I don’t keep a diary. I think I can remember dates, and then I don’t, losing them almost as soon as I hang up.
I get reminded of meetings and press conferences by Whatsapp and email by concerned editors and confused PRs, the former who know me too well, and the latter who can’t understand how I would pass up the opportunity to interview the CEO of the company who are sponsoring a fishing competition in Dullstroom.
A few weeks ago I sent an email to Human Resources. I remembered them telling me I had to take some leave. The call came the day before we buried my brother three months ago. The person was most apologetic about calling, but she had to put in dates before 10am or I would lose the leave. I don’t take leave often. I don’t often feel the need to. I couldn’t think of dates I would like to take leave. I couldn’t think of much. She said she would put down some dates for me.
In that email a few weeks ago, I asked Human Resources when I was supposed to start my enforced leave. “Two weeks ago,” came the reply. Oh. But they are an accommodating lot here at Indy newspapers and after brief negotiations, my time away will start, conveniently enough, on the opening day of the Rugby World Cup. I don’t think I have ever been off during a World Cup. I was a sports editor in 1999, although I attended the last few weeks of the tournament. I was in Australia in 2003, France in 2007 and New Zealand in 2011. I have seen the Springboks at their best and their worst, from the nadir of 2003 to the rush of 2007 and the daftness of 2011.
There are sharp memories of each of the tournaments. In Australia, the paranoia had set in to Rudolf Straeuli’s team well before we took off. In the Bok team rooms in their various hotels, they would print out copies of stories about Boks published on South African websites. It was a them-against-us mentality. A secretary on tour with the Boks had been given the task of finding what the SA media were saying about the Boks. A piece I wrote suggesting that if Straeuli wanted to drop Corné Krige, he had enough strength in depth was jazzed up by an excitable sports editor and given the headline: “Krige to be dropped”. At the presser the next day, the Bok media man told me I was in trouble and “to ride the storm” and Straeuli told everyone there I knew nothing about loose forward play. The Boks cancelled two press conferences because of that piece.
In France, we became Paris locals, spending all but two weeks in the capital. The Boks were a friendlier, more relaxed lot under Jake White and John Smit. Interaction with them was easy. We shared a hotel with them in Lens, where Gurthrö Steenkamp bought me a beer as we compared the life of a journalist with that of a hack, and spoke about the prices of Apple laptops. My abiding memories are off the matches, the slugfest against Samoa, the dismantling of England, the stutter against Tonga in Lens and JP Pietersen’s tackle against Fiji. In Marseille, we watched New Zealand lose to France on a big screen on a floating stage in the old port.
I think it was then that the Springboks began to believe they could win. The next day Fiji reminded them that nothing is won until it is won.
Wellington became my favourite of all cities in 2011. I had fallen in love before leaving, and perhaps that made everything brighter and lighter. A good friend, Greg Davis, had a heart attack and died when I was in New Zealand.
He was a good man.
Today would have been my brother Brian’s birthday. We would have been the same age. Our ages overlapped because there was just an 11 month gap between us. I’m sure he would have watched the World Cup at the Keg in Benoni, his happy place. On Friday, I will start my leave. I may be a confused soul for the World Cup, and I may slip into the slippery slope of fandom. You will find me in front of TVs most days, possibly down at the Radium Beer Hall, Giles, the Jolly Roger or perhaps, even the Parkview Bowls Club. You may even see me wear a Bok jersey now and then, although I am reticent about wearing national team colours as I don’t believe I have earned them. Still, maybe this once I may try the jersey on for feel.
It’s going to be a very different six weeks for me.