Ascension Day - a big schools rugby weekend that's gone now

 

Thursday was Ascension Day – a day of religious significance that was a public holiday in the past but was removed from the calendar at some stage when the number of holidays was reduced.

From a school sport point of view it was an important holiday because it always fell on a Thursday, which made for a long weekend during the second term and a good time to play out of town schools.

KES and Jeppe used to play against Northlands and Durban High School on that weekend alternating between Durban and Joburg. I was the fixtures secretary on the Transvaal Schools committee those days and I remember that there was a standing instruction that KES and Jeppe had to play each other before Ascension Day because they used to share a bus down to Durban and the trip would have been tricky had they not yet met.

At some stage a similar two-school arrangement was started up between Joburg and Durban co-ed schools on that weekend. There were eventually 10 schools from each province involved and it became a festival, sponsored by FNB, and played at a central venue. I was at the newspaper by then and used to report on it. It was quite a big deal. Girls hockey and netball were also played.

The Jeppe and KES double-headers fell away when Northwood (after the merger between Northlands and Beachwood) became too weak.

I’m not sure when the co-ed festival was dropped and I wonder what became of those schools. I think you’d battle to find 20 co-ed schools who play rugby at a decent level between the two cities nowadays.

I’ve been trying to remember who those co-ed schools were, and while some of the Joburg schools – Northcliff, Fourways, Rand Park for example – still play good rugby, others like Sandown, Sandringham and Hyde Park have pretty much fallen by the wayside. I imagine it’s pretty much the same in KZN. I wonder if schools like New Forest, Queensborough, Grosvener and Port Shepstone still play the game at all.

It is, of course, the other side of the professional approach to school sport coin. The top schools in the two cities draw all the talent, often stripping those sorts of schools of the odd good player who might emerge at them. They have little regard for the wasteland that they are creating and justify their actions in the name of rugby excellence and the development of future professional players.

In the meantime, the educational experiences that those boys got out of those weekends have disappeared and the foundations underpinning the game have become narrower.

Happy Ascension Day.