Johann Barnard: Tennis chief who put SA centre court
1928-2014
JOHANN Barnard, who has died in Cape Town at the age of 86, was in charge of South African tennis during its golden years in the 1980s.
He became president of the South African Tennis Union in 1986 and led it in the negotiations that created a nonracial, unified body, Tennis South Africa, in 1991. For 10 years before becoming president of the national body, he served on the union’s council as chairman of Western Province tennis.
Under his leadership at both provincial and national level, tennis became a major sport in South Africa. It developed an infrastructure that was worldclass and produced world-class players.
He implemented strict financial controls, strengthened the club system, organised a highly effective grassroots structure at school level all over the country and made sure there were properly trained coaches and officials to run it.
He also started the Super Squad system that provided opportunities for talented young players to make their way into the world rankings.
It was no coincidence that while he held top leadership positions in South African tennis, the country produced a plethora of brilliant young players, including Christo van Rensburg, Amanda Coetzer, Wayne Ferreira, Pietie Norval and Neil Broad. During that period, six South African players were in the world top 20 and Danie Visser and Pieter Aldrich were the top-ranked doubles players in the world.
Although individual stars who turned professional played internationally, South Africa was not allowed to participate in the Davis Cup and Federation Cup and was suspended from the International Tennis Federation.
In spite of this, Barnard had a worldwide reputation as an ethical and outstanding sports administrator. He was well known, popular and hugely respected in international tennis. He was welcomed at meetings of the international body and an
Under his leadership, tennis developed an infrastructure that was world-class
honorary member of the All England Tennis Club for 20 years. He had two centre-court seats at Wimbledon, which he retained until he died.
He never relinquished his dream that, one day, South African tennis would be unified and readmitted to the interna- tional fold. In 1989, he met with the international federation in Buenos Aires to plead the case for South African tennis, but in spite of a stirring and roundly applauded speech he went home disappointed.
He had to wait another two years before his dream became reality in 1991. South Africa’s readmission was symbolised by its hosting of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) world doubles finals in November of that year.
By that time, he had led the South African union through an extremely tough negotiation process that produced a new constitution and unity. When the ATP finals were held in Johannesburg, he was no longer president, having made way for Chris Ngcobo to become president of Tennis South Africa.
Ngcobo, who immediately paid himself a generous salary for a job that Barnard had done for nothing (he even paid his own travelling expenses), was soon mired in allegations of corruption. It took five years for most of what Barnard had built over the best part of 20 years to unravel. He was deeply anguished but not bitter. At least the country itself was still standing, he said.
Barnard was born on January 30 1928 in Bloemhof in the Free State. He matriculated at Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool, better known as Affies, in Pretoria before studying for a BA LLB at Stellenbosch University. He played provincial tennis for Boland and Northern Transvaal.
He practised as an advocate specialising in water law before joining Tollgate Holdings in 1968. He became its CEO in 1982. He took early retirement in 1989 after new owners bought the company and took it in a direction with which he strongly disagreed. In 1992, Tollgate Holdings collapsed with debts of R400-million.
Barnard died after suffering a stroke. He is survived by his second wife, Margie (née Hunt), a former Springbok and Wimbledon tennis player whom he married in 1976, and two children by his first wife. — Chris Barron