This weekend Eastern Province (EP) will play Border in the semifinal of the Vodacom Shield. On June 28 Telkom Park will host a Test match between the Springboks and Argentina. Earlier this year the National Lottery allocated R2-million to the Eastern Province Rugby Union (EPRU).
On the surface it seems that all is well in Port Elizabeth, but dig a little deeper and you discover that nothing could be further from the truth.
To take the achievements in order: unlike most of their opponents, EP has not lost a single player to the Super 12 this year. The Vodacom Shield is a new competition for teams not regarded highly enough to compete in the Vodacom Cup. The four teams in the semifinals are effectively playing off for the ‘honour†of competing in the Vodacom Cup next year and the woeful standard of that competition (with a few exceptions) puts EP’s achievement in reaching the last four into harsh perspective.
The Test is seven weeks away, but the union has not yet put tickets on sale. There are some heavy financial guarantees that it needs to pay to SA Rugby and a poor crowd could result in the union making a loss on the event. Oh, and Telkom Park will be called something different by then, because EP’s sponsor of the past five years has ended its relationship with the union.
And as if all the above were not bad enough, the most powerful club in
the province, PE Harlequins, has supporters running around making death threats.
Last Friday bricks were hurled through windows at the homes of former Harlequins and EP flank Laythen Abdul and former Harlequins assistant coach Brian Matthews within 30 minutes of each other. Both joined The Park rugby club earlier this year and have consequently been declared persona non grata by a section of Harlequins supporters.
The EP Herald quoted Park vice-president Kobus Wium as saying: ‘We received several phone calls in which Park supporters and players were threatened with, among others, that the gates would be closed behind them and that they won’t leave the stadium alive.â€
The paper went on to say that Abdul and Matthews believed the ‘grudge
attack†was part of a race-related vendetta against them because they supported anti-apartheid rebel Cheeky Watson in the battle for the province’s presidency and recently joined Park rugby club.
Abdul said Matthews and he suspected the attacks were carried out
either by officials or supporters of their former club or on their behalf. ‘EP rugby must launch an investigation into this incident immediately— ,†an angry Matthews told the EP Herald.
What should really concern the South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) is that these incidents make it very clear that rugby in EP has been split along racial lines. PE Harlequins have carried the torch for coloured rugby in the area for many years. One of their alumni is former EP and now Sharks and Springbok fullback, Ricardo Loubscher. The Park was once the bastion of the hardline Afrikaner, but times have changed.
Abdul said, ‘This again underlines how low EP rugby has sunk. It is no longer a game; it has turned into a war. I am very disappointed that the current EP management does not have the guts to admit that they have problems.
‘Why must I be targeted because I supported Cheeky? Colour should not come into consideration when you choose who to support. I believe that the best man — be he coloured, white, or black — should be picked for a job. I am embarrassed for Harlequins because they are tarnishing the image of the coloured people with actions like these.â€
Abdul’s remarks refer back to the EPRU’s annual general meeting. After four years at the helm it was expected that George Davids would be voted out as president and replaced by Watson, the former junior Springbok wing who raised the ire of the apartheid government by choosing to play his club rugby in the townships.
Watson’s supporters had been told to wear red and observers said that some 70% of the crowd did just that. But when it came time to vote Davids scraped in by the narrowest of margins — one vote — and Stan Terblanche, writing in the EP Herald said, ‘The celebrations that followed the elections were quite an eye-opener, with Davids’s supporters expressing their joy in no uncertain terms.â€
It is believed that racial divisions in the EPRU were among the reasons for Telkom’s decision to end its sponsorship, both of the ground and of the team. There was an outcry in 1998 when the old Boet Erasmus stadium became Telkom Park, but because of poor results and declining attendance it was largely forgotten.
Simultaneously EP became the Callmore Mighty Elephants, which sounds less like a rugby team than an instruction from Tarzan. The Elephants have proved less than mighty, however, and it is difficult not to put their performance into an historical perspective.
In 1993 Eastern Province finished in the top three of the Currie Cup log. Along the way they beat Northern Transvaal 37-15, due in no small part to a master class from Garth Wright, their captain and scrumhalf. Wright had good players around him: Adri Geldenhuys and Frans Erasmus were also Springboks and Willie Meyer, who retired last year, was at the start of a fine career.
The team’s reward for a top three finish was to play in the Super 10 in 1994, the second year of existence for the precursor to the Super 12. That proved to be a bridge too far and they lost heavily in all four of their matches against Otago, North Harbour, Queensland and Transvaal, but the point was that they were in the competition on merit.
It is 10 years since EP were a force to be reckoned with, rather than a minor union capable of the occasional shock result against the big boys. They have produced plenty of good players, mostly through the continued rugby excellence of schools such as Grey and Brandwag, together with the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE).
Former Springbok captain André Vos came through UPE and EP, while Sharks backs Deon Kayser and Wylie Human were both born in Uitenhage and began their provincial careers at EP. And in 2000 Luke Watson, son of Cheeky and now a fully-fledged Super 12 star, also with the Sharks, led the EP team at Craven Week.
Watson captained SA Schools the same year, but three years down the line there have been rumours that EP will not be able to send a team to Craven Week owing to the absence of a principal sponsor.
Davids dismissed these rumours, saying, ‘We haven’t even met with the schools committee yet and I think that is mischief being started by people through the media.
‘We met with the clubs earlier this year and told them that our development budget — which we normally use for the schools — had been cut from R900 000 to R320 000 and that certain projects would either have to be minimised or taken off the scene altogether. But nothing at schools; we did not mention that.â€
Leaving aside the apparent contradictions in that statement, the question that must be asked is what will happen to the R2-million in Lottery money? It was allocated on the understanding that it would be used for rugby development, but Davids says the development budget has to be cut.
The union is in debt to the municipality to the tune of R4,8-million and seemingly has no way of paying that money back.
It is certainly not going to be achieved through selling tickets to EP’s matches. One by one the union has lost its suite-holders over the years and there is just a handful left. Davids says that all the suites have been sold for the Test match, but that is on a once-off basis, with the facilities on hire for the day.
Telkom’s sponsorship may have been regarded as frivolous in some circles, but in one aspect it succeeded hugely. The sponsor was allowed to paint the open stand at Boet Erasmus with one enormous blue and white logo. Every time there is a televised game at the ground the main cameras point straight at the open stand and because there were never more than 100 people sitting there, it was effectively a 90-minute advert for Telkom.
Telkom withdrew its sponsorship at the start of the season and EP has since campaigned in the Vodacom Shield without a logo on their shirts.
Davids says that will soon change: ‘We have got a new sponsor, but unfortunately we can’t announce it yet. Once everything is in place we will do so.â€
The harsh reality of rugby in the professional era is that Darwin’s law pertains: the fit survive, the weak get eaten. EP continues to produce good players on a regular basis, but the union cannot afford to hang on to them. The union hasn’t got money because the team can’t draw a crowd. They can’t draw a crowd because they keep losing. Wealthier unions poach the better players and EP’s results get more lopsided. It’s a vicious circle.
Last year there were rumours that South Africa’s fifth Super 12 franchise would be based in Port Elizabeth. That would have solved most of EP’s problems, but New Zealand refused to sign the agreement to expand the tournament and the earliest that we may have a Super 14 will be 2005. That may be too late. EP rugby is in crisis now: if it is forced to wait much longer it may follow Stellaland and Vaal Triangle into the mists of history.