Out With The Old, In With the New

Greenpoint Stadium hosted its first rugby match.

For the first time in history, a big rugby game in the city was not played at Newlands. The mountain did not move, nor did the sea swallow up Cape Town.

The World Cup soccer venue hosted its first rugby match on Saturday when a Boland XV played the Stormers in a Super 14 warm-up and the spectacle was breathtaking.

 WP’s current home at Newlands in the city’s southern suburbs suddenly looks like a geriatric relative.

The change is inevitable, and not all bad. Newlands comes with its baggage of segregation whereas the new stadium’s crowd reflected a diversity on Saturday that was refreshingly spontaneous.

Still, there will be howls of protest and weeping nostalgia when the move is made.

It has been a favourite ground and the change will be wrenching.

In those days, you would watch a wonderful array of rugby talent, with five club games on the programme.

The press box nestled in the lower grandstand, cheek by jowl with the prime season ticket-holders. Over years, we got to know them, watched them grow old and indulged their crackpot opinions.

So the people at Western Province rugby shove their pride and tradition, sell off the Grand Old Lady and shift to the other side of the mountain.

Even though the old team will turn in their graves.

Courtesy of Archie Henderson

HAVE YOUR SAY: What stands out the most for you about the Newlands Rugby Stadium? What will you miss about the it?