The Currie Cup comes home — just in time for Heritage Day

WHAT timing! On the eve of Heritage Day, the most historic trophy in South African rugby has found itself back where it all began: Kimberley, Northern Cape.

The Currie Cup is the grand old prize of South African rugby. Born in 1891 when Sir Donald Currie sent a glittering golden trophy aboard a Union-Castle liner with the visiting British Isles team, it was Griqualand West who first got their hands on it after giving the tourists their toughest contest. They didn’t keep it, of course — they handed it over to the South African Rugby Board to become the floating prize of a national competition. And so the Currie Cup was born.

It feels poetic then that, 133 years later, and on the very weekend that South Africans are polishing up their braai tongs for Heritage Day, the Griquas have reclaimed it. History on top of heritage.

Let’s not kid ourselves though — Kimberley hasn’t exactly hogged this trophy. Western Province has stuffed its cabinet 34 times, the Bulls 25, the Lions 11, the Sharks nine, and the Cheetahs seven. Kimberley? Three. 1899, 1911 … and 1970. Then nothing for 55 years. A drought so long you could have grown up, retired, and sent your grandkids off to varsity waiting for it to break.

But maybe that’s what makes this fourth win taste even sweeter. Kimberley, city of diamonds and dust, the place where the Currie Cup first kicked off in 1892, is now the place where it rests once more. And on Heritage Day, nogals.

So yes, forgive us a little swagger. The Lions roared, but the Griquas silenced them. The big unions can count their silverware in stacks — Kimberley counts it in drought-breaking joy. Proof that rugby heritage doesn’t always belong in Cape Town, Pretoria, or Durban — sometimes it comes home to Kimberley and the Northern Cape.