One of the biggest “off the field” legends of Blue Bulls rugby, who played an instrumental role in the building up and success of the union in the decade before the game turned professional (mid 1980’s to mid-1990’s), has passed away.

Mac van Vuuren, who turned 87 in April this year, died in his sleep early Monday morning.

Van Vuuren was known everywhere for his stocky figure, brush‐cut hairstyle and moustache, an image that has never changed in more than sixty years and has become the characteristic of one of the most loved sports administrators of the modern era.

His real name was Gert Corneluis Janse van Vuuren, but since the age of 16 at the Germiston Afrikaans Hoërskool, he was known to almost everyone as Mac.

“One day a teacher started making jokes about what our surnames would be if we were all Scottish. He pointed at me and said I would probably be ‘MacFires’. Ever since it was my nickname and later only the ‘Mac’ remained,” he told Rekord years ago during an interview.

Already as a schoolboy Mac excelled not only in rugby, but he also played soccer and developed a love for cricket. It was as a sportsman that he also distinguished himself early on as a leader. He was the school’s first team cricket captain and he led the Transvaal school’s rugby team for two years in a row as loose-head prop.

After school he moved north to study at the Teachers College in Pretoria. Yet he never worked as a teacher. For nearly twenty years he worked at Armscor as an accountant.

As a rugby player at Normaal Kollege Pretoria (NKP) he moved to hooker and played many years of top rugby in the Carlton league as captain of the club.  He also captained the college’s first cricket team.

After his studies were completed, he joined the then Oostelikes rugby club.

Mac’s career as a sportsman was unfortunately terminated early due to a knee injury. The setback, however, created the opportunity for one of South Africa’s top sports administrators of his time to start focusing on this aspect of the game at an exceptional young age.

Shortly after his student years he became involved in the administration of rugby and cricket and from there he grew in stature so quickly that in his early thirties he became the first person ever to serve simultaneously a senior provincial selector in both sports codes. To this day he remains the only person ever to achieve that.

Van Vuuren was in his mid-twenties when he became part of the executive at the Blue Bulls and he was only 35 when he was appointed as the youngest vice president in the history of the union.

After holding several other positions at the then Northern Transvaal Rugby Union, he was appointed the full-time general manager of the union in 1985.

After his retirement at the Bulls he again, on request, became involved in club rugby and cricket and until his final retirement as sports administrator a few years ago, he was chairman of the cricket club at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) and vice chairman of the university’s rugby club.

Van Vuuren and his wife lived until recently in their large comfortable house in Waverley in Pretoria, which they bought as newlyweds in the early sixties. He had a great love for the Moot and its people and always mockingly told his friends from other suburbs of the city that this area produces the toughest rugby players in Pretoria.

Another of his legacies is the work he did to promote cricket in Afrikaans schools, when there was still the perception, especially in certain parts of Pretoria, that it was primarily an “English” sport.

He was known and loved for his special sense of humour and his friends often fell victim to his jokes and teasing.

Mac van Vuuren is survived by his wife, Dawn, to whom he was married for 62 years, three children, Fanus, Cecile and Isabeau, as well as five grandchildren. A funeral service for him will be held at 11:00 this coming Friday (October 13) from the Nederduits Hervormde Kerk at 1265 Collinslaan, Waverley.

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