ALBERTON – With the 51st Craven Week for schools rugby taking place this week in Middelburg July 14 to 19, in down Memory Lane the focus from an Alberton viewpoint will be on the history of the top schools rugby week in the country.
Craven Week was started in 1964 in East London and named after Dr. Danie Craven, the greatest rugby person in the history of rugby in this country. Transvaal’s first Craven Week side in 1964 was captained by G van Vuuren and a year later the very first schoolboy from Alberton made it into the Transvaal team for the 1965 Craven Week, namely Hoërskool Alberton first team captain Sarel Pretorius.
Alberton’s best Craven Week in history, was without doubt the 1989 Craven Week in Johannesburg where Alberton became an integral part of that event.
One of the Craven Week teams, South Eastern Transvaal, visited Alberton Rugby Club as guests of Alberton. The then Mayor, Councillor Dirk Smit (nowadays City Councillor and Speaker City of Cape Town) and Club Chairman Alderman Johann van der Merwe welcomed them on the Thursday night, July 6, 1989. South Eastern Transvaal was captained by Jacques Stevenson, who returned to Alberton to play for the club in their Pirates Grand Challenge final year 10 years later in 1999. Two days later, on July 8, 1989 the first Alberton schools player, Ian de Ru from Marais Viljoen, made it into the SA Schools team.
