburg. He was having an excellent season for the Sharks, which had led to his inclusion in the South African squad.
In the 29th minute of the game, Nkosi was prowling on the wing, waiting for an opportunity, when he saw Faf de Klerk break with the ball, then find Damian de Allende, who beat his man. Sbu accelerated towards the line and gathered the perfect pass, but he was being hustled hard towards the touchline, so he dropped the ball onto his right foot, punted it gently forward over the try line, and chased hard. Daly, the England fullback, came charging in at speed but overshot the ball and it bobbled enticingly in the end zone for Nkosi, who just managed to drop a hand on it and score his first try for the Boks.
‘I thought he’d made the wrong decision,’ said the commentator. ‘He kicked it a little bit far, the bounce was a bit fortunate … followed up well … there’s no doubt he’s grounded it and that is a super try for Sbu Nkosi.’
Just like that, it was a different game. The momentum had swung 180 degrees. The Springboks had found their belief again and wild horses could not keep them out. In the 33rd minute, Sbu Nkosi combined with another debutant, Aphiwe Dyantyi, to go over the line for a beautiful third try. Dyantyi’s meteoric rise was one of the stories of the season. He had been long considered too small, and had basically given up on rugby until he went to the University of Johannesburg, where his star began to rise and rise.
From feeling like they were down and out, suddenly the Boks were back to within four points of the lead. It was England’s turn to look shell-shocked.
The relief in the stadium turned to excitement and then transformed again into real belief that the Boks could come back and win this thing.
Faf de Klerk was having the game of his life. Two minutes before half-time he picked up from the base of the scrum, accelerated, and combined with Pollard, who offloaded a long pass to fullback Willie le Roux. Nkosi was right there in support in case he was needed, but Le Roux had transformed into a freight train, crashing over the line to score. From being down 24–3 and out of it, the Springboks went into half-time 29–27 ahead.
It’s not hard to imagine that the half-time talk Rassie Erasmus delivered was very different to what it would have been 15 minutes earlier.
After the heart-stopping drama of the first half, the second half resembled a normal game of rugby. Advantage swung back and forth between the two teams and it was unclear which side was going to stamp its authority on the game. Pollard added another three points via a penalty before England’s big prop Mako Vunipola was sent off for a late hit on Faf de Klerk, and the Springboks seized the advantage.
Ten metres from the try line, Siya picked up the ball from the ruck and drove hard, making valuable ground and pulling defenders with him, inching closer and closer to the try line. It was a powerful charge from the captain, and the crowd willed him forward. Again, Faf de Klerk managed to keep it alive, finding RG Snyman, who in turn passed to Aphiwe Dyantyi, who fumbled the ball before grasping it gratefully and diving over into the corner. There was pandemonium in the stadium, but at 39 points to 32 the result was still up in the air before another penalty extended the Springbok advantage.
With ten minutes left to play, England scored one last try and the game was poised yet again, at 42–39, but as the clock ran down, the Springboks hung on for dear life.
It had taken everything out of them, and it could easily have gone the other way, but they had bounced back to record a famous victory for the new captain, the new coach and the long-suffering Springbok fans.
In a lifetime spent on the rugby field, this was surely the greatest high that Siya Kolisi had ever experienced. After a win like this, anything felt possible.
2
The Early Days
In May 1995, when Siya was almost four years old, the third Rugby World Cup, hosted by South Africa, kicked off with unprecedented excitement and fanfare. The Springboks had been barred from playing in the first two editions of the tournament due to the apartheid-era sports boycott, but this was a new era of reconciliation and nation-building and the country was eager to host a major global sporting event. The first democratic elections, held in April 1994, had been a great success and South Africa felt like a country reborn.
Everything and anything felt possible in 1995, even in a place like Zwide, a flat and dusty township on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth, where the apartheid government’s utter disdain for the residents, along with a chronic lack of investment, social services and opportunity, had stranded the people in a seemingly endless cycle of poverty and unemployment.
Sport was a relief and a distraction from these bleak conditions. While soccer was the only game that mattered in most parts of the country, rugby was the prestige game in this part of the Eastern Cape, and the communities of Port Elizabeth were proud of their non-racial rugby history and the quality of their teams, such as the African Bombers and Spring Rose.
Siyamthanda Kolisi was born at Zwide’s Dora Nginza Hospital on 16 June 1991, the son of Fezakele Kolisi and Phakama Qasana. Phakama was only a schoolgirl of 16 when she had her baby, and was unable to meet the demands of caring for a child. So, the decision was made that Siyamthanda would go to live with Nolulamile Kolisi, his grandmother on his father’s side, in Mthembu Street.
Money was desperately tight. Hunger and poverty stalked the streets of Zwide. The two-roomed house where Siya and his grandmother lived was cold during the winter and boiling hot in summer. The roof leaked when it rained, and when the wind blew through the streets, curtains of sand settled everywhere.
‘Sometimes I wouldn’t eat, but my gran would go to a friend and bring back a slice of bread for me,’ Kolisi told journalist Angus Powers in a feature story, ‘African Bomber: The True Story of Siya Kolisi’. ‘Sometimes she wouldn’t eat for a while, because whatever she got she gave to us.’
Every day, his grandmother made the long journey to the lush suburbs where she had a job as a domestic worker. Life was hard, and people longed for a distraction and some good news. The 1995 World Cup was perfectly poised to deliver exactly that.
Siya was too young to understand the rules of the game, or the impact that the young All Blacks winger Jonah Lomu was about to make. But when New Zealand lined up against Ireland in one of the first games in Group C, he wasn’t too young to understand the power of the haka, the pre-match challenge that every All Blacks team lays down to its opponents just before the whistle.
Siya was transfixed, and immediately began to learn how to do the haka, together with a group of neighbourhood friends. ‘Each time I returned from work, he would wait for me at the gate and demonstrate how the haka was performed,’ his father told the Weekend Post many years later.
When the Springboks won that tournament, it was a turning point for the game in South Africa. The fact that Nelson Mandela donned the Springbok jersey and threw his reputation behind the team opened the floodgates, and the celebrations that swept the nation after the victory in the World Cup final were felt in every community. For the first time, the national team was embraced by the black majority, and the popularity of rugby soared.
Around the time of the World Cup, Siya’s father moved to Cape Town to look for more regular work. It was a tough blow for a child already living with the absence of his mother. One of the things that the father passed on to his son was an early love of the game. Fezakele had played centre when he was younger, and many of the men in the family were rugby players. He liked to speak to Siya about his playing days, and also about his father, Jan, who had been a respected flanker in his time but had died at the age of 36.
Siya’s grandmother enrolled him at the local school, Ntyatyambo Primary. Although it was poor and lacking resources, the school took good care of its pupils, and young Siya fitted in easily with the other children from the neighbourhood, learning to read and write and being promoted with his grade. It’s safe to say that school was a sanctuary from the instability and poverty that confronted Siya at every turn.
On the nights when their electricity was cut off due to non-payment, Siya would take his homework out into the street and crouch under the streetlights to see what he was doing. When there was no food for dinner, he would drink extra glasses of water just to fill his stomach. There was a constant, low-level anxiety around where the next meal was coming from, and in his immediate environment many children responded to hunger with depression, anger or violence.
Siya didn’t have his own bedroom, so every night he would take a pair of cushions off the sofa to make up a little bed next to the front door, where he slept. He had to sleep lightly in case an aunt or uncle came barging in late at night and the door smacked him on the head. In the mornings, he would pick up the cushions and remake the sofa before heading off to school.
There were seldom grown-ups around to look after Siya. His grandmother left early for the city, his mother appeared only occasionally, and his father was away in Cape Town for long stretches of time. Siya was left unsupervised as a child, and he was simply forced to make his own way in the world. ‘I was very poor. I had no toys,’ he remembered. ‘I used to use a brick and pretend it was a car. But, sjoe, I would drive that brick. It was the best thing ever.’
Like most young children living in poverty in South African townships, there is very little documented about Siya’s early life. How did Siya first become aware of the African Bombers? Probably through his father. How did he join the club and begin to play with them? It’s hard to know. Perhaps one sunny afternoon when Siya was ten years old, he decided not to go straight home after school. After all, there was nobody waiting for him, and there was nothing to do. Perhaps he set off down Koyana Street, past the roundabout and along the long, grey concrete wall covered with fading advertisements for artists and mechanics, plumbers, painters and other services.
If a game was on, then he would have heard a loud cheer from behind the concrete wall and looked up just in time to see a rugby ball flying through the air and hitting one of the faded white rugby goalposts that peeked over the wall. As the cheers turned to groans, Siya would have been drawn towards the action, wanting to find out more.
Carrying on walking until he found a small hole in the fence around the Ndzondelelo High School sports fields, Siya would have been small enough to squeeze through the gap, past the schoolboys sharing a smoke at the bottom of the field, and to keep on going until finally he came round the corner and spotted the gate into the Dan Qeqe Stadium.
Climbing up the dirt embankment around the pitch, Siya would have looked down onto the green rugby field to see the African Bombers senior team playing a full-contact practice match. Edging closer, he would have seen the players whipping the ball down the backline and running towards the opposition.
If a voice had begun shouting instructions, he would have turned to see the Bombers coach, Eric Songwiqi, down on the touchline watching the game so intently that he didn’t even notice the young child nearby.
If the ball went rolling down the embankment, Siya would have jumped to his feet to fetch it and run it over to the coach.
Perhaps Eric thanked him and asked a few questions about who he was and where he went to school. One thing we know for sure: when Eric saw the passion for the game in Siya’s eyes, he suggested that he should come and join the junior Bombers for their next practice.
The African Bombers are a legendary rugby club in the area. Founded in 1954, the club managed to keep playing rugby all through the apartheid years and turning out players of incredible quality, despite the fact that there was no chance of their having a career in rugby. They did it for the love of the game.
All age groups were represented at African Bombers. Players could join the club at Under-11 level and then move up through the ranks from Under-13 to Under-15 and all the way up to the senior levels. It was an impressive rugby organisation with a proud history, and it was all run on a shoestring budget.
Eric didn’t need to ask twice. From the very next practice, Siya was the first to arrive and the last to leave. He worked hard and he was open to taking direction from the coach. Among the boys in the team, there was one in particular who impressed Siya. His name was Zolani Faku, the team’s hooker, and Siya was fairly certain that he’d never seen a stronger kid than Zolani. Siya was still quite small and slight, and when he had the misfortune to be tackled by Zolani in practice, it was something he remembered for a very long time. But when he scrummed alongside him, it felt like his team was unstoppable.
Eric noticed the connection between Siya and Zolani early on, and he often paired them up, watching with pleasure as they brought out the best in one another. He also gave Siya an old pair of rugby boots to train in. Those boots meant the world to Siya and he wore them as often as he could.
After a few weeks of training, Eric decided to find out more about Siya, so he accompanied him on his walk home and tried to learn more about his life outside of rugby. Siya was a bit vague with his answers, but Eric could tell that there was not a lot of structure in his life. Slowly, he was able to get Siya to open up.
Eric’s day job was as principal at Emsengeni Primary School, and he had a strong feeling that Siya would flourish in that environment. ‘I could see the destiny in sport of Siya,’ Eric told an interviewer in 2018, ‘from the time he was a young boy.’ He suggested to Siya that perhaps he should ask his guardians if he could transfer from Ntyatyambo Primary to Emsengeni Primary. That way, he reasoned, he would be able to keep a closer eye on the youngster and help him develop as a player and as a person.
It’s easy to imagine the suggestion as just a throwaway comment from an adult to a child, but it had profound implications for Siya. He seized on the offer like a lifeline in the middle of a stormy ocean. An adult that he really respected had made a suggestion and shown him a path, and he wasn’t about to let it go. He ran home as fast as he could to tell his grandmother the news.
Eric had assumed that Siya would enrol at the beginning of the new school year. He didn’t expect the boy to show up at Emsengeni Primary the very next day.
But if enthusiasm was one of the traits that Eric was looking for, then Siya had it by the bucketload, and this kind of commitment was something that Eric liked to honour in the children that he worked with. It took a few days to complete the paperwork, and for Siya’s father to come over and register him for the new school, but by the end of the week, Siya had transferred to Emsengeni Primary School and, in so doing, changed the course of his life.
3
The Journey Begins
Siya slipped on his shiny black school shoes and tugged his grey trousers down as far as they could go. The trousers were too short and he didn’t want everyone to know that he wasn’t wearing socks because he didn’t own any. The shoes had been passed down from a neighbour who had outgrown them long ago, and his grandmother had spent so long polishing them that they looked practically new.
Siya had learned quickly that the teachers at Emsengeni Primary were strict about uniform: white-collared shirt, dark green jersey and long grey trousers for the boys, and mustard-yellow dress over a crisp white shirt and long green socks for the girls – with no exceptions.
Siya was 12 years old when he entered Emsengeni Primary in 2003. Coming into Grade 6 as a new boy wasn’t easy. Siya had to catch up quickly with the higher standard of schoolwork, adapt to the new environment at the school, and try to make new friends. There were nearly 700 children at Emsengeni and many of them had been there since Grade 1, so their friendships were already well established. But they were very accepting of him, and Siya gradually settled in.
He was keen to show what he could do on the rugby field, but the school ‘field’ was barren and hard, made up of red dirt that was scattered with pebbles and surrounded by a high wire fence. Anything more than touch rugby on this surface was only for the foolish or the very brave. There was a real incentive to learn how to avoid tackles, because if you had the misfortune to fall on the unforgiving surface, then there was a good chance that your uniform would be ruined and you would go home covered in blood.
Luckily, the field wasn’t the only place to play at Emsengeni. There was a small patch of thick grass that ran between the classroom blocks, with two large trees at either end. This was where the rugby-crazy boys gathered to play, dashing around, kicking and chasing a soft ball, and getting into rolling mauls that would carry on and on until the bell rang to signal the end of break.
Those early games of break-time rugby gave Siya a way to make some friends. One of the Grade 6 boys, Phaphama Hoyi, also played with Siya at African Bombers. Everyone who watched him play thought he was a rising star. He was lightning fast, had great hands, and possessed a wicked sidestep that he used to get out of trouble easily. He often left Siya grasping at thin air as he dodged past him to score.
Emsengeni was the most fun and nurturing environment that Siya had ever experienced, and he thrived during that year at the primary school. ‘He loved to laugh,’ recalls Lulama Magxaki, one of his teachers, ‘but I could never hear what he was saying. He just spoke quietly and made those around him laugh.’
One of the most important changes in Siya’s life was the introduction of the national school feeding scheme. In 2002, the government introduced a programme to provide a basic meal to every student at a no-fee school across South Africa, without exception. It’s hard to exaggerate the significance of this development for Siya, and for so many children like him, who had only known life on the poverty line. Feeling secure in the knowledge that he would eat a meal at school at least once a day was a profound change for him.
If there was nothing to eat for breakfast at home, then he would count down the minutes to first break at 10.30, when a plate of chicken with samp or rice would be served to each of the learners at the school. Of course, on its own this wasn’t nearly enough for a growing boy, but it was better than nothing, and there certainly were days when that meal at school was the only proper meal he would eat. All over Zwide, on a daily basis, people were struggling to get by. Yet, despite the poverty, people would readily share what little they had. Zwide could be a very tough environment, but there were also tremendous acts of selflessness and generosity between neighbours every single day.
Nolulamile Kolisi had lived a hard life. She had had to fight for everything in a world where the odds were stacked against her. Siya would have been too young to understand that her health was fragile and that she was carrying a burden too heavy for her to bear much longer.
His life finally had some direction, and Siya had found a father figure in Eric Songwiqi. Aside from his advice on the rugby field, Eric kept an eye on Siya and made sure that he was all right. ‘This was a disciplined boy, dedicated to what he was doing,’ said Eric. He could see an open-heartedness and a willingness to trust in Siya that was so genuine and heartfelt that it was impossible to ignore. Siya was hungry to improve himself, and it showed in everything that he did.
Not everyone remembers Siya as having a passion for rugby. One of his teachers laughs when she tells how she sometimes used to find him hiding in the boys’ bathroom on cold days before rugby practice. She used to tear a switch from a nearby tree and threaten to beat any boys who weren’t out on the field in a few minutes’ time. With that kind of persuasion, attendance at games and at practice was high … and with a coach like Eric Songwiqi to motivate them, the boys of Zwide township improved fast.
Many of them were playing for both the school team and the African Bombers junior teams. Sometimes there were games for the school team in the morning, and then club games in the afternoon.
It was a lot to handle but Siya didn’t mind at all. In fact, he thrived on it. The instability of his home life had given him a longing for order and for clarity of purpose. He loved being part of a team, where he knew exactly what his role was, what the rules were, and that he could trust his team-mates.
While Eric played a pivotal role as a mentor and coach, the other members of the team were just as important. They were Siya’s tribe, and he wasn’t about to let them down. He wasn’t the biggest player or the fastest player on the team, but he adapted quickly. Siya learned how to read the game, to contribute to the team effort, and ways to play strategically that set him apart from the players who were bigger and faster than him.
Siya’s talent shone through right from the beginning. Eric spotted it and submitted the boy’s name as one of the players for the Eastern Province Under-12 Interprovincial tournament.
Rugby was quickly becoming the most important part of Siya’s life. Passion for the game was widespread across Zwide. The small concrete grandstand at Dan Qeqe Stadium would fill up with spectators in the hours before a match. People would come to eat and drink, catch up with friends, and talk about the issues of the day. By the time the game began, they would be happy and excited and vocal in their support and opinions about the teams involved.
Siya loved the atmosphere in the stadium. The biggest game of the season was always against the Bombers’ arch-rivals, Spring Rose, from New Brighton. When these two giants clashed, the stands would be packed and the fans would discuss the game for hours on end – before, during and after.
The big games at Dan Qeqe Stadium were occasions when Siya might see his father. If Fezakele was in town, he would probably attend a match, so Siya would keep an eye out for him. If he was there, they would sit together and comment on the action, and these were rare and precious times when Siya could really bond with his father.
4
Everything Changes
Vincent Mai was born in 1940 in the farming district of Cradock. As a boy, he was sent off to Port Elizabeth to attend Grey High School and fell in love with the game of rugby. He did well enough at school to win a place at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he continued to play rugby and earned a degree in accountancy.
In 1964, Vincent moved to London and embarked on a stellar career as a merchant banker on both sides of the Atlantic. But his heart remained in the Eastern Cape and with his high school, so as soon as he could, Vincent Mai established a bursary for underprivileged children to gain the opportunity to attend The Grey, as the school is affectionately known.
Vincent Mai’s generosity and vision would have a profound effect on Siya’s life.
In late 2003, that bursary plan began to take shape. Andrew Hayidakis was the senior sports master at Grey Junior. He was pleased when he found out that the school board and the principal were going ahead with the plan to bring in the first batch of ‘development kids’, as they were being called. A trio of boys from the underprivileged communities around Port Elizabeth would be offered rugby scholarships to attend Grey Junior School for a year.
If the boys were successful at Grey, then there would be an option for them to continue into the adjoining high school, but for now they were just going to get the programme off the ground and see how it went. The school was looking at Andrew, as the Under-13 ‘A’ rugby coach, to make some recommendations for players. He probably had more interactions with the communities of Zwide, Kwazakele and Kwamagxaki than did the staff from the arts and sciences faculties because rugby was so popular in this part of the country and Grey Junior played against many school rugby teams.
‘Sir!’ shouted a column of young boys in perfect unison, as they marched past in single file across the quadrangle. Andrew nodded and gave the traditional reply … ‘Boys!’ They were all dressed in white shirts and shorts on their way to cricket practice. Andrew imagined it would be nice to have boys from different backgrounds in the social mix at Grey High School. It would be good for everyone, he decided.
Andrew knew exactly whom he would call in order to make this happen. Every time the Grey rugby teams played against teams coached by Eric Songwiqi, Andrew was impressed by the way they played the game and by the discipline that the boys displayed, both on and off the field. He picked up the phone and got hold of Eric in his office at Emsengeni Primary School.
They chatted for a while, and Andrew explained about the new programme and what Grey would be offering. Eric told him about some of the players he was coaching. After comparing their schedules, they realised that they would both be at the Eastern Province Interprovincial Under-12 trials in Mossel Bay in a few weeks’ time. This was where Andrew would get a look at the boys that Eric had in mind.
When assistant coach Gary Carter arrived for a staff meeting, Andrew rang off and turned his attention back to the upcoming rugby tour to their old rivals, Grey College in Bloemfontein.
