At Home on the Hawthornden - Thoughts from a Shooting Stick

Sunrise over Wynberg's Hawthornden Field

The 2012 rugby season certainly tested the stamina of the Wynberg supporters. Downpours and howling north-west gales were a feature of many of our games during last winter. Spectators huddling under trees and shredded umbrellas are the lasting memories which will remain with our regular supporters.

The first match of the 2013 season against Rondebosch last Saturday couldn’t have been more different - it was a windless , balmy sunny Autumn day which showed Table Mountain off in imposing splendour. ‘Typical Wynberg,’ a Rondebosch parent quipped to me. ‘You have laid on this view deliberately to break the concentration of our boys ...’

Again we had spectators huddling under trees – but this time for shade ...

I spent the morning perched on my shooting stick watching a number of games from various vantage points. The shooting stick fascinated one of the Grade Eight’s.

‘What is it?’ he queried, studying it intently. On being told, he asked, ’But how does it shoot?’

I stood up and showed him the point. ‘From there,’ I said, ‘I zap out little lazers if I see any Wynberg boys with their hands in the pockets or looking untidy.’

‘Wow!’ he said.

A little later he returned with a group of his fellows – but they kept a safe distance (out of lazer range, presumably). I watched him out of the corner of my eye demonstrating to his fellow 13 year olds how the shooting stick worked. If only our discipline at school was always as easy as this.

Supporters under shade ...

Sitting on a shooting stick is not dissimilar to driving a car back home from school with teenagers in the back seat. Oblivious to the (invisible) driver, detailed and fervent conversations about life at school take place. Any incoming Grade 7 parent who wants to know what Wynberg is really like should drive a group of current Wynberg boys home ...

I seemed to be equally invisible on my shooting stick and enjoyed the fascinating conversations around me almost as much as watching the rugby. I was sitting between the Silverhurst A and B Fields and the comments about the two referees were flying. It seemed that the general opinion was that the one referee had distinct bovine ancestry where sight had long since been bred out, while the referee on the other field had the misfortune of not having his parents married when he was born.

I moved to another field.

There, after a time, I was equally invisible. It did not take me long to realise that there are many similarities between Rondebosch and Wynberg. Apart from the obvious one that we are both schools for boys, the main point under discussion amongst parents from both schools was that a common feature of all school coaches is an inability to spot talent in lower sides. Coincidentally, in every case, there seemed to be some blood relative involved.

I wonder how many articles I have written over the years extolling the true reason why we play sport at school? I keep hammering home the point that it is not played for the benefit or the glory of the school or the egos of the coaches, or the ambitions of the parents – it is played for the benefit of the players.

Whatever the level of the schoolboy player, we want him to learn the lessons of sport – because they are lessons of life. In the end, these lessons will develop confidence and self esteem and he will learn, as a young sportsman, that bitterness and sweetness are opposite sides of the same coin.

In my coaching experience, boys who learn the virtue of fighting back against disappointment early on in the school careers are the ones who are lucky enough to be mentored by parents who hammer home the commitment to hard work and the premise that sport, and life, is not always fair.

I am often asked in various circles whether a top sporting boy at Wynberg will ‘make it’. I always give the same answer. ‘Too early to tell,’ I reply. ‘He is burdened with much talent and we still have to see how he copes with inevitable disappointment.’

KCR's advice to parents

As he advances through high school, the young sportsman soon realizes that the natural ability which carried him through Junior School is no longer enough. As the competition becomes keener, those players start coming to the fore who were lucky enough to learn these lessons early in their school lives.

I was pondering on these thoughts, when two boys who said that they had played for the u14B walked past me. ‘How did you go?’, I asked.

‘We won,’ said the first boy.

‘No, we didn’t,’ said the other. ‘We lost.’ I doubted that there would have been such indecision amongst the spectators. I saw the coach, Jaco Stofberg, later. ‘We lost 12 – 7,’ he said regretfully.

Clearly, one of his team had been too engrossed in the game to worry about the result! I remember reading years ago an article by the multiple Grand Slam tennis champion, Billie-Jean King. ‘When I came back from matches, my parents never asked whether I won or lost – they merely enquired whether I had played my best; whether I had enjoyed the game; whether I was now a better player.’

Now THAT is good parenting. The next step for us is to teach our boys not to give away the result of the game by their body language!

At 10.30, I went to join Rondebosch Headmaster, Shaun Simpson, and my other guests for coffee in the pavilion. There, Linda Sage, first team captain’s mother , had prepared a slap-up tea. As I sat down, my phone buzzed with a message from a neighbour: ‘Dear Mr Richardson. Sorry to worry you, but there is a car parked in my driveway. Can you get the owner to move it?’

'Go Wynberg!'

I looked out onto the fields. I estimated about 4000 spectators and players were milling around the campus. I sms’d back: ‘Call the traffic police.’

The old boys starting pouring in for the first team game – most of them wearing their old boy ties with a variance of garb. One 2012 matric had garish pink shorts, blue shirt, old boy tie - and slip slops. ‘Cool,’ I said to him.

‘Thank you, Sir,’ he replied, pleased at the compliment.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw one of the 2011 matrics. I distinctly remember him telling me in his matric year that only a fascist school would insist on the boys coming to support on Saturdays. He had a democratic right to sleep in on Saturday mornings, he assured me. Clearly he was no longer sleep deprived and he was now asserting his democratic right as an old boy to support the school on a Saturday morning.

‘I miss this place….’ he said wistfully. ‘You should tell the boys at school how much fun it is.’

Oh, yes. I hadn’t thought of that.

Old Boys' Ties: Matthew McWilliams, Matthew Bishop, Thomas Bischoff & Sean Matthew supporting their School

'Men of Wynberg'

At 12.30 we settled down to watch the big game. The Weekend Argus had stated that ‘Wynberg will be fancied on their home turf in front of their vociferous supporters.’ The reporter couldn’t have been disappointed as the team was led on accompanied by the bagpipes of our Scottish Exchange Student, Matthew Horsmann. He was playing ‘Men of Wynberg’ to the tune of ‘Flower of Scotland’ and a bank full of boys roared out their version which would have had the Murrayfield faithful choking on their Tartan Bitter.

The encounter was another uncompromising and hard-fought derby game with an impressive tackle count of the Wynberg boys on their bigger opponents. At 10 – 3 up, the home supporters were praying for that final whistle. It did come – but only after a successful conversion by Rondebosch of their last-gasp try. Honours were even at 10 all.

My hope is every boy has a coach at Wynberg like I once had at school. He used to say to me: ‘Enjoy the next hour. It will never be repeated.’ He was correct. For us, the 2013 home derby day against Rondebosch is now history. There will be similar games in the future – but everyone will be older, playing in different teams and hopefully (if they follow the advice of Billie-Jean King’s parents), much improved.

KCR

'Thanks for the game ..'