The EFF has the cat by the tail over name changes.
It is clear they do not know what the difference is between Jan and Johann.
When Rhulani Qhibi, EFF MPL, submitted his motion to the provincial legislature on Tuesday to change the name of the Jan van Riebeeck Stadium to Veli Mahlangu Stadium, he clearly thought the stadium was named after Jan van Riebeeck who landed in the Cape with his three ships on 6 April 1652.
Moreover, with a little research, Rhulani would have found out that the stadium’s name was already changed to Atlantic Park in 2000 after the internet company entered into a sponsorship deal with the Mpumalanga Rugby Union.
The honorable politician has properly grabbed the cat by the tail.
After the sponsorship ended, it was changed to the Puma Stadium and later to Witbank Mica Stadium.
Nowadays it’s known as the Witbank Stadium.
It is clear that the EFF did not want the facts to interfere with scoring a few political points.
Gert la Grange in action for Southeast.
The cheers and applause when the motion was accepted without a fight or a push, was for a name change that happened 25 years ago.
But who is Johann van Riebeeck?
Since 1969, when the South Eastern Transvaal Rugby Union was founded, Middelburgers have drove in their thousands to the Johann van Riebeeck Stadium, without knowing who Johann was.
And now 56 years later, no one still knows who Johann is.
Former Southeast flyhalf Gert la Grange, whose father, Hans, was involved with the Witbank Rugby Club for years, says that this is definitely not the founder Jan.
“Jan is not to blame”.
Even though Jan van Riebeeck is actually Johan Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck, he was not Johann.
The first president of the South Eastern Rugby Union, Flip Coetzer, also did not know who Johann was.
His daughter, Hettie Janse van Rensburg, said this morning that she did not know either and knew it as Witbank Stadium.
Even Heinrich Schulze and Eddie Grieb, who researched the history of the South Eastern Transvaal and the Mpumalanga Rugby Union and published a book about it, do not know.
“We did a lot of research and even went to the city council to investigate, but could never get any information about the name of the stadium.”
The previous chief executive officer of the rugby unions, Willem Strauss, says he heard that it was a Witbank councillor.
Perhaps there is a little leniency for the red berets. Visiting rugby writers regularly misspelled the stadium’s name as Jan van Riebeeck.
The question is; will the mystery of Johann van Riebeeck be solved?
The EFF knows who Jan is, but can they perhaps tell us who Johann is?
