All Blacks and Springboks rivalry unlocked at talk

FOLLOWING on his sellout performance of My Father’s Coat in Kloof last year, Michael Charton is returning to St Agnes Church, Kloof on Thursday, 12 September at 6.30pm, to present his show The First World Champions: The Untold Story of the 1937 Springboks in New Zealand.

Michael stumbled upon the remarkable story of the 1937 Springboks in an old Cape Town bookstore in 2011. Inspired, Michael instinctively began to track down more resources through which to patch this story together. A process which would ultimately lead Michael to the personal photograph albums and scrap-books of some of these old Springboks. It was these beautifully preserved A3 old scrap-books which opened his eyes to some amazing and forgotten anecdotes: their remarkable relationship with the Maori people, the Springbok’s last Zulu “Haka,” a forgotten Jewish centre who would make his way to Hitler’s bunker, and the antics of a famous gentleman-thug, Boy Louw.

Then, following a strange sequence of events, Michael’s obscure passion for this tour evolved into a talk, which he has subsequently delivered for select audiences around the country.

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The story weaves together a few of the key characters of this tour. It unlocks the context behind the special old rivalry between the All Blacks and the Springboks, and it celebrates rugby’s amateur era together with its associated chivalry. Even in the midst of this most brutal of rugby rivalries, the sportsmanship and value system of these teams leap at you through its characters, reminding one, through an emotional sense of nostalgia, what is truly important in life and legacy.

Tickets are available from Computicket and cost R150 per person.

All profits raised will go to Youth Education and Support Trust, a registered non-profit organisation which sponsors promising and deserving students at tertiary level.

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