Bakkies Botha is a man of few words. He has never written a book. He never makes speeches. He is the kind of guy who never seeks the limelight, he just donners into the scrum — or the loose maul, or whatever you call the tangle of bodies that periodically piles up on any rugby field — and does his job. Unseen, unheard, he dives into that grizzly pile of swearing and sweat, where he throws his punches, where he scratches and claws and works his silent way towards Springbok victory.
He never towers high in the line-outs like Victor Matfield. He hardly ever joins the back-line to pretend to be a centre like Juan Smith. He never graces the front page of magazines like Percy Montgomery or Francois Steyn. He isn’t pretty, or charming, or suave, or sexy, or cool. He is simply Bakkies Botha. He has absolutely no other baggage to carry in life besides being himself. He has the common touch.
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The people of Britain have the right to know that we still have guys like Bakkies Botha in this country; men and women who are simply doing their job, day after day, without releasing any new Afrikaans CDs, without sitting back and waiting for regstellende aksie, without suing anybody, or raping anybody, or bumping folk over with their cars, or receiving kickbacks for doing nothing, or organising rock festivals with names ending in “-Stok”, or publishing autobiographies (yes, yes, I know), or ignoring red traffic lights in blue-light cavalcades, or changing the names of towns without any rhyme or reason, or ordering Moët champagne at room service with taxpayers’ money, or denying personal culpability, or evading personal responsibility, or appearing in smutty home videos, or throwing cups of tea at nice ladies, or do any of the ghastly things South African politicians and other people figures seem to be spending absolutely all their time on.
This is what I should have told the ladies from the BBC. I have should have told them that we still have people like Bakkies Botha.
Millions of them.
