Golden day in a ‘stolen’ city

By Maeder Osler

The Springboks deserve multiple cheers for their performance last Saturday against a brave Italian side at the Nelson Bay Stadium in Gqeberha (that’s the old Port Elizabeth, for confused colonials). I know this because – surprisingly – I was there too.

I had travelled up from the Western Cape to join my brother Antony and Dirk Fourie, a worker on Poplar Grove Farm, who had travelled down in turn from an icy Karoo. A while ago, Dirk suffered a terrible loss when several members of his family were killed in a car crash (see the ‘fokol sutra’ elsewhere on Toverview), and Antony thought it might do him good to go on an outing away from the farm. It was the first time Dirk had ever seen the sea.

We stayed some 30 kilometres out of town at a place called Sea View, where Dirk had his first taste of the sea. All of us were astounded by the number of people out exercising, from walkers to joggers to cyclists to hang gliders and more – far beyond anything i’ve yet seen in the Western Cape, even along its famed False Bay and Atlantic seaboards. Am amazing sign of a living city. Our hosts were Antony’s daughter Sarah and her charming partner, Sia Gcedezama.

On the day of the match – the second in a two-test series between the Springboks and the Azzurri – we visited the extended Gcedezaba family at Summerstrand, a seaside suburb of Gqeberha, where Dirk did some initial rock fishing with a new-found fishing friend named Yster, and then took a taxi to the magnificent stadium, built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It became a memorable experience – ultimately of transformation in Nelson Mandela Bay.

This metro has been depicted as a ‘stolen city’, mired in corruption, especially during the state capture era, and therefore on a downward spiral. As a result, I half-expected this to be visible in some ways, in forms of neglect and decay, and a relatively small, divided and muted crowd.

My experience on the day was totally different. The stadium was packed to capacity with a diverse, jubilant crowd, in splendid and fun clothing. Everybody, from young to old, seemed totally at ease, and various songs were sung spontaneously amid the Mexican waves.

The announcements through the loudspeakers and the fireworks and other ceremonials were no match for the waves of roars as the teams took to the field, and also during the many highlights.

What a change this was from 1960 when I played in a Natal University team against Rhodes University in a curtain-raiser before a test match in the old Boet Erasmus stadium between the Springboks and the All Blacks. My predominant memory is not about the rugby, but the sad and grim events surrounding the game.

‘Coloured’  and African people were herded into separate, fenced off areas behind the goalposts. As was common at that time, they loudly supported the All Blacks, as a means of demonstrating their opposition to apartheid, to the point where they threw bottles and other missiles at the Springboks when they came within range. Eventually, play was stopped several times, and police laid into these ‘unruly elements’ with batons. It’s an ugly memory that encapsulates everything that was abhorrent about life in South Africa at that time. I believe Boet Erasmus is now derelict, and I can’t say I’m sorry.

So this is why Saturday’s test meant so much to me – after 65 years, that memory has been exorcised, to be replaced with images of a jubilant crowd of people of all races, colours and creeds, all supporting their national team. It also seems to show that, whatever their challenges might be, Gqeberha and its people are alive and well, and not sinking into some post-apartheid dystopia.

·        All that said, it seems Gqeberha’s thieves and pickpockets also had a field day. According to a report in Daily Maverick, at least 100 people had their phones stolen during and after the match, when a concert was held in the stadium. Ah well, you can’t have everything — and Nelson Mandela Bay does have a reputation to uphold …

All photographs supplied by the author.