Rugby junkie
Nino Messina, a winner of last week's Absa BokTown competition, gives us a fan's view!
Hey….do you remember the hairs on the back of your neck tingling and rising when our Tata Madiba walked out at Ellis park with Francois Pienaar's jersey on at the legendary 95 World Cup?
Then when your heart seized as Captain Laurie Kay goosed the Stadium with his Jumbo Rainbow Nation Flag
And eventually that famous Joel Stransky penalty sailing like Sinbad into our smiles?
Hell yeah…of course you do. These are just a few the things that fuel the fires that thrill us South African Rugby crazies and pump our adrenalin , the stuff that dreams are born from and futures founded.
I know they bit me young…my first memories of Dad waking us up with Coffee to watch those 4am games against New Zealand on that little Box with the picture…not quite understanding how all those men fitted in that box and not quite being able to comprehend that what we were watching was happening at the same time faaaaaaar faaaaaaar away across the sea.
Me travelling, a mere eight summers old, on my lonesome nogal, on the Train from Somerset West to Cape Town to meet my dad straight from work, to watch my Streeptruie crunch the marauders from up north, even changing at Salt River to take the link to Newlands…to watch Carel Du Plessis , Divan, Hennie and the boys go to battle, us brats banging on the hoardings louder than you could ever know…then flooding the field for autographs and maybe a lucky touch of our heroes, me scooping a sod of turf and dragging it home in a Simba packet to plant in my garden so that I could have a piece of it for myself.
It's the kind of fire that never dies, and every so often it's re-ignited in classic fashion, like walking into Boktown and being sorgeously assaulted by that sea of Green and Gold…yowzzzzers…this "Soutie" had a taste of Boktown behind the Boerewors curtain (Thank you Rugby365.com) at The Barnyard Theatre, at Willowbridge in TygerValley, CPT, and how cool was that…
This was no rough and tumble free for all as one stumbles across so often.
Tthis was Gramps, Grans, Moms, Dads and laaities all bankvas in an awesome venue, the tensions sizzling like a Rump on the Braai.
The vibe amongst the fans was rather muffled in the first half as the Boks leopard crawled through an unlikely minefield, with the Klippies and Castles not quite kicked in yet.
Lluckily sanity prevailed and as the Boys hit their straps in the 2nd half the Mojo rose and the crowd
hit their own straps.
Bok-Jock "Strangling his Bagpipes" to add a wee bit of Scottish spice …us Souties dressed up to the twelves and got some good gees goin.
Ok, so maybe the Afrikaans fans take it all a bit more serious, their Bok Jerseys on their backs all they need to spice them up, and that's okay, it all comes together doesn't it, all the different vibes melt so smoothly into the Buzz.
So hell yeah, good vibes, some fun and Prizes, some Legends of Rugby, a stadiums worth of passion and ultimately a Bok win – no matter if it was ugly.
When your Green and gold makes you smile none of that matters. We all just remember the Passion and the Fire burns on.
