KES vs Jeppe is a proper derby

It was the great screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, who said that if you repeat something you have written yourself and published before, it’s not plagiarism.

He was talking about common expressions that have been repeated, quite often sometimes, in his TV series and movies. I’m a big fan and they were great lines, worthy of the repetition, I thought.

So I, not that I can compare myself to Sorkin in any way, am going to do the same and rehash a piece that I wrote before.

It’s about the top school rugby derbies – and it’s relevant this week because the whole North Eastern side of Joburg is in a tizzy ahead of Saturday’s game between Jeppe and KES. And I guess it’s the same in South of Cape Town where SACS will be hosting Bishops this weekend.

Here’s how I started it:

Some time last year one of the school sport websites ran a poll asking its readers to name what they saw as the biggest schoolboy rugby derbies in the country.

Not surprisingly, the Paarl derby – Paarl Gimnasium v Paarl Boys’ High – came out tops. Second was K-Day, the Grahamstown clash between St Andrew’s College and Kingswood, and third was Jeppe v King Edward.

I’ve been never been to K-Day, although I have been fortunate to attend the Paarl inter-schools game, and I’m off to Jeppe this morning to watch another KES-Jeppe encounter – I guess I’ve been to just about every one of them in the last 20 years.

My views will always be biased, based on personal experience, and I suspect that the Grahamstown derby was elevated in importance by the volume of votes cast in the poll by old boys of the schools involved.

There is simply nothing like that game in Paarl. The entire town is either blue or maroon, even the trees are bandaged in the colours of the respective schools and the buildup to the game runs for weeks beforehand. It is played at the town stadium, which is always filled to capacity.

In my experience, the second biggest local derby is Pretoria Boys’ High v Affies. It’s a derby in the purest form of the term – between schools that share a fence line, more of that later. There’s a tribal intensity to it and the results down the years have shown that playing record going into the game is not necessarily an indicator of what’s going to happen on the day.

Oddly, the Pretoria derby doesn’t make the top five in the poll, maybe that’s because the website didn’t have too many Afrikaans-speaking readers to vote for it.

And third is today’s clash (KES vs Jeppe). This is (was then) the 79^th time the match has been played and, if anything, it’s getting bigger year by year. There isn’t the close proximity of schools that you get in Pretoria, but it’s similar to the Paarl game in the traditional socio-economic status of the communities involved.

Things have changed over the years and schools no longer draw pupils from their immediate surroundings, but the Paarl schools, in the past, were referred to as “onder-dorp” and “bo-dorp”: upper and lower town, the wine farmers vs the townsfolk. There’s a conflict there that adds spice to the encounter.

Similarly, today’s clash is Houghton v Jeppestown, Northern v Southern Joburg. The fact that the boys now come from all over town, and many of the rugby players from all over the country, notwithstanding. The contrast in origins is something the old boys like to shout about – in a nice way – and it makes for a great occasion.

I then went on to explain the origin of the term “derby game" and how it comes from Liverpool. The Everton v Liverpool football match was the original derby game. It was first played in 1894 and called the derby because the clubs were located on opposite ends of Stanley Park – the estate of the Earl of Derby.

The Liverpool derby

On that basis, King Edward vs St John’s is a better derby, as was Jeppe v Athlone, in the days when the Bez Valley School was a rugby powerhouse. Grey College v Paul Roos Gimnasium – cited by many as the biggest derby of all – is not a derby game at all.

But, KES and Jeppe are neighbors – no question - and it’s going to be standing room only at Jeppe on Saturday. You won’t witness more commitment from the players in any other sporting event in town. You can’t argue with that.

The Jeppe vs KES derby

The top five derbies listed in that poll were: 1 Paarl Gimnasium vs Paarl Boys High,2 Kingswood College vs St Andrew’s College, 3 KES vs Jeppe, 4 Bishops vs Rondebosch, 5 Hilton vs Michaelhouse.