The Sunday Times yesterday published an exclusive extract from Rise, Springbok captain Siya Kolisi’s autobiography. Today we publish a second extract from his new book.
The choir from my grandmother’s church sang at her funeral, which reminded me of her and all the happy Sundays we’d spent together. My aunt, uncle and cousins were all there, but my dad wasn’t: he was working in Cape Town, eight hours’ drive away, and since he didn’t have a cellphone, no one could get hold of him and tell him what had happened.
No one really paid me much attention, even though everyone knew I’d been her favourite. It was one of those times when as a child the adult world seems a total mystery to you, a different planet with its own laws and language and way of doing things.
After my grandmother died my aunt raised me, and she did a great job. She didn’t take any attitude from me: if I didn’t do chores then I didn’t get fed, simple as that. But I still felt that the one person who’d loved me unconditionally had gone, and without her, Zwide could seem an even scarier place than before.
It was at a time when I was starting to hang out with some kids a bit older than me and doing what they were doing: drinking, smoking weed, sniffing petrol. We’d squeeze five rands’ worth out of the pump, shake it up in a plastic bottle and inhale the fumes. I was only eight or nine, thinking I was tough and just wanting to fit in. If I’d gone much further down that path, I could have ended up a tsotsi, a young criminal, and from there you only have two real options: jail or death. Or both.
It was rugby that saved me. Sport was part of my life for as long as I can remember. I started out playing soccer: like every kid I wanted to be a striker, but soon enough I was moved back to defender and then to goalkeeper. I loved playing goalie, especially in street soccer when I’d dive all over the place and not care that it was hard, compacted earth I was landing on.
We’d play tournaments – well, that’s what we called them, though they weren’t exactly the World Cup – against the kids from another street. The prize money was R5, and for that we’d buy a whole heap of vetkoek. We used bricks for goalposts and could get quite a crowd. Nine times out of 10 the tournaments ended the same way: someone would break a window, we’d all scarper, the adults who’d been watching us would run after us, and we’d all get smacked.
But it wasn’t long before rugby was my thing. In fact, my very first exposure to rugby had been during the 1995 World Cup, when I was just four. It wasn’t the game itself that caught my eye, but rather the haka, the traditional Maori war dance performed by the All Blacks before their matches. To me, it was just another cool dance with lots of chanting, thigh slapping and eye-rolling, and I’d practise it with my friends in the day and perform it for my dad when he came home from work every evening.
For obvious historical reasons, lots of people think that rugby is very much a white sport, but that’s not the case: there are thriving black rugby clubs all over SA, and especially in the Eastern Cape where I lived. There was Spring Rose, which boasted both Solly Tyibilika and Mzwandile Stick: Solly ended up playing eight times for the Springboks, and Mzwandile would be a brilliant sevens player before becoming the Springboks backline coach and helping us win the 2019 World Cup. There was Home Defenders, where my dad had been a pretty decent centre. But Spring Rose and Home Defenders were both too far away for me to get to when I also had to go to school every day, so instead I went to the African Bombers, who were based at Dan Qeqe stadium only a few streets from our house.
He shouted and swore a lot, and if I didn’t do what he told me to then I’d know about it. But I think even then I could tell the difference between adults who yelled because they didn’t care about me and adults who yelled because they did, and I knew Coach Eric fell into the latter category.
The African Bombers had been going more than 40 years, almost since the start of apartheid, even though of course there’d never been any prospect of any players going on to play for SA. Ironically, their colours were green and gold, same as the Springboks, though that was where the similarity ended. The Bombers were run on a shoestring, and it showed. There were places where the pitches were more stone and thorns than grass, the scrum machine looked as though it was a long-dead carcass picked clean by the birds, and loose wires dangled from the floodlights. There wasn’t enough kit to go round, so on matchday when we’d finished our game we’d just peel off our sweaty jerseys and give them to whoever was playing next. It was the same at all the schools, and even as a small kid I told myself that one day when I made it, I’d buy each team their own separate kits.
The first training session was hectic. The coach was called Eric Songwiqi, and I was terrified of him. He shouted and swore a lot, and if I didn’t do what he told me to then I’d know about it. But I think even then I could tell the difference between adults who yelled because they didn’t care about me and adults who yelled because they did, and I knew Coach Eric fell into the latter category. He wanted us to get better and play well, and he knew that some tough love was needed to make that happen.
I finished that first session exhausted, bruised and bleeding, but I walked home on cloud nine. It was the most awesome thing I’d ever done. From that first session I never looked back, and I never smoked weed or sniffed petrol again. I’d go to the club every day after school: I even did my homework at school after class so it was all finished and I could stay at the club as long as I wanted.
We’d train Monday through Thursday, and after our training was done I’d hang around and watch the older age groups do their sessions, all the way up to the senior 1st XV. Friday was the captain’s run, when teams would just do some light preparation and the coaches would stay out of it, and Saturday was matchday, when hundreds of people would come and watch.
If there was a job which needed doing around the club, I’d do it. I became the waterboy for the 1st XV, crouched by the side of the pitch as these huge men – at least they seemed huge to me back then – sprinted, tackled, rucked and mauled just a few feet away. At half-time, I’d hand out the bottles and listen to how they spoke urgently about what they needed to do in the second half, hear how they panted for breath and see how they wiped sweat off their brows with the backs of their hands. The rough concrete stands in Dan Qeqe stadium were full on matchdays, and these men I was standing with were the crowd’s heroes, if only for that afternoon. I dreamed that one day I could be one of them.
This is an edited extract from Rise, R295, HarperCollinsPublishers distributed by NB Publishers.
