Errol Tobias

Errol George Tobias (born 18 March 1950) is a former South African rugby union footballer, and the first player of colour to play in a test match for the South African national side. He gained six caps between 1981 and 1984 when the country was still following the policy of apartheid. Tobias's selection paved the way for other black players to be added to the national team: first Avril Williams, and later, Avril's nephew, Chester Williams. Of his 21 games for the Springboks, six were tests.[1]

Errol Tobias
Birth nameErrol Tobias
Date of birth (1950-03-18) 18 March 1950
Place of birthCaledon, South Africa
Height1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight76.66 kg (12 st 1 lb)
SchoolSwartberg High School, Caledon
SpouseSandra
ChildrenErrol, Sidney
Rugby union career
Position(s) Fly-half, Centre
Amateur team(s)
Years Team Apps (Points)
Caledonians RFC ()
Provincial / State sides
Years Team Apps (Points)
Boland
SARFF		 ()
National team(s)
Years Team Apps (Points)
1981–84 South Africa 6 22

Early life and rugby career

Errol Tobias was born on the farm Klipdrift, located outside Caledon in the Overberg district of the Western Cape.

In August 1978, Tobias turned out at fly-half for a multi-racial South African Country Districts XV against the American Cougars. Tobias scored two tries at the Border Rugby Union Grounds, and helped in the scoring of two more. About 5,500 spectators witnessed the 44–12 victory over the American team.[2][3][4] The Associated Press erroneously reported this match as being the first in which a multi-racial team played against an international touring side in South Africa.[3] In fact, the first official multi-racial team to play a foreign national side was the South African Invitation XV which included four players of colour: John Noble, Turkey Shields, Toto Tsotsobe and Morgan Cushe. Selected by Danie Craven, the team beat the French on 7 June 1975 at Newlands in Cape Town by 18 points to 3.[5]

International career

Tobias' international career began when he was selected for the Proteas' 1971 tour of Britain. The Proteas were affiliated with the Coloured South African Rugby Football Federation, one of four racially segregated rugby union associations in South Africa at the time.[6]

On 4 June 1974 Tobias scored the only points (a penalty and a drop-kick) at fly-half as the Springboks were beaten 6-37 by the touring Lions side at Goodwood Showground in Cape Town.[7]

In 1979 Tobias was part of the first multi-racial South African Barbarians side to tour the United Kingdom under manager Chick Henderson.[8] Tobias was again included at centre in the South African Barbarians team that lost 14–25 to the British Lions at Kings Park on 2 July 1980.[9] His teammates included Hugo Porta and three players of colour, Francois Davids, Charles Williams and Solomon Mhlaba.[10]

Tobias was a member of the Springbok touring party to South America in October 1980 which was denied visas to enter Argentina. Due to international political pressure to sever cultural and sporting ties with South Africa because of apartheid, the tour was wrapped in secrecy, and matches played against Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile drew crowds as small as one hundred.[11][12]

In 1981 Tobias was selected at centre for the Springboks to play against the touring Irish team. In the first test at Newlands on 30 May, a crowd of 37,000 watched as Tobias broke, then gave an inside pass to Rob Louw, who scored. Prior to the test Danie Craven warned Tobias that the game would be over before he would even realize that he was representing his country. The Springboks defeated the Irish 23–15, with Danie Gerber scoring one of the best tries ever seen at Newlands, Tobias recalled.[1][13]

Tobias received his call-up to the national team's tour to New Zealand in 1981 from Dr Danie Craven via telephone.[14] Before the ill-fated Springbok tour, managed by Johan Claassen and coached by Nelie Smith, Tobias prepared to play on the rain-soaked rugby fields that he expected to encounter by turning his back yard into a mud-bath.[15]

His selection was controversial at home and abroad, with some critics suggesting that he was included as a token Black player.[15] He was the target of placards and verbal abuse from the New Zealand anti-apartheid organisation Halt All Racist Tours, whose Dick Cuthbert called Tobias "an Uncle Tom".[16] Within the touring squad attitudes towards Tobias also differed. Naas Botha implied in 2006 that players were more accepting, while Johan Claassen admitted that team management possibly had an "anti-Errol" bias.[17]

International caps
No.OppositionResultPositionPointsDateGround
1. Ireland23 - 15Outside Centre30 May 1981Newlands Stadium, Cape Town
2. Ireland12 - 10Outside Centre6 June 1981Kings Park Stadium, Durban
3. England33 - 15Fly-half2 June 1984Boet Erasmus Stadium, Port Elizabeth
4. England35 - 9Fly-half6 (1 try, 1 conv.)9 June 1984Ellis Park Stadium, Johannesburg
5. South American Jaguars32 - 15Fly-half10 (2 conv., 2 pen.)20 October 1984Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria
6. South American Jaguars22 - 13Fly-half6 (2 pen.)27 October 1984Newlands Stadium, Cape Town

Later life

Tobias worked as a brick-layer and later owned his own construction company. He is married and has a son, Sidney (Sid), who was selected for the Western Province Under-21 side in October 2010, while another, also called Errol, played for the Bloemfontein club Old Greys in 2004.[18][19] Errol Junior was included at fly-half in the 2004 tryouts for the Cats Super 12 team, and was a replacement for the Leopards' during the 2007 Currie Cup season.[20][21] In 2011 Sid Tobias played for the Sale Jets, for whom he scored a hat-trick in a game against Northampton Wanderers.[22]

As co-commentator for provincial, Super Rugby, and test matches, Tobias drew positive comments from the public for his elegant use of Afrikaans, although others opined that he was not good at summarising.[1][23]

On 8 November 1995 he became the first black mayor of his home town, Caledon.[24][25] He had stood for election as part of the Caledon Community Association, formed in 1993, and which aimed to improve the welfare of local residents. Tobias' association won 5 of 13 available seats, and formed a coalition with the African National Congress. He committed himself to promoting racial reconciliation by running rugby training camps.[26] During 1996 he lost his position when the local ANC elected Abe Botha as new mayor. Tobias, who continued as a councillor, initially criticized the new mayor for being part of the repression of Coloured residents during Botha's earlier terms as mayor from 1974 to 1981. Tobias later committed to co-operate with Botha for the welfare of the town.[27]

gollark: It has very loose charsets everywhere, actually, and seemingly no issue with using unicode (including zalgo-y text) in basically every input box.
gollark: Some (online) friends of mine found out that if you had a valid session token, you could edit *anyone's account*, because of a bug in its authentication logic.
gollark: It was very problematic in a variety of ways, and the loose charset for usernames was just one of them.
gollark: I actually found a website which was fine with it.
gollark: I have a SAS drive which is in a ~10-year-old server. But it doesn't support SMART, since it's a SAS drive, so I have *no* clue what's up with that.

See also

References
  1. "Tobias Nou Uitsaaier [Tobias Now a Broadcaster]". Beeld. 17 June 2004. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  2. "South Africans Down Americans". The News and Courier. Associated Press. 12 August 1978. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  3. "Sports Shorts". The Robesonian. Associated Press. 11 August 1978. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  4. Select Books (2010). "Sports Catalogue May 2010. [Opens .doc file directly.]". Archived from the original on 9 February 2012. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  5. Griffiths, John. "The first official multi-race team in SA, MPs with international honours and Varsity Blues". espnscrum.com. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
  6. Morgan, Brad (3 July 2003). "Errol Tobias: a Black Bok in a White Team". SA Info. safrica.info. Archived from the original on 18 December 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
  7. "SAR Federation XV 6 v 37 British & Irish Lions". Archived from the original on 27 January 2013. Retrieved 26 December 2011.
  8. South African Barbarians
  9. "Springbok trailblazer: Errol Tobias". IRB.com. 12 March 2008. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
  10. "SA Barbarians 14 v 25 British & Irish Lions, 2nd July 1980, Kings Park". lionsrugby.com. Archived from the original on 18 December 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
  11. "Ons en die Poemas [Us and the Pumas]". Beeld. 7 November 2000. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  12. "Breyton Paulse Makes History by Playing in His Fiftieth Test for the Boks". SA History Online. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  13. "Ireland tour - Cape Town, 30 May 1981 South Africa (15) 23 - 15 (15) Ireland (FT)". ESPN Scrum. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  14. "Black Pearl of the High Veldt". The Scotsman. 11 June 2006. Archived from the original on 18 December 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2011.
  15. "The Tale of Two Black Men". The Sydney Morning Herald. 19 July 1978. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  16. Brown, Malcolm (21 July 1981). "Big Pressure on 'Token' Black". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 20 December 2011.
  17. Geenty, Mark (31 August 2006). "1981 Springbok Tour Horrors Recalled". NZ Herald. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  18. Botha, Marco (27 October 2010). "WP-rugby Blom Oral [WP Rugby Flowers Everywhere]". Die Burger. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  19. Cronjé, Hendrik (26 November 2003). "Nelie Smith Brei Oud-Greysspan [Nelie Smith Coaches Old Greys' Team]". Beeld. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  20. Cronjé, Hendrik (16 January 2004). "Lombard Tog by Cats [Lombard Yet with the Cats]". Beeld. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  21. Gilbert, Morris (10 July 2007). "Bands lei Jong Turke in Potch [Bands Leads Young Turks in Potch]". Beeld. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  22. "Jets Run in Nine Tries to Win 57-29". 28 November 2011. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  23. Bekker, George (7 September 2003). "Skeidsregters Klop Kommentators [Referees Beat Commentators]". Beeld. pp. Opinion. Retrieved 25 December 2011.
  24. "South African Athlete Becomes Mayor of Caledon" (PDF). Olympic Review, Vol. 26 No.6. December 1995. p. 10. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  25. Gilhooly, Daniel (8 August 2003). "Rugby saved Willemse from mean streets". NZ Herald. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  26. "ANC Moves into Municipal Power". ANC Daily News Briefing. 8 November 1995. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  27. Roux, Erieka (12 September 1996). "Tobias Steun Caledon se Nuwe Eerste Burger [Tobias supports Caledon's New First Citizen]". Die Burger. Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
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