The behaviour of some South African All Blacks fans at the Cape Town Stadium welcome event shamed themselves and the team they claim to love.
The Cape Crusaders’ decision to support the All Blacks is rooted in history that deserves genuine respect and understanding, but what a vocal section of them produced at Cape Town Stadium on Friday had nothing to do with history, and everything to do with something considerably uglier.
Let me be direct from the outset. I hold no particular grievance with South Africans who support New Zealand. The reasons are well-documented and historically grounded. During apartheid, the Springboks represented the state that oppressed coloured and black South Africans.
The All Blacks, in the minds of many in the Western Cape, represented something different; a team of mixed heritage that stood apart from the dominant white Afrikaner sporting identity. That support passed from father to child, from grandmother to grandchild. Sport support is often inherited before it is chosen. I understand that completely.
What I cannot understand is what happened at that stadium.
WHAT ACTUALLY TOOK PLACE
SA Rugby hosted a public ‘Welcome to country’ event for the touring All Blacks. Tickets were free and the event was open to all. On stage stood MC Aden Thomas, SA Rugby president Mark Alexander, CEO Rian Oberholzer, City of Cape Town deputy mayor and former Springbok Eddie Andrews, alongside All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie and tour captain Codie Taylor.
A substantial crowd of Cape Crusaders attended. And then it started.
The remarks directed at Thomas, Alexander, Andrews and Oberholzer from sections of the crowd were, by multiple accounts from journalists positioned between the stage and the stands, vile.
Alexander was shouted at, interrupted and called names during his welcoming speech. Fans demanded he leave the stage. The mere mention of the Springboks prompted cursing. When the South African Youth Choir sang the word “iBokoboko,” sections of the crowd booed. Springbok supporters in the crowd faced hostility simply for wearing green and gold.
Meanwhile, sections of the crowd also draped themselves in actual New Zealand national flags, not All Blacks rugby flags, but the sovereign flag of another country. They attempted to sing the New Zealand national anthem and performed tongue-out Haka gestures. Cape Town, they chanted, was the All Blacks’ home town.
Even Rennie and Taylor appeared visibly uncomfortable. That says everything.
After the speeches, the media conducted sideline interviews with Rennie, Taylor and lock Sam Darry right next to the stage, standard procedure at events like these. Meanwhile, the rest of the All Blacks squad interacted with the crowd and fired t-shirts into the stands. The middle section in front of the interview area complained loudly that the media were blocking their chances of catching t-shirts. Some swore directly at journalists for simply doing their jobs in a location chosen by the All Blacks themselves, not by the media. That detail might seem minor, but it captures something essential about the mood on the day.
THE CAPE CRUSADERS’ HISTORICAL ARGUMENT HAS LIMITS
The apartheid-era justification for supporting the All Blacks is legitimate, up to a point. But it has boundaries.
New Zealand’s relationship with apartheid South Africa was far from heroic. The All Blacks toured here in 1976 while the Soweto uprising was happening. The Springboks toured New Zealand in 1981, dividing that country severely. New Zealand toured here again in 1986. During those tours, Māori players were classified as “honorary whites” to gain entry to apartheid South Africa, a humiliation that New Zealand Rugby consented to.
The idea that New Zealand stood as a morally superior alternative to the apartheid sporting establishment is considerably more complicated than the popular narrative suggests.
More importantly, 31 years of democratic rugby have produced Siya Kolisi as the Springboks’ first black captain, four World Cup titles, all while Rassie Erasmus has built a squad and a culture that reflects the country in a way that simply did not exist before. Whatever the historical grievances – and they are real – this Springbok team is not the team of the apartheid era. Treating it as such is a choice, not an argument. And that choice is ignorance over overwhelming evidence.
Of course there are also South Africans of every background who grew up within apartheid’s rugby structures and faced genuine racial prejudice that continues today. That is a legitimate reason to feel ambivalent. But ambivalence is not the same as what was on display in Cape Town.
THIS RUGBY RIVALRY IN GENERAL AND THIS TOUR IN PARTICULAR DESERVE BETTER
Nobody is required to support the Springboks. Supporting any team is a personal choice. That is not the point.
The point is that you can support the All Blacks without booing a national youth choir for singing the word “iBokoboko.” You can cheer for New Zealand without screaming abuse at the SA Rugby president during his own event. You can wear black without draping yourself in another nation’s sovereign flag and treating fellow South Africans like enemies on their own soil.
In short, there is a difference between inherited support and manufactured antagonism, and what happened at Cape Town Stadium fell firmly into the second category.
There is a difference in supporting the All Blacks and aggressively performing hostility toward South African officials, South African institutions and fellow South Africans in a public space designed to celebrate rugby.
What happened on Friday was far from a celebration. It was an – admittedly small – group of people performing hostility for its own sake, and directing much of it at the very stakeholders who were there to give their beloved team a proper welcome.
Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry deserves better than that. The All Blacks, to their credit, seemed to know it. Rennie and Taylor looked uncomfortable for a reason.
Support who you like. That is your right. But the Cape Crusaders must own their behaviour. Friday was not rugby’s greatest rivalry. It was something considerably less dignified than that.
Discussion about this post