Boks get love and appreciation from Durban
|Published
Durban — It was Durban’s turn on Saturday to show the World Cup-winning Springbok rugby team some love and appreciation as they paraded through the city, and they did it in a big way.
Thousands of excited fans and well-wishers, dressed mostly in green, lined the streets throughout the parade that began outside uMhlanga’s Garden Court Hotel and concluded at Durban's City Hall.
To give proud South Africans a chance to get within touching distance of the team that beat the All Blacks in a World Cup final in France last Saturday, the Springboks embarked on a four-day victory parade, which began in Gauteng on Thursday.
While one of the darlings of the team, captain Siya Kolisi, was unavailable for the Durban cavalcade, and there were a few calls of “Where’s Siya” during the road trip, fans lapped up the opportunity to have the “Bokke” on their turf and made merry.
A 9.30am start was pencilled in for uMhlanga, but some fans were already waiting a few hours in advance.
It was not a painstaking wait as they broke into crowd-favourite songs like Shosholoza and Ole Ole Ole in anticipation of the Bokke.
While the bus ferrying the Springboks from the airport slowly edged towards the hotel, hit songs like Mandoza’s Nkalakatha, Shakira’s Waka Waka and Johnny Clegg's Scatterlings of Africa got people in the mood.
As the Springboks disembarked and boarded their open-top bus for the Durban outing, they were ushered in with the sound of another Johnny Clegg hit, Impi.
The tone was set as singing, dancing and excitement was the order of the day as the parade snaked towards Durban North, then KwaMashu, KwaDabeka, Pinetown, Kloof and back to the city centre.
T-shirts, rugby balls, shoes, hats and even a cricket bat were tossed to the players, especially at bottle-necked sections of the route, as autograph-seekers sought endorsement from the players, who obliged and graciously tossed back the signed items.
Burly forward Eben Etzebeth’s popularity continues to grow, more so since his nickname “Elizabedi” has stuck with fans, and that term of endearment did the rounds on TikTok this week.
Etzebeth got to lift the famous Webb Ellis trophy in front of the masses outside the City Hall, before thanking the fans for their support and cap the day of celebration.
Sunday Tribune