Rugby beats football any day of the week

Growing up in and going to school in Highlands North, Johannesburg, meant playing rugby and football seven days a week. Rugby practices were straight after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays with matches being played either Wednesday afternoon or Saturday mornings.

Football practices were also held on a Tuesday and Thursday but in the late afternoons. We played our matches on a Saturday either at Balfour Park or at some hostile away ground. In between, and every free afternoon or spare moment we had, the guys would go down to Hilson Park for pick-up football games.

Because my late dad was a fanatical Northern Transvaal (rugby, cricket and soccer) supporter, I grew up following the Blue Bulls, Northerns cricket and Arcadia Shepherds. Sport, rather than TV games, movies and all the rest dominated your life. I remember as a young boy, even before high school, playing one on one with Ari Soldatos, the guy who later became a referee, in his driveway. We were all fanatics.

I clearly remember a day at Highlands High when David Marshall, not sure where he is now, asked me who I supported in English football. I was about 13 years old and knew nothing about the game over there so I asked him who played in the black and whites of Arcadia.

“Derby County” was the name given to me and which has signalled 34 years of undying loyalty to the Rams, even though I seem to spend my life being ridiculed by primarily Manchester United supporters.

Yet that support has opened many doors with fans across the world. Every night I check my mails on the Derby mailing list and trade punches with our fans from as many countries as you can think of. Two of them you’ll probably get to know through these columns – Paul Swindell and Nick Wheat or “Wheaty” and “Swin”, who put up with a ton of abuse while I was writing for the Derby Evening Telegraph.

In 1992 and 1995 when I was still doing work as a civil attorney I had the fortune to travel to England for two syndicates at Lloyds of London, and used the opportunity to go to see the Rams on several occasions.

On each visit to the Baseball Ground (they now play at Pride Park) I was treated like royalty by the directors. Michael Dunford, who later went on to the board at Everton, and I hit it off right away. And of course football started me in journalism with my dark humour finding a home among the English supporters.

While football has given me many friendships and opportunities, my favourite sport now would have to be rugby.

Grudgingly at first I had to bring myself to admit that the rugby guys are a cut above. As the marketing manager for the South African Rugby Legends Association, I have had the opportunity of meeting a great many of the Springboks as well as forming a long distance friendship with Will “Hell Toupe” Carling, formerly of England. I help this lad promote his site Rucku.com.

This has afforded me the opportunity of working with Jake White, whose blog I co-write, John Allan, CEO of SARLA (former hooker Scotland and South Africa) and Gavin Varejes the president, who Jake refers to as ‘consistent’.

The biggest compliment anyone can pay you is to be called consistent — Gavin is unerringly friendly and the most charitable guy I’ve ever met. He never complains even when Man. United lose and Derby win, which is like saying when the Jurassic Age reappears. Through SARLA, with its dedication to charity, no less than 35 000 kids from the underprivileged areas have been through clinics. This is done in the main by former Springboks who give of their time freely and willingly.

This is where rugby has soccer beat hands down. While footballers are involved in scandals almost daily, never seem to earn enough, which almost bankrupted half of English Football at a stage, and seem reluctant to get involved in anything outside of their required tasks, rugby players are the exact opposite.

They seem less self absorbed and far easier to approach when it comes to charitable causes. SARLA has not only run clinics, but also helps players who have been seriously injured or are having hard times, and it is now in the process of putting up Legacy Parks aimed at uplifting the street children of South Africa.

You will be hearing a lot more of these because over the next few years they will be countrywide.

It is an honour to be working with all these former Springboks, even if there are too many Manchester United supporters among them. Soccer in South Africa and even worldwide could learn a lesson from the time and effort put into charitable work by rugby players.

The proceeds of my book are going to be donated by SARLA to the underprivileged children of South Africa.

As Gavin often says, sport is the great unifier of our nation. This is why whenever I see our non-white players racing down the wings being cheered on raucously by jam-packed stadiums, the overwhelming majority of whom are Afrikaners, that I believe that racism is not inherent in South Africans.

The Afrikaans community, like all the rest, are just feeling their way in their new surroundings and sport is uniting us all, while politicians often drive wedges between us. Jump down their throats whenever they meddle in our sports.

Although the way things are going now our kids will be telling their kids that TV games are a great unifier!

Heaven help us.