The Journey of Errol Tobias - South Africa's First Black Springbok - Part One - 'Early Days'

On a field in the grain farming district of Caledon in South Africa’s Western Cape, a cunning plan sprang up in the mind of young teenaged Errol Tobias; he instructed his teammates to cover their hands in cow dung as they awaited the arrival of the white kids for a casual game of rugby. This course of action, Tobias thought, would discourage the white kids from playing their normal style, thus creating an opportunity for his team of coloured (the accepted term for mixed-race in South Africa) kids to shape a victory. The plan, however, did not materialise, and earned Tobias a thrashing at the hands of his white counterparts before the game could get underway.

The year was about 1964 and, at that stage, it was inconceivable to think that that bruised and battered young boy with cow dung smeared on his hands would one day rise to become the first player of colour to wear the revered green and gold Springbok jersey; but he did.

Tobias was born in Caledon in 1950, the seventh of nine children. His father was a prison warder, his mother a house wife, and the apartheid regime implemented by the South African government at the time ensured that people of their skin-colour were made to contend with poverty their whole lives.

Despite his unfortunate circumstances, Tobias was certain of one thing growing up; he loved rugby, and the game seemed to reciprocate.

At the age of eighteen he turned out for Progress Rugby Football Club - one of three coloured clubs in Caledon at the time – and rose swiftly through the ranks. The popular style of fly-half in those days was a kicker; someone who, through excessive use of the boot, would often hoof a game brimming with exciting potential into the doldrum of the prosaic. Errol Tobias, however, was not interested in conforming to that standard while the number 10 was on his back.