SO PROUD OF OUR BOYS

We watch SA’s first world cup match with the school rugby coaches who taught Boks Kurt-Lee Arendse and Grant Williams how to play the game

-  COLIN HENDRICKS

WINTER in the Western Cape is having a hard time moving on, each sniff of spring quickly hammered by another cold front bringing rain and icy winds.

Yet the atmosphere in this house in Paarl is as warm as the sun that beats down on the fields of France in a seemingly endless summer.

Two of the town’s most famous sons are playing in the Rugby World Cup – and for the people crammed into this room, the tension and excitement are almost unbearable.

The overwhelming emotion, however, is pride – and few can be prouder of Boks Kurt-Lee Arendse and Grant Williams than friends and colleagues Godfrey Gertze (55) and Sylvia Matthee (56).

They’re the unsung heroes who introduced the players – best friends since they ran out for their Under-9 school team – to the game and taught them the tricks of the trade.

The boys were just seven years old at Paulus Joubert Primary when Sylvia showed them how to dummy, side-step and pass, and Godfrey was their Under13 coach.

Sylvia shows us a picture of herself with Kurt-Lee and Grant from their schooldays, standing between them with an arm around each one.

“Grant was small and Kurt-Lee was a long-legged boy and big,” she recalls. “Granty-boy was a quiet little guy. He didn’t talk much but he was fast on the rugby field.”

Godfrey comes over. “How ironic that Sylvia was pictured with the two of them together back then and now they’re playing together again – and this time at the Rugby World Cup,” he says.

We’re in Godfrey’s home in Paarl and he’s stoking the fire in the braai room as family and friends, all kitted out in traditional green and gold, gather to watch the Boks’ first game of the tournament in Marseille.