10 of the best in 2019

School closes this week. The interprovincial tournaments for the summer sports begin next weekend, so it’s time to look back over the year and think of the players, teams and events that stood out.

It’s a purely self-indulgent exercise. I used to do it when I was still at the newspaper, and I decided to keep going here after I’d given that up. In those days, when I was travelling about a lot, watching schools sport, I used to limit my list to things that I had actually seen in person. That was useful because I could excuse the glaring omissions that would always occur by saying I wasn’t there.

I don’t have that luxury anymore, so all I can offer is that the following is purely objective. Yes it’s biased towards what I’m familiar with and of course you could easily come up with another 10 as worthy of inclusion if not more so.

It’s just a bit of nostalgia, without much worth.

In no particular order:

Let’s get the hardy perennials out of the way up front.

1 St Benedict’s won the boys trophy at the SA Schools Rowing champs at Roodeplaat for the 26^th year in a row in March. Someone will eventually stop them, logic dictates, just don’t ask me who that’s going to be.

2 Just as amazingly, Northcliff High School won the Joburg co-ed schools A league athletics interhigh inter-high Athletics for the 23^rd consecutive year. Again, they say that no team stays unbeaten forever. Apparently no-one has told the Northcliff athletes that.

3 Not in the same class, but starting to put a nice run together is the 1^st hockey team at Jeppe High School for Boys. They won the Aitken Trophy for the fifth year in a row. They were unbeaten for the second year in a row and ended as the top-ranked side in the land.

There were many great individual performances in the year. Here are a couple:

4 Bryce Parsons of King Edward was named the player of the Khaya Majola Week and the SA under-19 cricketer of the year. I don’t think that’s happened before. He also captained the under-19 national side and will probably lead them at the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in the new year.

5 Max Chaumeton’s remarkable school running career came to an end without him ever losing a 1500m race. The Parktown athlete came 28^th in the world at the junior cross-country champs and has represented the country on the track as well, He is clearly an Olympian in the making.

6 St Stithians won the Coke T20 Schools Challenge title for the fourth time. They beat St Charles in the final at Tuks in March.

7 Western Province’s dominance of schools rugby continued. Their Craven Week side thumped the Sharks in the main game of that week, and their B side were so impressive in the same week that there was talk at one stage of the two WP sides being matched in the final. Western Province also won the main games at the u-19 Academy Week and the under-16 Grant Khomo Week.

8 It was impossible not to enjoy watching the 2019 St John’s College rugby team play. They lost to Jeppe by a singe point and drew with King Edward and beat all their other local rivals. In the process they played as if they were really enjoying themselves. No conservative smashing the ball up and playing the phases for them. They gave the ball air and their outside backs scored the tries. It was a breath of fresh air.

9 The OJ Eagles water polo club, representing Central Gauteng, won the water polo national title (the Currie Cup, incidentally) for the fifth year in a row and the 14^th time in the last 19 years.

10 The St Stithians Girls College Water Polo team finished the year unbeaten, They were the top-ranked team and they won five major tournaments: St Anne’s; the Girls Schools Aquatic Champs; the Roedean Prestige Cup the Reef Cup and the St Peter’s tournament.