Mandela effect unites a nation as Boks put the brakes on Jonah
Brendan Gallagher continues his expert and authorative look at the history of Rugby Union
THE 1995 World Cup is a story we never tire of. Nelson Mandela, elected as South Africa’s first president only a year earlier, rises above 20 years of imprisonment by his white oppressors and adopts the Springboks as his team thus sending out a powerful message to the black majority in the rainbow nation who are ‘on show’ to the rest of the world for the five weeks of the tournament. And then the hosts only go and win it! Joy unconfined. Smiles and optimism replace tears and trepidation, at least for a while.
Right from the off – South Africa’s return to the international fold in 1992 against Australia in Cape Town – Mandela made a point of attending Springbok home games whenever possible and took to occasionally dropping in on training in his presidential helicopter. At Cabinet meetings he headed off suggestions from ANC colleagues that the famous Springbok emblem was way too symbolic of the bad old days and should be replaced. Mandela would have no truck with that.
South Africa was a powerhouse rugby nation and their prowess on the playing field a source of much pride to a significant part of the community. Many members of the black and coloured community were also rugby players, albeit disadvantaged and unheralded in former years. There was a bridge that could be built here. Much better surely to be the bigger man, embrace the ‘whiteman’s’ sport, and make the Springboks a source of universal pride. One team one nation.
Mandela quickly formed a close friendship with the Boks’ new young captain Francois Pienaar, a powerful blond, and very Afrikaner, flanker from Northern Transvaal. The cultural and physical contrast could not have been greater, which is one of the reasons why the images of them sharing ultimate victory together after the final against New Zealand at Ellis Park, are so strong and historic. Mandela the excited fan and father figure wearing his replica No.6 Springbok shirt handing the Webb Ellis Cup to a beaming Pienaar. More olive branch than trophy.
“Francois, fantastic support from 63,000 South Africans here today?” SATV anchor-man David van der Sandt said as soon as he could grab the triumphant skipper. Without missing a beat, Pienaar replied: “David, we didn’t have the support of 63,000 South Africans today, we had the support of 42 million South Africans.” The interview was being relayed around the stadium and sparked off the biggest cheer of the day.
“The 1995 World Cup became a story about us, new South Africa finding its identity through sport,” recalls Pienaar. “June 1995 was the moment in time when new South Africa took a long hard look in on itself and president Mandela showed the way towards reconciliation by putting his trust in the Springboks. It was a healing process.
“Before the tournament the South Africa squad were taken to Robben Island and cell 46664 where president Mandela spent so many years. It was an unexpectedly powerful experience and took us all unawares. At one stage I looked over and saw our wing James
Small crying his eyes out. I think we probably all shed a few tears that day but it was a unifying experience.
“On the day of the final, just before we ran out there was a loud knock and in walked Mr Mandela in a South Africa shirt with a Springbok on his heart. He just said a quick ‘good luck boys’ and then when he turned I saw my number was on his back. And that was me gone emotionally; I couldn’t sing the anthem because I knew I would cry.”
The 1995 World Cup is also the moment in history that the sport’s one global superstar took centre stage, one Jonah Lomu who essentially redefined how the game could play, an unstoppable superhero lacking only a cape as he went to work. He was a massive man but also a beautifully balanced runner and, before ill health struck, a seemingly irresistible force of nature.
The son of Tongan immigrants living in the suburbs of Auckland, Lomu was like no other rugby player we had ever seen and with his eye catching haircut and spectacular tries – he scored nine in total in theWorld Cup and made many more – attracted the attention of many outside of the sport itself. The story goes that Rupert Murdoch caught a glimpse of him early in the tournament and decided that whatever it took, this was a player and a sport that needed to be signed up by Newscorp.
Low key meetings with players, administrators and Newcorp officials went on throughout RWC95 and on the eve of the final itself came the announcement of the Tri-Nations and “Super Rugby” Championships by the big three southern hemisphere giants, South Africa, New Zealand and Aus
“Lomu was an unstoppable superhero lacking only a cape as he went to work”
tralia. Rugby Union, de facto, had become a professional game even if it took a couple more months before that was formally acknowledged by the IRB at a special meeting in Paris. If a more united South Africa was the great political legacy of 1995, the arrival of professionalism was the sporting legacy.
The last “amateur” World Cup was a huge success on a commercial level and hinted at what was soon to follow. Watched by 1.1 million spectators with a global accumulated TV audience of
2.38 billion the tournament boasted a gross revenue of £30.3m yielding a net profit of £17.6m. The snowball of success was beginning to roll. With Lomu seemingly unstoppable, New Zealand had been brilliant but largely untested en route to the final, a scenario that was to trip the All Blacks up more than once in their World Cup history. They were favourites but not overwhelmingly so. South Africa were battle hardened, building momentum and there was a very tangible feeling that an unlikely Springbok triumph was actually written in the stars. And there was another factor. The one rugby playing nation who would never be intimidated by a player like Lomu was South Africa. They knew all about brutal physicality and they regarded Lomu as a player to target, not fear.
And that’s exactly what happened. Comparatively lightweight backs like Joost van de Westhuizen and Jappie Mulder fearlessly tackled Lomu and held him up until bigger forwards such as Mark Andrews and that man of steel Ruben Kruger could arrive and add their weight. Lomu was stopped at source, indeed in eight international appearances he never scored a try against South Africa, one of rugby’s more extraordinary statistics.
With Lomu neutered it became an old fashioned arm wrestle between bitter rivals and eventually it was a towering extra-time dropped goal by Joel Stransky that decided the issue and sparked off hundreds of street parties around the country. Very late that night, outside our hotel in Pretoria, the sight of white South African policemen in uniform dancing with the local black inhabitants until daylight was something that would have been utterly unthinkable even five short weeks earlier.
“In the collective memory of this country rugby will always hold a place of pride for the role it played in nation building during those first years of our new democracy,” Mandela told me when I interviewed him in 2002. “Those memorable days in June 1995 when South Africans from all backgrounds and persuasions took to the streets to celebrate a national achievement, commonly embraced, must continue to serve as an inspiration to the current and future generations.
“Rugby players are our role models to the youth of our nation and rugby must not allow that beacon event to fade from our memory. Sport reaches people in ways and to an extent that politics and politicians never can.
“What our years of engineered division did was to obscure from the mainstream public awareness the fact that rugby was once a thriving and vital sport in many black communities. The history of rugby in black communities actually stretches as far back as that of rugby in white communities. Our coming together as a nation freed us to pool those different histories to the benefit of sport nationally.”
Invictus, the Hollywood film that inevitably followed, may have condensed a complicated story rather too much for some tastes but it did capture the feel-good factor of the 1995 World Cup and, of course, the poem itself captured the Mandela imput perfectly. He prevailed and overcame as did the South Africa side he inspired in 1995. It matters not how strait the gate How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.