We South Africans are renowned for being sports fanatics and none more so than our rugby supporters, so we are looking ahead, with relish, to next year’s series between the Springboks and the Lions (2021 version). For those of you who are not Rugby Union aficionados, the Springboks are the national rugby team of South Africa and the Lions are a touring rugby team comprising players from the four home unions of the British Isles, namely England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Those players chosen for a Lions tour regularly play against each other in the annual Six Nations rugby championship and every fourth year they unite to play opponents in the Southern Hemisphere during their off season (their summer, our winter) and ever since 1989 the tours are spaced two years after the preceding Rugby World Cup on a quadrennial cycle (1989/1993/1997/....2021). In 1989 it would be Australia who hosted the Lions, then in 1993 it was New Zealand and in 1997 it was the turn of South Africa, thus we get the chance to play the best combined British and Irish side every twelve years (1997/2009/2021); it is a once in a lifetime chance for a South African to play against the Lions.
South Africa’s re-admission to international sporting competition was permitted after the release of Nelson Mandela (11-02-1990), with our subsequent participation in the 1992 Cricket World Cup and the Barcelona Olympics of the same year. Nelson Mandela’s inauguration as our President in the 1994 multi-racial elections paved the way...
