Many sportsmen are or will be as much remembered for their brilliance as for their demeanors: Tiger Woods, Mike Tyson, Wayne Rooney, our own Hansie Cronjé – the list is endless. And then there were some great exceptions.
Contrast their behaviour to that of John Gainsford, a legendary Springbok centre some 50 years ago.
I bumped into this article in The Times, written by David Isaacson. Now a lot of you may not even quite know who John Gainsford was. But I happened to know him, see him play for his club Villager or his province on Saturdays and some tests for the Boks.
As a player I remember him as an outside centre with a devastating break and the player who scored twice in that memorable (Tiny Naude kick) 19-16 victory of the Boks over the All Blacks in Christchurch in 1965.
But the story most worth telling is this one by Isaacson:
“Walking home after a club match one Saturday in 1958 he was stopped by a Malay man who asked the player to visit his parents’ home to meet his ailing father, an ardent rugby fan, who was no longer able to get to the weekly Newlands games.
“Gainsford agreed and a week later he met the man and followed him to the house.
“When I arrived there I was treated like some visiting potentate,” Gainsford recalled in a book published to commemorate the 1975 centenary of the Villagers rugby club, for whom he played.
“And a great smile came over the face of the old man who, I could see, was very sick.” Gainsford and the old man discussed rugby heroes, past and present, comparing them man-for-man.
“Gainsford was once the holder of the most tries scored by a Bok, but you can bet this statistic was not the reason the old man and his family would have fondly remembered him.”
For those of you that have read up to here: Thanks for sharing this memory.
Test summary:
Tests: 33 Tries: 8
First Test: 30 Apr 1960 Age:21 Outside Centre against Scotland at EPRFU Stadium (Boet Erasmus), Port Elizabeth
Last Test: 29 Jul 1967 Age:28 Outside Centre against France at Ellispark, Johannesburg
1.83 metres 81,6 kg
Current age 72
September 10th, 2010 at 8:17 am
1.83 metres 81,6 kg
Wow
Obviously a big boy for his time!
September 10th, 2010 at 8:19 am
It is wrong to judge a man based on a single occurence of his life… though many of us do.
Let me ask you then
Would you honour the man who funded and opened the first cancer research instiitute?
In that case you’d be honoring Adolf Hitler….
September 10th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Thanks for that negative thought DavidsS – now f off!
September 10th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
It was actually positive Bekke
It could swing the other way as well
One couldf for instance say that we should not judge Hitler on the basis of being a maniacal war mongering nutcase but on a totality of his achievements like:
1. Building the world’s first cancer research facility
2. Coming up with the idea of a people’s car
3. Building massive highways to improve travel
4. Implementing (then) radical employee rights reforms like fixed leave periods
5. Pulling a destoyed economy out of recession inside three years.
September 10th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 3:49 pm:
agree. the virtue of the white man is so easily blown up if you can find an example of kindness toward a darkie.
Its patronizing.
September 10th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 3:49 pm:
Hehehehehheeeee
Remember today people like to look at things in isolation. The bigger picture just confuses the shit out of them.
September 10th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 3:49 pm:
Shit thanks for that. Had a good chuckle. Now time for me to get to bed.
September 10th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Reply to Brendon Shields @ 3:54 pm:
OK then – my apologies for
posting this.
Won’t do it again.
September 10th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 4:03 pm:
hehehehe no man thanks I loved Gainsford. Even as kid the surname just sounded like a wild centre who can step you from here to juksville.
Just saying that his life is not all of a sudden worth it cause he helped some darkie. I bet he helped many other people.
Bu the darkies are victims and in those days were the bad guys, so this now defines Johns life?
No it does not.
September 10th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Reply to Brendon Shields @ 4:07 pm:
I think you are missing the point:
The message is in the last paragraph.
I am going to be very straight
forward:
It pisses me off when people always
bring race into things.
The thought that Gainsford did this
for a man of colour never crossed
my mind – just that he was a decent
and generous person, and that it ads
up to a nice anecdote.
Strange how some people always
choose to downplay things that
were done in earnest.
September 10th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Reply to Boertjie @ 5:07 pm: Nice story, it has nothing to do with race, just somebody doing something nice for somebody with no ulteria motive, very rare.
September 10th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
Reply to DavidS @ 8:19 am: lol lol lol lol lol lol really did laugh out, dont think anyone could have expected that.
September 11th, 2010 at 8:42 pm
its amazing just how
obsessed with race our nation is.
September 12th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Reply to Duiwel @ 8:42 pm:
In case you’re not reading Duiwel…. the whole world is obsessed with it…