No bad hair days for rugby-mad Oom Bennie
Bennie Botes won’t reveal his age but lets slip he has been cropping, fading and layering rugby players’ and fans’ hair for more than four decades in Johannesburg.
Upon entering his barber shop at the Palm Centre in Newlands, unsuspecting visitors might be forgiven for thinking they had stepped into rugby heaven.
Springbok blazers, signed provincial jerseys, countless team pictures and scores of rugby balls adorn the walls along with other memorabilia.
“On April 28 I will have been at this address for 17 years. My previous shop was in the suburb De la Rey for 30 years,” he said on Friday. “I have been cutting hair for 47 years, but time flies when you do something you really love.”
One thing is immediately clear he loves rugby. “I don’t have space to display all the rugby memorabilia I have collected over the years. What you see here are just the ears of the hippo.”
His favourite items?
“I have more than 40 Springbok blazers and several signed jerseys of players whose hair I cut. These include people like Hennie le Roux, Japie Mulder, Ian MacDonald and even Kobus Wiese,” he said.
But there is a special place of pride for one item. “When Sir Donald Currie came to South Africa he had what we now know as the Currie Cup made. They used the shape of an old fireman’s helmet for the centrepiece of the trophy. Here is that original helmet they used,” he says proudly, showing off his pièce de résistance.
Botes was born and raised on a farm in Groblersdal, Limpopo.
Customer John Maloney, 50, from Krugersdorp was not shy to disclose his age.
“Oom Bennie has been cutting my hair since I was about four or five. My late father would have been 80 this year. He was a customer long before he brought me to Oom Bennie,” he said.
“If you look in the chairs now you will see my 18year-old sons Patrick and Jordan. They are third generation customers here. Isn’t that incredible?”