Springboks and Proteas
Ermelo has also produced its share of Springbok, Protea and national team players of whom we as a town are immensely proud.
The current hype about quotas in the Springbok rugby team and their winning or losing games, as well as the Protea cricket team’s erratic performance has certainly set the sporting world abuzz.
Armchair critics, myself included, have had plenty to say and have all the expert advice for the trainers and managers to ensure the team will never lose another game.
When one stops to think about it all in an honest and rational way, I truly can’t believe that anyone who is chosen to play in a national team such as the Springboks, Proteas or Bafana Bafana will purposely want to lose a game.
The pride of being chosen to represent one’s country in any sport must certainly be one of the proudest moments in a persons’s life.
Being one of the best after working hard at the chosen sport and putting in more hours of training than the average sportsman or woman is just reward and justly sets a person above the average.
Ermelo has also produced its share of Springbok, Protea and national team players of whom we as a town are immensely proud.
The question is, however, who are they and where are they now?
The few that I know of and can recall are only a smattering of the great sportsmen, sportswomen and achievers that our town has produced.
As is always the case with “name dropping” one almost always ends up forgetting someone, but in this case readers are invited to assist in adding to the list.
I recall, for instance, Hein Dinkelmann Springbok rugby, Pierre Spies, Henno Mentz and MJ Mentz all Springbok rugby players (MJ being a sevens player and presently coach of the Pumas) and Pieter Potgieter and Oubaas de Jager Springbok polo and polocrosse players, Peter Celliers – Springbok and national aerobatics champion, Juba Grobler Springbok shooting team, Johan van der Wath and Lizelle Lee – Protea men’s and women’s cricket players, Nkosinathi Nhleko featuring in the Bafana team and so the list is bound to go on.
Many other names are now springing to mind, but unfortunately space and time does not allow inclusion in this column.
The idea of producing a book containing the names and achievements of our Ermelo Springboks and Proteas is not excluded.
Readers are invited to add to the list by contacting us here at the Highvelder and help us enter the names of Ermelo’s great sportsmen and woman into posterity.
“Like” our Highvelder Newspaper page on Facebook and let’s see that list grow.
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