Pat Montini dies in Stellenbosch
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:36
Pat Montini, 1956 Springbok, died in Stellenbosch on Tuesday after a long illness. He was 79.
He was one of seven Stellenbosch players on the 1956 tour to Australia and New Zealand, a small centre who said recently: In my day you had to beat a man. Now you just run over him. I was too small to run over him."
Montini played in 11 matches on the 29-match tour. Like several others he was much troubled by injury. Doc Craven said of him that he was too fast for his muscles and as a result suffered from hamstring problems. He played in the two Tests against Australia, both of which the Springboks won though not convincingly, but did not play in any of the four in New Zealand. His centre partner in both Tests was Jeremy Nel.
In New Zealand he played in four matches in a row but played in few after that as injury struck. In three matches he played at flyhalf, kicking a dropped goal against Southland.
Pat, whose father was a compositor at Die Burger, was born in Cape Town and went to school at Jan van Riebeeck where his centre partner was Daantjie Rossouw. Then he worked as an electrician and played for Gardens. He played for Western Province from 1951 to 1957 except for 1954 when he was in Worcester and played for Boland. He then went to Stellenbosch to read law. In 1958 he went to Moorreesburg where he was a salesman of artificial fertiliser for AE&CI and again played for Boland.
He retired at the end of 1959 and bought a farm in Lutzville where he stayed till his two children's were due to go to school. He and his wife sold the farm and moved to Stellenbosch so that Petrie could go to Paul Roos and Michele to Bloemhof. He then sold insurance.
When the children's studies were over he again bought a wine farm in Lutzville where Petrie now farms. In 1999 he retired to Stellenbosch, which he did not enjoy - too many people, too much traffic but by then he had had a stroke and for the last seven months he suffered greatly from a weak heart, suffered two bouts of pneumonia and eventually his death was a relief as he was weak though his mind was still perfectly clear.
Apart from rugby he was a keen golfer, playing off a 9 handicap, and took a great interest in all sport.
Although he was called the Roman or the Italian Afrikaner, he was not of Italian descent. His grandfather came to South Africa from Lugano in Switzerland to work for Fattis & Monis. He spoke eight languages but never managed Afrikaans though he married an Afrikaans-speaking girl in Clanwilliam. Pat's father, Emile, married an Immelman from Porterville. She died when Pat and his brother were young and his father married a German. Pat had a half sister.
In 1955 the Combined Universities toured Italy, France and Britain. In Italy they would read out the players' names and when they read Montini there would be a roar of approval from the crowd for Cardinal Montini was the recently appointed Archbishop of Milan and later would be Pope Paul VI.
Pat's wife says that he had much of the quickness of the Italian temperament but cooking excellent spaghetti and saying buona sera he had no Italian accomplishments.
Patrick Evan Montini was born on 15 June 1929 and died on 26 August 2008. He married Ina (Caterina) Malherbe and they had two children Patrick Petrie Montini who farms in Lutzville and Michelè Smith, a lawyer in Secunda whose husband works at SASOL. His wife and his children survive him. The funeral is on Friday morning at the Moederkerk in Somerset West.
