Harlequins president honoured by the club
The current president of the Harlequins sports club in Pretoria, Jacot Guillarmod, recently became the latest member to receive the club’s special honorary citation
Earlier this year, the Harlequins sports club in Groenkloof began honouring past and present leaders and outstanding administrators of the club.
Most recently, current club president Jacot Guillarmod was honoured in this way during a special function at the club’s restaurant, The Harlequin.
Guillarmod’s commitment to Harlequins began in 1970 when he exchanged Cape Town for Pretoria. He has been serving the club since then without interruption and with distinction in various guises.
This former pupil of the prestigious St Andrews College in Grahamstown studied after school at the University of Cape Town and Unisa, and qualified as a chartered accountant before moving to Pretoria.
At school and during his university years, Guillarmod was already a brilliant sportsman. He is among a small group of former St Andrews pupils who managed to play three consecutive years for both the school’s first cricket and rugby teams.
At university, he excelled as a rugby player and played for the first team of the Ikeys.
After moving to Pretoria in 1970, he played for Harlequins’ first team as scrumhalf. A year later, he was appointed captain of the team. That same year, 1971, Guillarmod was elected to the club’s main committee. Thus he began his career as an administrator while still being a player.
In 1984, Harlequins awarded Guillarmod with honorary life membership. In 2013, he became the president of the club.
Several of his contemporaries and club colleagues testified that Guillarmod’s knowledge and experience as a businessman and chartered accountant was invaluable to the club, especially during difficult times when decisive moves had to be made.
Rugby commentator and former Transvaal flyhalf Hugh Bladen was a guest speaker at the function.
Bladen is a lifelong friend of Guillarmod and spoke of his admiration for this outstanding sportsman since their school days.
Bladen was a junior at King Edward School in Johannesburg when Guillarmod played for their traditional rivals, St Andrews College.
Years later, they played as opponents against each other in the annual friendly matches between Harlequins and Wanderers from Johannesburg.
Guillarmod’s status as highly-rated sports administrator was underlined by a message of congratulations from the Harlequins club in London. This was read at the function by the master of ceremonies and function coordinator, Neil Smith.
In his speech, Guillarmod said it was the people of the club that he would cherish the longest.
“The lifelong friends I made and the camaraderie of fellow club members are the reason I can, after 47 years, still say – once a Quin, always a Quin,” Guillarmod told the audience.
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