Varsity Cup - efficient but not really satisfying

There's a fence outside the bar, under the pavilion at the Wits Rugby Club where I, and a good few other long-time supporters, have been watching Wits teams play for the last 40-odd years, or more.

That area is a no-go during Varsity Cup games. Try to stand there and the security will move you along - there's a sign they point you to saying you aren't allowed there and that's it.

That's an example, for me, of what's gone wrong in recent years with sport, including rugby.

Now, the Varsity Cup is a great competition, it breathed new life into club rugby, provided an alternate route into the professional game for players who didn’t shine as juniors and never went to the Craven Week and, most importantly, it made rugby accessible and popular among young black people.

Sadly, however, the competition lost its soul a bit when the unions began to see it as another feeder competition for their pro teams and sharp practices began to be uncovered. Some of the loopholes were closed, but it really isn’t the pure inter-varsity competition it was conceptualised to be anymore.

Still, I’m a Wits supporter, and I go along to their home games. I’m fortunate to have VIP tickets now and I’m well looked after, but I can’t stand in my spot of 40 years at the fence outside the bar any more.

Which brings me back to my point. I’ve been re-reading John McKnight and Peter Block’s The Abundant Community, which bemoans the way that communities have been replaced by systems and citizens are now consumers. It’s all driven by those who look for ways to make money out of us and while system living more efficient than community life, it isn’t satisfying. In fact we are intentionally kept dissatisfied, if we were ever satisfied we would stop buying. So they lie to us, and make false promises.

A feature of abundant communities are voluntary associations. The local sports club is one those. Wits Rugby Club is a type of community. The boys along the fenceline don’t live in the neighbourhood, but they are all associated – they are former players, alumni, parents of current or ex-players etc. We know each other by sight and some are friends, even if it’s only at Wits home games.

I’m thrilled, of course, that Wits did so well in the Varsity Cup this year. They were a shoe-in for the knockout phase when it was all brought to a halt by Covid-19, having beaten UCT, Tuks, UJ and Pukke and would have been great to see how they measured up against the mighty Maties.

For the fence community results are not the only thing, though. If they were we wouldn’t have carried on watching during some pretty lean years at the club. In fact, the only time we weren’t there was when rugby disappeared completely at the university at one stage. But we came back when it was revived thanks, among others, to the efforts of some wealthy old boys, a few of whom were regulars at the fence.

The Varsity Cup is brilliantly run. It’s well marketed and glitzy and a great night of boozy entertainment for the residential students. It’s a system, geared to consumers and the rugby is exciting and entertaining.

It’s efficient for sure, but for those who see Wits Rugby club as their community – and I’m certain there are similar old fogeys at the other varsities around the country too – it’s not entirely satisfying.

I’m wondering if, post Covid-19, when the money is less and big crowds are undesirable, we won’t see a resurgence of club rugby as a less efficient but more satisfying concept.

You can get The Abundant Community on takealot.com, when they start delivering books again.