Is it a picture of an antelope or an apartheid symbol so evocative that it should be filed away in a dusty cabinet along with the ‘k†word? How you feel about the Springbok emblem tends to depend on the colour of your skin and that, as the secretary general of the African National Congress reminded us this week, is what the new South Africa is all about.
Various parliamentary committees have tried over the years to consign the Springbok emblem to the dustbin of history, and only rugby has an official dispensation to retain it.
The latest attempt to bring rugby into line with the rest of the nation’s sporting codes came at the beginning of the new season and, given the dismal showing by the national side in 2003, even a few pale-skinned South Africans thought scrapping the Springbok wasn’t a bad idea.
But once again the Springbok survived and, glory be, under a new coach the national side started winning again. So next week South Africa will take the field in Gosford, New South Wales, with a new jersey bearing a new Springbok logo and with a new major sponsorship on the verge of being signed, sealed and delivered. Which just goes to show why marketing departments love the Springbok: players and coaches may come and go, but the brand goes from strength to strength.
The new jersey is courtesy of Canterbury, the New Zealand-based sports clothing company having committed R135-million over five-and-a-half years for the privilege. Canterbury’s design should be toasted with brandy and coke by portly South Africans the world over, who had to stay indoors rather than allow themselves to be seen in its figure-hugging predecessor.
Three years from now, when the build-up to the 2007 World Cup repeats the high and low points of Ruugby World Cup (RWC) 2003, we will look back and wonder who on earth allowed Nike to send rugby players on to the field in shirts that would have found unsightly bulges on Kate Moss. By contrast the Canterbury redesign, with only a so-called ‘Chinese collar†to upset the purists, looks startlingly like a proper rugby jersey.
The Springbok logo is virtually unchanged from its predecessor, which will come as a relief to many. There had been talk of putting the King Protea on one side and the Springbok on the other, to identify the fact that the former is a national symbol with non-racial connotations, the very opposite of the latter.
Also unchanged is the central advert for Castle Lager that caused such a stink when it first appeared in 2001. Hitherto the sponsor’s logo had been discreetly hidden, but big money buys big space and so the jersey was dragged kicking and screaming into the new millennium.
What’s interesting is that the Castle Lager logo may not see out the year, which will mean another redesign for Canterbury. The reason is twofold: SABMiller — the brewer of Castle Lager — has grown disenchanted with the Springbok brand and Sasol is believed to be on the verge of taking over the title sponsorship. If the Sasol deal goes through it will be the first time since readmission that the Springboks have not carried an endorsement for an alcoholic beverage.
The relationship between the brewer and South African rugby became strained last year during the build-up to the World Cup. Due to a loophole in the RWC advertising rules Nike, the clothing manufacturer, could put its ‘Swoosh†all over the place, but Castle was banned. SA Rugby did little to appease its major sponsor and with 2003 going down as the worst year of all for the Springboks, any product aligned closely to the national team found itself guilty by association.
There was talk that SABMiller would continue its 12-year investment with significantly reduced remuneration, but the emergence of Sasol as a stalking horse seems to have put an end to that possibility. Sasol is known to be favouring a five-year sponsorship worth R125-million, which, along with the Canterbury deal, would suggest that there’s life in the old Bok yet.
Given the somewhat conspicuous debut at the highest level last week of the new Pacific Islanders team, the first thing Canterbury is likely to check is whether you can get bloodstains out of the new Springbok jersey.
The Wallabies were walloped black and blue by the composite team in Adelaide last week and any thoughts of next Saturday’s game in Gosford between the Islanders and the Boks being regarded as a friendly have been tossed firmly out of the window.
The main reason that the Islanders concept had never been tried before was because it was assumed that the Fijians, Tongans and Samoans would hate each other more than they hated the opposition.
Yet, with just a couple of state games as a warm up, they gelled into a unit that appeared —from the outside at least — to have the all for one, one for all spirit in spades.
Maybe there is a lesson for South Africa here: stop the obsession with race and get on with the game.