Ken Borland

Africa is certainly a continent of extremes and millions of her inhabitants have scant resources when it comes to basic necessities we take for granted. The situation is only going to become worse due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And although we all miss the game, not being able to play or watch rugby in this time of crisis is a minor hardship compared to those who are living in poverty, in horribly overcrowded conditions, suffering from malnutrition and a lack of running water.

And we can be proud of our South African rugby community because they certainly get this, and the paycuts they have willingly taken and the number of charitable initiatives they have supported or started themselves shows they are not just champion sportsmen but champion human beings.

It’s amazing how far a simple act of kindness can go and this was rammed home for me recently by the work of the One Cup of Pap initiative.

It all started at the beginning of Lockdown in late March when former Sharks and Stormers lock Wayne Boardman, together with his father and domestic worker, decided to put some money together to feed at least one family in need. It started out as one cup of pap and a sachet of soup being dished out at an informal settlement in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, with a budget of R250 a week.

But seeing desperate people fighting over what little he could give – “We were overwhelmed and the last few people were like hyaenas fighting over the food before it ran out,” Boardman says – he decided to reach out to his friends, local community and his rugby network.

In the last eight weeks, the One Cup of Pap feeding scheme has mushroomed to an R80000-a-week operation, feeding approximately 2000 hungry people with two tons of pap, between 500 and 1000 loaves of bread, and one ton of polony, soup and tinned food.

“We started slowly with not a lot of food, but with the help of a couple of influencers and getting social media full of it, it has grown to a size we never expected. To get one or two big names involved like John Smit and Joel Stransky, who are close to everyone’s hearts, automatically gave us big pull and credibility. Their involvement and that of other Springboks like Trevor Nyakane and Dave von Hoesslin has really seen it grow,” Boardman says.

The project has also spread its reach to areas such as Munsiville in Krugersdorp, Midrand and the Tshuma Stingers development rugby club, Roodepoort and the Feed Thy Kids Creche, the Chilli Lane Community in Sunninghill, the Waste Pickers at Megawatt Park, those living under the bridge at Braamfontein Spruit, Ivory Park and Parkmore. Community involvement is essential because it’s not as if the One Cup of Pap initiative have a census of informal settlement residents to work with when calculating the numbers they need to cater for. The South African Police Services, especially Sandton Police Station, have offered considerable support along with TRSG Security and Security Web.

Stransky is famous for his charitable initiative, the LumoHawk Foundation which specialises in testing the eyesight of underprivileged children and giving them glasses. But with Covid-19 having stopped all testing, Stransky has now taken over sponsoring all the children’s food packs for the One Cup of Pap scheme. “I just want to see these kiddies get a proper education that will prepare them for life and give them hope,” he told Saturday Citizen.

Smit has had his own charitable foundation, Barney’s Army, since 2012 and they have also thrown their weight behind Boardman. “If we all do a little bit then we can make it through this crisis. I’m able to leverage off my profile and I’m sure there are plenty of others doing great work, but we need to highlight everyone doing their bit,” Smit said.

Nyakane, who completed the hat-trick of World Cup winners involved, was moved by the experience.

“Lending a hand has made me realise how poor so many people are, it was a no-brainer to help out and hopefully make a difference in their lives. Every little bit helps and it hit me seeing hundreds of people lining up, all needing a lot of help, even if it’s just shelter and being able to get food. I would urge every South African to just lend a hand, it goes a lot further than you realise,” Nyakane said.

To get in touch with the charity: Wayne Boardman 084 545 1717

Banking details:

A Knowles

Nedbank

1969043962

Rivonia Branch

Ref: One Cup Pap

The Central Gauteng Lions have decided to move away from the prescribed racial constituencies for the election of their board in their AGM on Saturday, because critics say it encourages individuals elected as directors to only focus on their particular segment of the game.

Since the Langa Commission in 2009, which was set up by disgraced Cricket South Africa CEO Gerald Majola as punishment for Gauteng cricket’s role in bringing the bonus scandal to light, the Lions board has had a specific racial composition, with racial voting blocks that meant Black African clubs could only vote for the Black African members of the board, likewise for the Coloured and Indian and White groupings.

Last year, CSA pulled a similar stunt, delaying the AGM when the Ngoepe Commission was instituted to see if the changes brought about by the Langa Commission had aided transformation. Judge Bernard Ngoepe found that they had not, but then said the provisions should continue.

Of the seven non-independent directors to be elected to the board, three of them had to be Black African, with the Coloured/Indian and White constituencies electing two representatives each. But the Members Council, comprising all the province’s clubs, have agreed that in Saturday’s AGM there will be two guaranteed posts for each of the racial categories, for which everyone can vote, while the seventh place on the board is open to anyone.

The Black African Cricket Clubs (BACC) grouping this week lashed out at the Members Council and have threatened to pull out of Saturday’s AGM.

“Transformation has not been fully achieved but there has been progress. The Coloured and Indian clubs don’t feel any less Black than the Black African ones and having more Black African representatives does not automatically guarantee transformation. The board has been majority Black African for a number of years but the report by Judge Ngoepe said transformation had not been achieved.

“We want to vote for the best board, whether that means five Black Africans, seven or two. But the BACC are basically fighting about one seat and have been threating the Concerned Cricketers Forum (Indian/Coloured) and the Previously Advantaged Clubs (White), both of which have definitely changed their demographics anyway. We don’t want to vote by constituency anymore.

“All clubs should play a role in electing all seven board members, so the Members Council have decided that all clubs can vote for all seven, the best seven. There are also the five independent directors to be chosen by the new board and I would be surprised if that wasn’t 80% Black African. We want to be able to hold every board member accountable, with three different constituencies the directors all just look after their own interests. The day a Black African club can ask a White board member what they are doing for that club is the day we move forward,” a Members Council insider told Saturday Citizen.

Central Gauteng Lions CEO Jono Leaf-Wright said he believed the Members Council’s only agenda was to obtain long-overdue unity.

“We just want a united board that can grow all cricket and execute our mandate, including transformation. In terms of transformation, I believe we have ticked many boxes. It would be different if we were fielding lily-white teams, but our system and pipeline are very strong,” Leaf-Wright said.

In the wake of Duanne Olivier becoming the latest South African cricketer to drop the Kolpak bombshell, it would be only human for Cricket South Africa chief executive Thabang Moroe to be feeling betrayed and to be considering his options when it comes to ensuring that his organisation and the staff involved with the national teams don’t have to go through that pain again, never mind the considerable resources expended – and now wasted – on grooming a player to make a successful entry into international cricket.

Olivier was probably the good news story of the summer, getting a prolonged run in the national team thanks to injuries to Lungi Ngidi and then Vernon Philander, and his immediate success prompted the Proteas brainstrust to take drastic steps to keep him in the side: World-class spinner Keshav Maharaj was sidelined and they even went into some games a batsman short, further weakening an already struggling batting line-up, just to ensure their new-found Enforcer could keep charging in and taking wickets.

The falling-over-backwards continued at board level as Olivier was offered a two-year contract, something highly unusual. The fact that everyone else only received a one-year contract when the new deals were announced on Friday shows just how obliging they were trying to be to the 26-year-old Free State fast bowler.

And then it turns out that all the time he was talking about his Proteas achievements being a dream come true and how proud he was, all the time he was negotiating with CSA for a two-year contract, he had already decided to sign a lucrative Kolpak deal with Yorkshire.

South African cricket has been through this betrayal before of course, with Kyle Abbott and Rilee Rossouw jumping ship midway through the previous home series against Sri Lanka in January 2017. Abbott had spent the previous weeks gushing about how delighted he was to be finally getting a prolonged run for the Proteas while Rossouw, after CSA had spent huge amounts of medical bills on him and persisted with through one of the worst duck-laden starts to an international career, merely dumped his employees with barely a word spoken.

This is not a Kolpak move like Morne Morkel’s, who, after more than 10 years of service to South African cricket, decided his body could no longer take the grind of the international game and nobody bemoaned him giving his pension a well-earned boost in England.

Olivier is in his prime, has played just 10 Tests and two ODIs, and Ottis Gibson and Faf du Plessis have very much been making plans for the future around having him in the fast bowling pool.

Olivier is, of course, represented and managed by an agent, Weber van Wyk. Who just happens to be the same agent who organised the Kolpak deals for Abbott and Rossouw, hence the same scarcely ethical modus operandi that clearly cannot be termed ‘negotiating in good faith’. Van Wyk has earned a fortune exporting South African talent to England.

If you were the CEO of a multimillion rand company that spends millions on developing their key assets, only to see them up-and-leave as soon as they get promoted to a level that makes them attractive to others, what would you do? If the same person was behind three of your prize assets leaving, would you reconsider having any dealings with that agent or his clientele ever again?

When Olivier was called up to replace Abbott for the third Test against Sri Lanka in 2017, he told CricInfo: “I want to play as long as possible for my country. When I am playing, I don’t think about stuff off the field. I haven’t considered a Kolpak deal.”

Who would have thought he would follow Abbott so closely and so quickly, swelling his pockets but surely to the detriment of his standing in the game.

Sadly, we have seen this lack of patriotism stretch to rugby circles in Bloemfontein as well. Apart from the despicable shenanigans of Johan Goosen in retiring from the game for a year just to get out of a recently-extended mega-millions contract in France, so he could sign an even bigger contract with a rival club, a school like Grey College is not even pretending to support South African rugby anymore, having signed an exclusive deal with Goosen’s Montpellier club to feed players into their – and therefore France’s – pipeline.

Money can buy many things, but it will never be able to buy respect.

 

The only words South African cricket all-rounder Albie Morkel was able to get through the cellphone to his wife Marthmari, before he was bundled into a car and driven to prison were “I’m going to be stuck in Mozambique for a little longer, there’s a problem but I can’t talk now because the guards are coming with their AK47s”.

The harrowing ordeal, which Morkel, one of South Africa’s most internationally famous cricketers thanks to his nine years in the Indian Premier League, describes as “the most horrific two days of my life”, began a couple of hours earlier when the 37-year-old arrived at Chingozi Airport in Tete, north-western Mozambique, after a tiger-fishing trip to the lower Zambezi River in July.

The incident had its genesis in a hunting trip Morkel, who is known for his love of the bush, went on a couple of weeks earlier. Upon his return, he asked his gardener to clean his car. When the gardener found a small packet of ammunition in the vehicle, he wasn’t sure what to do with it, so he put it in the side pocket of one of Morkel’s old cricket bags.

That was the bag Morkel thought would be perfect to put his fishing tackle in when he went to Mozambique. Getting through O.R. Tambo International Airport and arriving in Tete without any problems, the drama only started when the Pretoria-based cricketer was about to board his flight back to Johannesburg.

“It had been a fantastic trip and I was at the airport on my way back when the airport security found some ammunition in my bag that I didn’t know about. With the language barrier, things escalated very quickly into a very big mess. I told the other guys in our party to go ahead and board and I’ll just sort this problem out and catch the later flight.

“But two hours later I was in Tete provincial prison for the two most horrific days of my life. I was held for the serious criminal charge of weapons smuggling and nobody at the court was willing to help me before it closed at 3pm so I was taken to jail. The situation got a bit ugly when the guy helping me jostled one of the policemen a bit and out came the AK47s, I was pushed into a car and next thing I knew I was at the gates of the prison,” Morkel revealed on The Dan Nicholl Show on Wednesday night.

Morkel was fortunate to find the help of two inmates when his spirits were at their lowest.

“I’ve never been close to jail before and this place was just inhuman, 800 prisoners, some of them clearly mentally unstable, all together in an open prison in 45 degree heat. They were so crammed together that at night they would just relieve themselves on each other.

“Luckily I met a couple of guys in jail, Andrew was a computer tech guy from Malawi, who had been inside for six months because he couldn’t show his papers after they had had a few drinks in the pub, and the other guy had been there for 11 months after being arrested for selling cellphone batteries that the police thought he had stolen.

“They told me who I should stay away from and that the shade belonged to the main okes. Fortunately I was allowed to sleep alone in the office at night and five minutes before the jail closed on Friday afternoon for the weekend, my friends on the outside managed to get me out,” Morkel recalls.

Quite how they were able to dig a famous sportsman, whose name meant nothing in northern Mozambique, out of his predicament, remains unclear, but Morkel has a reasonable idea.

“They never got into how they managed to get me released, but they knew how the system works over there.”

https://citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/2009079/albie-morkel-tells-of-his-hell-in-mozambique-cell/