Pretoria’s second oldest sports club, Harlequins, commemorates their 120th anniversary this year and this occasion was recently celebrated with a social function in the club’s restaurant, Quin & Bull.

Around 150 guests attended the event, during which the two newest additions to the club’s Hall of Fame were also officially announced.

The club was initially founded in 1902 under the name “Civil Services Club” after the stream of new civil servants, who were transferred to Pretoria in the aftermath of the Second Anglo Boer War, insisted on a social and sports club.

About a year later the club became the first to affiliate with London Harlequins to become the Pretoria Harlequins Sports Club. Several others followed worldwide.

Brian Forsyth, Harlequins honorary life member and historian, gave the guests a unique overview of the club’s history by focusing on past presidents.

The history of Harlequins is closely related to the political and social culture of Pretoria as a city. Names such as Sir Richard Solomon, head of the Civil Service in Pretoria in 1902; the famous writer Sir Percy Fitzpatrick; Justice Vivian “Boet” Neser, a Supreme Court Judge; and Gerald Savage, leading lawyer and rugby administrator, are among the men who led the club in the first decades.

One of the great characters of Harlequins over the past 50 years, Neil Smith, was officially inducted at the function as a new addition to the club’s hall of fame. Smith, who immigrated to South Africa from Britain in 1970 and later became an outstanding leader in the country’s car industry, died in April last year after a long battle with cancer.

As a participant, Smith particularly excelled on the rugby and cricket fields, but it was after his playing days that he truly made a deep impression as an administrator at Harlequins.

He was very passionate about the club’s history and traditions and did everything in his power to honour and maintain them.

Smith’s widow, Helen, was present at the function and was able to receive the honour to her husband on behalf of the family.

The other Harlequins legend honoured during the function by induction into the club’s Hall of Fame is Leoné du Rand, one of South Africa’s best women’s bowls players.

This exceptional bowls player has been an institution in Protea colours since 2003, the year she won the gold medal at the SA Masters tournament. That year she represented South Africa in a test series against Botswana and she also won the silver medal in the pairs and the gold in the fours event at the African Championship.

In 2004 she represented South Africa again at the world championship.

Thirteen years later, in 2017, she won the prestigious national women’s singles title, after which she qualified for the international champion of champion’s tournament in Australia.

Willem Strauss, president of the Blue Bulls rugby union, was the guest speaker at the event and emphasized the valuable role Harlequins’ rugby club fulfils in the structures of the union.

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