Opinion | Rugby owes huge debt to Nelson Mandela
If not for the iconic 1995 World Cup in South Africa, the game would still be languishing in the sporting wilderness
At this stage, you could well be overcome with Mandela fatigue and the endless tributes paid to the great man since he passed last week. Well, it's probably a good idea to get used to it because Nelson Mandela's image and legacy will live on for eternity.
Saintly and venerated, Mandela puts the capital "I" in icon. I have a friend who was involved in a business venture that exposed him to some of the biggest celebrities in the world on a daily basis. But he claimed meeting Mandela was like no other experience. He had a rapturous aura that left you spellbound. It was this same aura that Mandela used to basically change both South Africa and the world and the same aura he used to help perpetuate his theory that sports could be a unifying force for good and for change.
Anyone who has watched the Clint Eastwood movie is aware of how Mandela used one of the most polarising forces in apartheid South Africa, the Springboks national rugby team, to help him build a new, modern nation on the back of the country hosting the 1995 World Cup.
Of course if you are a rugby fan, you didn't need a Hollywood movie to tell you about it and these days much has been made of the debt Mandela and South Africa owe to rugby. While there is some truth to that, far more prominent it would seem is the debt rugby owes to Mandela.
Coming into the 1995 World Cup, rugby was a sport very much looking to grow its profile globally. The first World Cup had been held only eight years earlier and while the event may have lacked history, among the rugby community it quickly became what you set your calendar around. When the first event was contested in 1987 in New Zealand and Australia, there were 16 nations competing. At the time, you could basically count the number of places where it was a "Drop everything you are doing, it's time to watch the match" event. Obviously there was Australia, New Zealand, all of Britain and Ireland, South Africa and parts of France and Argentina.
For the rest of the sporting world the event was largely a great mystery, if not completely off the radar. South Africa, where the game was huge among the ruling white minority, was not allowed to compete in either the first or second World Cup because of apartheid sanctions. By 1995, apartheid had officially been dismantled and South Africa was ready to welcome the world.
