Kingswood hosts K-Day 2012

This weekend, Grahamstown sees the annual derby between Kingswood College, St Andrew’s College, St Andrew’s Prep and the Diocesan School for Girls (DSG) - which has over the years become known as K-Day.

The exact origins of the term K-Day seem to be lost - but everyone you speak to knows what K-Day is all about!

The traditional rivalry between Kingswood and St Andrew’s dates back to 1898 when the two schools first clashed on the rugby field. Kingswood lost that fixture 5-6, but was victorious the following year by three points to nil. And so the seeds of the long standing rivalry were sown that today still feed into the electric atmosphere of K-Day.

The town and schools buzz with anticipation, not only of the eagerly contested sports fixtures, but also for the many visitors and school pupils to renew friendships forged on the sports field and during their school days. While K-Day itself - Saturday, 16 June this year - will culminate in the rugby clash between the Kingswood and St Andrew’s First XVs on Saturday, the day is about so much more than just rugby.

K-Day officially starts on the Wednesday before the Saturday rugby games and involves hockey, netball and junior school rugby fixtures. All in all, 76 matches will be played between Wednesday and Saturday, involving hundreds of pupils. This excludes the many fixtures that are scheduled for past pupils of Kingswood, St Andrew's and DSG.

The parents of boarder pupils arrive in numbers to come and watch their children play sport, and the whole weekend takes on a festive atmosphere. Parents from as far afield as Zambia, Kenya, Namibia and even overseas will be at K-Day to support their sons and daughters on the sports fields.

There are a number of K-Day traditions that are dear to the schools, the quaintest of which is when the schools challenge each other across the sleepy hollow of Grahamstown with their respective war cries on the Friday evening. The sounds of the passionate pupils cheering on their respective schools can be heard echoing into the night air.

Kingswood and St Andrews/DSG take turns in hosting the K-Day fixtures, and this year, the event will be hosted by Kingswood. The Kingswood campus will be abuzz with activity on Saturday with an expected 8,000 people converging on the City Lords sports complex, with its rugby field, adjoining astroturf and new High Performance Centre. (This year, many of the netball fixtures will take place in the High Performance Centre which was officially opened in March this year.)

The K-Day fixtures kick-off on Wednesday, 13 June with the senior boys’ hockey fixtures that will be played on the Kingswood Astroturf. This fixture is played on the Wednesday because a number of the Kingswood boys, who have the unique opportunity of playing both rugby and hockey in the winter season, need to have sufficient time to prepare for the rugby fixtures that will be played on Saturday. The bulk of the fixtures will start early on Saturday culminating in the clash between the First XVs at 15.30 in their 138th clash since 1898.

At a time when school sport has become ultra-competitive and players are sometimes driven to extreme measures to enhance their performance, one can only hope that this long-standing annual derby day between fellow schools in the same town will retain all the camaraderie, atmosphere and genuine fun that was intended when it started back in 1898!

There are always favourites and underdogs going into the derby interschool fixtures but upsets do take place. The hockey fixtures, both boys and girls, should be reasonably evenly contested Both schools have had excellent rugby results this year with St Andrew’s being unbeaten in the Eastern Cape. Consequently they are the top Eastern Cape school this year which makes them the favourites to win this one. However, Kingswood has also had an excellent season having lost only two matches Kingswood’s reputation for being tough opponents is legendary, getting the better of many of their opponents who have two or three times more players to choose from.

Captain Rich, headmaster of Kingswood from 1949-54, once said: “Kingswoodians have a robust manliness and honesty, a modest and unassuming behaviour, a keenness for hard games and hard knocks, but above all, a deep and lasting passion and loyalty.”

This will once again be evident come Saturday and their ability to “dig deep” must not be under-estimated.

The teams:

Kingswood: 15 Ethan Brownhill, 14 Reece Collett, 13 Joshua Shelley, 12  Anselm Castelyn, 11 Davron Cameron, 10 Lihleli Xoli, 9 Ryan Goldberg, 8 Ross Shiel, 7 Adrian Donian, 6 Jonathan Braans, 5 Jack Denton, 4 Arran Briceland (captain), 3 Leiken Whitehead, 2 Darryl Hall, 1 Ronyvaldo Vita.

Coach: Quinton Tait

St Andrew's: 15 Chris Ford (vice-captain), 14 Mbulelo Mama, 13 Ethan Fortuin, 12 Ryan Horne, 11 Robert Ball, 10 Ntsiki Mlamleli, 9 Justin Ferrant, 8 Stuart Stopforth, 7 Sintu Manjezi, 6 James Myburgh, 5 James Pagden, 4 Jake Green, 3 David Murray, 2 Garrick Bowker (captain), 1 Bradley Love.

Coaches: Gerry Posthumus, Allan Miles

Date: Saturday, 16 June (2012)

Kick-off: 15.30

Venue: City Lords Firled, Kingswood

K-Day Rugby programme:

City Lords Field

09.00: 4th XV

10.15: Under-14A

11.30: Under-15A

12.45: 3rd XV

14.15: 2nd XV

15.30: 1st XV

Knights Field

08.00: 5th XV

09.10: Under-15B

10.20: St Andrew's Under-16B vs Ukhanyo 2nd

11.30: 6th XV

12.40: St Andrew's Under-16A vs Ukhanyo 1st

Dold A Field

08.00: Under-14B

09.10: Kingswood Under-13B vs St Andrew's Prep Under-13C

10.00: Under-9A

10.45: Under-11A

Dold B Field

08.00: Under-11B

08.45: Mini 1 & 2 (8 per side)

09.15: St Andrew's Prep Under-13D vs Grahamstown Primary Under-13B

10.45: St Andrew's Prep Under-13B vs Grahamstown Primary Under-13A

From Kingswood