Fencing may have originated with the European aristocracy, but now it is flourishing in Mamelodi township
FENCING: Julian Drew
NOT so many years ago no black man without the speed of Hezekiel Sepeng would have ventured on to the Pretoria University campus inquiring whether he could join in with the sporting activities. A slower individual would have risked being lynched. But in 1993 when an inquisitive Ephrahim Mabena popped his head into a Tukkies sports hall his action gave birth to one of South Africa’s more remarkable sports development initiatives.
A martial arts exponent who had received one hard blow too many, Mabena was on his way home from a nearby kick boxing club when curiosity got the better of him. “I was tired of violent sports and wanted to try something new. I wanted to introduce some different sports into Mamelodi and I just went to see what sports they were doing at Tukkies,” says Mabena.
Gerhard Rudolph was the rather surprised athlete who explained to Mabena that the strange sport he saw in the hall that night was called fencing. That conversation was the beginning of an unusually fruitful relationship. “I asked Gerhard if I could comeback and try it next week but he said, `Never mind next week. Try it now!’ He gave me an pe and that was it. I was hooked,” says Mabena.
He returned to Mamelodi and began work with a vengeance. “I didn’t know how to develop sport but I knew I had to start somewhere,” says Mabena. He is perhaps being a little modest when he says that for he has been instrumental in establishing a karate club and three aerobics clubs in Mamelodi which are all thriving.
“I recruited a few boys from karate and other sports and said `Look guys, here’s an opportunity, why not give this sport a chance?’ Fortunately some of them listened to me and they’ve done very well.”
Things were not easy at first as Rudolph and Mabena experimented with different strategies to get fencing off the ground in Mamelodi. It was only when Mabena got permission to use the old beer hall in Mamelodi that things began to happen. The beer hall has been converted into a community sports facility and one hall now serves fencing and Mabena’s aerobics club.
“The better fencers come to Tukkies on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I go there on Sundays. On some of the other days they coach the little ones and it seems to be working relatively well,” says Rudolph.
Relatively well is a considerable understatement. At February’s national junior championships fencers from Mamelodi took first, fourth and fifth positions in the pe competition from a field of around 70 fencers from all over South Africa.
“I think everybody was surprised because they didn’t expect to see a black guy win the South African championships. At all the tournaments we go to we are the only black guys competing,” says gold medallist Reggie Bopape.
Bopape, along with Mpho Nkoane (fifth), Godfrey Zitha (sixth) and Ronald Dube, were all invited to Cape Town for this week’s world championships and although they didn’t make the South African senior team the experience will serve them well.
While Dube may not have reached the heights of the other three – at 21 he is out of the junior ranks and finished 15th at the senior championships this year – he has the attitude to ensure that fencing continues to flourish. He has recently done his referee’s course because he “can’t be a fencer forever” and wants to be part of fencing “in a bigger sense. You can’t just do a sport and then keep what you’ve learnt to yourself. You have to give something back.”
Fortunately that cycle is already happening with the coaching lessons Dube and his colleagues are giving to the younger fencers.
In August they are hoping to hold a fencing marathon, visiting as many schools as possible in a day to give demonstrations and try to entice new members to the club – although they are still seeking sponsors for the exercise. “We need to attract more people to fencing because not everyone can be Bafana Bafana. If people get to know other sports then they have a choice and maybe they can become Amafancyfancy,” says Dube of the Mamelodi fencers’ name for their fancy new sport.
According to Rudolph there is no shortage of potential in Mamelodi. “We’ve got a lot of good little ones who are about nine or 10 years old and it is incredible how much talent they have. So many of them have fantastic co-ordination and a real knack for the sport.”
The only thing holding back progression is lack of equipment which is very costly. The basics cost about R750 per fencer excluding footwear with top-of-the-range equipment closer to the R5 000 mark. “A lot of the kit is sponsored by the South African Fencing Association (Safa) and myself and Tukkies have donated our old kit.”
Recognising the success story in Mamelodi the National Sports Council has given Safa a R70 000 grant for this year and around R30 000 of that will go on equipment for the Mamelodi project.
Although the origins of fencing as a sport lie with the European aristocracy and even today it is still regarded as something of an elite, white sport, the progress of the Mamelodi fencers should not be a complete surprise. Olympic pe champion Laura Flessel of France learnt to fence in Guadeloupe in the Caribbean before moving to Paris and many Cuban and several American fencers have also shown that the sport holds no barriers except for the provision of opportunity.
“The Germans have told me that their biokinetics specialists actually believe that for foil and sabre black people as a whole tend to show above average potential,” says Rudolph. Ironically Rudolph would appear to be teaching the wrong weapon but because it is cheaper and also quicker to get results in pe with older fencers, Rudolph has focused his efforts there to “expand the base quickly”.
Both Bopape and Nkoane went with the South African senior squad to train in Germany recently and are looking to break into the senior ranks soon, but for Mabena the breaks have been less kind. A hand injury from work has curtailed his involvement in the sport to a large degree but for the man who started the ball rolling there is no bitterness.
“My main aim was to see that these boys could become coaches and keep the sport going. Today I feel I can rest in peace knowing that fencing has a healthy future in Mamelodi,” says Mabena. If there were any awards for sports development – a much talked about but little practised phenomenon in South Africa – one feels that Mabena and Rudolph would be at the front of the queue.
ENDS