When the bell went, I was summoned to the principal’s office where I was told that my friend could’ve injured or broken his neck. As punishment, I received six of the best … This, I now realise, was one of the many tense moments that would characterise my rugby career.
In those days we all had wood stoves and in the afternoon we had to take turns to collect firewood so that my mother could prepare dinner. Our shortcut went through the grounds of Overberg High School, where the ‘Whites Only’ sign made it clear that coloured people were not welcome.
My parents never really talked about these signs. ‘You must look after yourself. You can walk wherever you want – as long as I get my firewood,’ my mother used to say.
One afternoon, my brother Alan and I were on our way home, ducking and diving across the school grounds, when we saw some white boys playing rugby. We set our firewood aside and hid behind a wall to watch the goings-on there on the field.
The coach was telling off one of the boys for missing a pass: ‘If you can’t catch and pass, then you can forget about becoming a Springbok one day.’
I told Alan, ‘I can catch and I can pass.’
Alan replied, ‘Well, then you probably are a Springbok.’
From that moment on, I believed it: I am a Springbok.
I WAS BORN ON 18 MARCH 1950 in Caledon in the Overberg – the seventh of nine children of Josef Johannes and Emily Augustus Tobias. I was baptised Errol George Tobias.
My father worked as a warder for the prison administration back then (today the Department of Correctional Services), but during the last five years of his life, he was a barman at the Alexandra Hotel in Caledon. My mother was a housewife.
In those days, large families like ours were the norm in the coloured community. We called our parents Pappa and Mamma, or Vader and Moeder when we spoke to other people about them.
From an early age, we were members of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Caledon and we attended the school of the church, the Holy Trinity EC School. I remember that one day per week was reserved for speaking English at school because the English Bible was used in the church – on that day we all had to only speak English.
Alan, my brother who is only a year younger, and I started working in the construction industry after school and later registered as builders with the NHBRC (National Home Builders Registration Council) in the Overberg. Our other brothers worked with us as foremen in the different departments: For example, Fred was the foreman in the painting department, Samuel was the head of the plastering department and Christie the foreman in the concrete department. My two sisters, Emily and Juliet, qualified as nurses.
MY FATHER, who was a front-row player for the local rugby club in Caledon, Progress Rugby Football Club, probably whet my interest in Springbok rugby. He was always full of praise for the unbelievable strength of the Bok forwards and admired the Springboks Hannes Marais and Chris Koch in particular. His opinions about the game and the players made a big impression on me.
In those days we didn’t have television yet, but we always followed the games on the radio. Gerhard ‘Spiekeries’ Viviers was everyone’s favourite commentator: He always described the action in such a way that his voice made you feel part of the crowd at Newlands.
For us, Newlands was holy ground: Alan and I, the two busy bees, were the chosen ones allowed to go to Newlands with my father when Province played a big game. My father usually held Alan by the hand and I could sit on his shoulders there on the South Stand reserved for people of colour.
My other brothers who weren’t into sport that much had to stay home. They weren’t happy about this at all – not because of the rugby they were missing out on, but about all the treats Alan and I were spoilt with. One time, Alan and I each got a new shirt – and in those days it was a big deal when you lived in Caledon and owned a shirt bought in Cape Town. I remember that we even wore those shirts to church the next day.
Many years later, I invited my father, who died in 1976, to a function at Newlands. He waited outside for me – too afraid that he wouldn’t be allowed in or that he wouldn’t be able to join in the conversation with Doc Craven and the other important people there.
Doc later asked me who the man was standing outside by himself and when he heard it was my father, he asked that I should please bring him in to join us. Once inside, my father couldn’t contain his excitement. He was surrounded by pictures of great players, including his hero, Chris Koch.
Later that day, my father and I went for a stroll on the field at Newlands. He had tears in his eyes when he said, ‘Errol, my boy, if only you could also play on this field someday…’
WE GREW UP POOR and didn’t have things such as rugby balls and boots – things we could only admire through shop windows in those days.
Every year just before Christmas, our minister collected toys in the white community and then walked door to door handing out gifts to the coloured children. By the time he reached our house, his bag was nearly empty, but there was still an old rugby ball at the bottom. That ball became mine.
‘Look at this ball, Mamma,’ I said and immediately started begging her to buy some polish for my ball. I polished that ball many, many times per day. Only by the time I turned 14 did my mother buy me my first brand-new rugby ball.
Sometimes we played rugby against the Boertjies on an open field, dodging the cowpats, all of us without our shirts because we were too afraid we would tear our clothes. This was our Newlands: We made our own goalposts and set out our own goal lines. But the Boertjies were usually much too strong for us and we simply could never win a ‘test’.
One day, out of desperation, I came up with the plan to spread cow dung all over our hands, and when the Boertjies again start running with the ball, we would spread this mess all over them. When the Boertjies got to the field, we were ready for them, but they were barely a few yards away with the ball when they realised what we had done.
‘Look what these bloody hotnotjies have done – it’s you, Errol!’ they shouted and gave me a hell of a beating with their belts.
Another incident from my childhood I remember clearly is the day Alan and I were watching seven white boys playing rugby. When they spotted the two of us, they stopped immediately and asked us what we wanted. ‘We’re just watching you play rugby,’ we said, ‘and we think we play much better than you.’
‘But how would you be able to prove it with just the two of you?’ they wanted to know. We immediately said we would bring our own team and agreed to meet again at three o’clock that afternoon.
That afternoon we were giving the Boertjies a good hammering when they stopped and said no, this is unfair: Our team had nine coloured boys and there was only seven of them.
‘Errol must come play for our team to make things more fair,’ they suggested.
My brothers Alan and Christie wouldn’t hear of it, but I agreed. Within a few minutes, the Boertjies and I got the upper hand and beat Alan and his team. My brothers were furious with me.
To crown it all, that evening my parents also gave me a big hiding because I helped the Boertjies win. Many years later, when I was selected as the first coloured Springbok, Alan told me: ‘Errol, do you remember that day when you joined the Boertjies’ team? That day already started preparing you to play for the Springboks one day.’
(By the way, Alan was himself a fantastic rugby player who joined me in playing for the Proteas. However, after he decided to join the ministry full time, he came to realise that the situation in South Africa and the apartheid laws were contrary to the Ten Commandments in the Bible. ‘If you break one commandment, you break them all,’ he told me, ‘and the apartheid laws break all of them. As a leader in the church, I have to take a stand.’ Even though Alan decided to hang up his rugby boots in 1977 because of this reason, he