The Herald reports

Class is the problem for South Africa and Scotland
Doug Gillon on Wednesday

Listening as the Springbok team sing their unique anthem reminds us what a remarkable nation is South Africa. Five languages blend to embrace Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrica and the once-hated (by the black majority) Die Stem. Yet from roots as opposite as, er, black and white, they are now united, and stand just one match from regaining rugby's World Cup. However, this may be their last chance for decades.

Because from next year their government will step up affirmative action. They insist representative sports teams, like those of rugby and cricket, currently overwhelmingly white, must be two-thirds black in future. More than 79% of the population is black, with 9% white, 9% coloured and the remaining 2.5% or so Asian.

Yet there's not one black player in the current South African rugby squad. There are two of mixed race, wingers Bryan Habana and Jon- Paul Pietersen. But no ethnic black South African. Where will this leave the Springboks next year, when two-thirds must be black?

A pushover, somewhere between Tonga and Japan?

How long it will take to develop and nurture black players is anyone's guess. At least as long as it would take to populate two-thirds of the Scottish rugby team with players from Wester Hailes, Niddrie, Easterhouse, Castlemilk and other working-class housing schemes.

The process would likely be equally painful and discordant. Imagine the wrath and outrage if Scottish players of greater ability were excluded because they were insufficiently "working-class", and the team was overwhelmed while such better players were sidelined.

Imagine potential repercussions. With only five white players on the pitch at one time, in this professional era could we rule out an exodus of disenfranchised South Africans to other countries? Even such as Habana would be subject to the quota. Rugby could replicate the Zola Budd era of 1984, when Budd was denied the right to represent her country by the boycott. She defected to Britain and ran in the Olympics.

Preposterous hypothesis? How many Kenyan athletes have become economic migrants, representing other countries, because there are too many good athletes at home and they can't all get a chance?

Bitterness in South Africa would be intense. This, after all, is where exclusion from global sport helped end apartheid. Thankfully so, but ironically, policies of the political party which emerged victorious seem about to ensure that, for a while at least, a self-inflicted form of sporting apartheid will be visited on South Africa. They will be part of the game, but no longer at the highest level. This is no way to promote harmony.

Yet it's a moot point whether the issues for rugby in both South Africa and Scotland stem from racial or class differences. Rugby in South Africa is played in elite schools.

It's worth noting some of the alumni of the school in Johannesburg which Habana attended, King Edward VII. They include four knights of the British realm, three South African cabinet ministers, three Anglican bishops, several artists and authors, golfer Gary Player, footballer Richard Gough, and a slew of international sportsmen and women in cricket, swimming, water polo, squash, and hockey. Plus 170 men capped for the Springboks. Hardly your standard state school.

Until black South Africans - who are hardly devoid of athleticism - are educated in schools where they have sporting opportunities and facilities, then they will struggle to gain representation on national teams.

And that is little different from Scotland. Players from the Borders, and pupils attending Scottish public schools, for long comprised the nucleus of the Scotland national XV. Demographically, that represents around 4% of Scotland's population. In the Borders, the game traditionally traversed the full social spectrum, but not elsewhere.

So Scottish rugby has been overly dependent on independent schools, to its detriment. That's something the Scottish Rugby Union has been attempting to address, with some success. During the current World Cup, the starting line-up has comprised nine players with state school backgrounds, three from private schools, and three exiles.

But despite its missionary work, the sport is still handicapped by the lack of access in state secondaries, of which there are 393 in Scotland. The latest SRU survey (327 returns) shows 52% playing curricular rugby, with a further 4% playing extra- curricular rugby, and 53% of schools having at least one team.

These figures hint at inverse snobbery - schools encouraged to offer rugby, but won't, because they believe it's "a toffs' sport". There's anecdotal evidence to support this.

Colin Thomson, the SRU head of community rugby, believes the social apartheid which once prevailed in Scotland is much less evident.

"A significant problem is the lack of facilities - pitches - and the lack of properly trained coaches."

A Borderer, Thomson hasn't seen evidence of inverted snobbery.

He points to Glasgow programmes in the East End, Drumchapel and Govan, plus Edinburgh's Wester Hailes, all traditional, working-class, football strongholds. This will take time to impact on national teams.

But will South Africa really pour rugby resources into its black townships?

12:58am today



By DOUG GILLON, Athletics Correspondent

note from Ed--Doug Gillon a product of George Watsons whose rugby career ended prematurely due to injury-he then went on to an athletics career with Edinburgh Uni and Victoria Park AAC

This article was originally posted on 17-Oct-2007, 07:37 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 17-Oct-2007, 14:48.