Genevieve Brown was going through a rough patch when we spoke last year. Her marriage had disintegrated, her police career was in shambles, and she had just received a bipolar diagnosis. She went into a deep depression as a result of the stress, which led to her hair falling out in clumps.
As a member of the Coloured community—a word used to designate persons of mixed race descent in South Africa that does not carry the stigmatisation that it does in other parts of the world—scrolling through channels from her bed, Brown stumbled into a rugby match.
Even though she had never considered herself a sports fan, she became engrossed in the game. At the 2018 World Cup in France, the New Zealand All Blacks were shown on screen doing the Haka in perfect time before a match.
Genevieve Brown was going through a rough patch when we spoke last year. Her marriage had disintegrated, her police career was in shambles, and she had just received a bipolar diagnosis. She went into a deep depression as a result of the stress, which led to her hair falling out in clumps.
As a member of the Coloured community—a word used to designate persons of mixed race descent in South Africa that does not carry the stigmatisation that it does in other parts of the world—scrolling through channels from her bed, Brown stumbled into a rugby match.
Even though she had never considered herself a sports fan, she became engrossed in the game. At the 2018 World Cup in France, the New Zealand All Blacks were shown on screen doing the Haka in perfect time before a match.
The 44-year-old from Mitchells Plain said, “I thought, ‘What is this all about?'” Mitchells Plain is a huge residential area south of Cape Town that was constructed following the forced eviction of tens of thousands of Coloured people from their homes in and around the city. It held my attention. It felt like this mystical experience in me. What I was seeing touched me in ways words cannot describe.
“I started to do my research. I learnt about the Maori and Pacific Island people and I fell in love with the culture and its rituals. I studied about New Zealand rugby and how they stood against apartheid and why so many Coloured people backed them. From there I started to watch the World Cup. It got me out of my house. I went to pubs to see the All Blacks and I started talking to people again. I fell in love with Ardie Savea! I can undoubtedly claim that the All Blacks helped me turn my life around.”
Without knowing it, Brown had become a member of a small but contentious community of rugby supporters in South Africa. Mostly based in the Western Cape and belonging to the Coloured population, they’ve been labelled traitors, sell-outs and worse. They’ve been ridiculed for turning rugby fandom into a political act and have been met with disdain by Springboks supporters who fail to understand how any South African could support their great opponents.
“That support is rooted in apartheid and what the Springboks emblem meant for people like me and my family,” explains Jeremy Marillier, a 54-year-old consultant and director across numerous firms in the fishing industry. “That history is well known. It explains why Coloured and so-called non-white South Africans would have started supporting the All Blacks. But it doesn’t explain why so many still support the All Blacks today.”
Marillier, who grew up at a period when anyone who looked like him was forbidden from representing South Africa on the sports field, believes that South African All Blacks supporters are too quickly regarded as being “anti-establishment”. He claims “people assume we’re mad or like to cause trouble or only take the less beaten tracks. But that’s not it. There’s more to being an All Blacks supporter than only wanting to rebel against South Africa and the conventional view.”
In 2018 the South African writer Stephen Coplan said that fans are both a “anachronism” who “employ a strategy of political provocation developed decades ago to bring apartheid governments down”. But Coplan also claimed they have a “contemporary relevance” given the Springboks’ slow rate of racial transition in a country that is majority black.
That piece, written for the online journal Africa is a Country, was published in February that year, four months before Siya Kolisi became the first black Springboks captain at the start of a really remarkable journey. Since then, Bongi Mbonambi and Lukhanyo Am have skippered the side. So too has Salmaan Moerat, who this year became the first Muslim to lead the Springboks on the pitch.
While one cannot ignore the weight of history, nor dismiss the inarguable truth the Springboks insignia was formerly a badge of white minority power in a totalitarian state, there has been substantial transformation throughout the institution that today professes to represent all South Africans. Rassie Erasmus has wrapped his rugby endeavour in the flag of the nation. For many followers, the Springboks are not only a rugby team but a symbol of South Africa’s promise.
“Firstly, I think all forms of nationalism are dangerous and should be viewed with caution,” says Dylan Moodaley, a 33-year-old environmental consultant and a passionate New Zealand rugby supporter. “The support for the All Blacks was passed on from my family but the political associations are more with the older generation. I don’t have that deep awareness of the oppression of apartheid. It’s just that the Springboks don’t give me goosebumps. I don’t get that same sense that some other folks might feel.”
Moodaley got his love for the silver fern from his father but it was the team’s swashbuckling attitude to the game, as well as their domination, that reinforced the link. He became steeped in New Zealand rugby lore and also began supporting the Crusaders from Christchurch. And while if his links with these sides were not political, nor did he see his support for them as acts of rebellion, he was all the same painted with the same brush.
A handful of white supporters turned around and started swearing at us. It turned racist. We were largely Coloured supporters and it turned extremely ugly.
“I’ve copped a lot of abuse,” Moodaley explains. “I’ve been lucky enough to watch the All Blacks around the world, including New Zealand, but I no longer wear my jersey in South Africa at games. Not since 2012 [in Soweto]. New Zealand won [32-16] and we were celebrating in a large group. But a number of white supporters turned around and started swearing at us. It turned racist. We were largely Coloured supporters and it turned extremely ugly.
“Then in 2013 at Newlands, I was wearing a Crusaders shirt for a game against the Stormers and this guy cornered me in the bathroom and started giving me abuse. I swore back and it almost became pretty ugly. Since then I just don’t engage. It’s the sort of nationalism that I find incredibly unpleasant. It’s nationalism that led to fascism in Italy and the Nazis. It’s archaic and we have to be careful around it.”
“I’m proud of guys like Siya, Cheslin [Kolbe], Makazole [Mapimpi] and all the other guys who have overcome terrible situations to represent our country,” says Jade Craig, a 37-year-old project manager from Bloemfontein and a founder member of the Rugby Scoop podcast. “It’s amazing what they’ve achieved and I’m patriotic, so I hate it when people say that I’m not. I love South Africa. That doesn’t mean I have to love the Springboks.”
Craig’s love for the All Blacks started in 1996. While residing in Kimberly, he witnessed a New Zealand training session ahead of the team’s tour match against Griqualand West which would finish in a famous 18-18 draw. Craig still has two balls signed by the side as well as a picture of himself with Zinzan Brooke. But his greatest recollection is meeting Jonah Lomu, who married his friend’s sister, Tanya Rutter, later that year.
Not that any of these caveats matter to reviewers. All Blacks supporters in South Africa are branded as Cape Crusaders – in allusion to the Christchurch franchise – or sometimes Manenberg Maoris, which is both a racialised jab as well as an homage to a particularly under-resourced suburb largely populated by Coloured people.
“I hate the term Cape Crusaders,” Moodealey says. “It used to bother me,” Marillier says, “but I’ve developed a thick skin. I know why I support the team and on Saturday [for the Test against South Africa in Cape Town] I’ll be wearing my shirt, I’ll have my flag and I’ll have my custom made All Blacks sneakers! I don’t need anyone’s permission to demonstrate my support.”
Perceptions have softened over the years. In 2013 Bryan Habana tweeted his contempt: “If I had the money I would happily buy all these “Cape Crusaders” a one way ticket to Christchurch!!” Erasmus, meanwhile, recently put cold water on the matter when he stated South Africans must “respect their view” and acknowledged the “bitterness and heartache that has contributed to some people supporting the All Blacks”.
Whatever their cause, their allegiance should not be questioned. Either to the All Blacks or to the country they call home.
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