Northcliff High School won the co-ed schools A-league inter-high for the 20th year in a row on Wednesday.
Now, I’ve learnt better than to make absolute statements in the newspaper - if you write things like ‘the first’, ‘the only’, the ‘longest’ or the ‘biggest’, invariably the earlier, other, longer or bigger one phones in to complain on Monday morning.
That said, I do know that no Joburg school has won this particular trophy more times, and there can surely not have been many longer unbeaten runs, in any competition, in school sport in this country.
I must confess to a nasty streak in my character that likes to see unbeaten runs end and I invariably root, in the quiet, for the side trying to topple the reigning champions. But I was hoping Northcliff would win on Wednesday. The coaches and school management are such nice people, and there is, every year, an endearing element to how nervous they get ahead of the inter-high - no arrogance, and a genuine belief that the opposition might, this year, put one over on them.
I’ve tried to work out what it is that makes a team so good that they just never lose. If there was a simple answer I guess there would never be unbeaten runs because the others would adopt the methods of the winners and it would all even out.
In Northcliff’s case, it’s quite interesting, in the context of how school sport’s going these days, because it seems their achievement is about old-fashioned hard work with the resources you have, rather than going out and recruiting stars to fill gaps that might be in the team.
There is no tradition of player-poaching in our co-ed schools, on the contrary, they seem to be the prey rather than the hunters and the boys’ schools rugby scouts regularly loot them with impunity.
So, how do they do it? I spoke to some of the Northcliff staff, including the principal, who put it down to a single-minded whole school effort. There’s an understanding that, once the rugby season ends at the end of the second term, the focus is athletics and winning the inter-high is the objective.
Nothing interferes. There are no other extra-mural school activities for the short, sharp period leading up to the inter-high, every teacher and pupil is expected to do their bit in support of the team, or in it, and there are no excuses.
It sounds a bit obsessive, but it works. And, Northcliff principal Walter Essex-Clarke explained to me, it’s a cause that unites the school and that has a positive effect on integrating the pupil body, particularly since athletics is a code no one group dominates.
I also spoke to a few of the runners and they told me the little ones are told by the seniors when they arrive at the school that winning the inter-high is ‘what we do’ and you’d better make sure it stays that way.
It’s a mantra that is constantly repeated throughout their years at the school and it has become an unchanging tradition now.
It helps that they are winning of course - start losing and people may start finding fault with that hard line, driven approach.
One absolute I’m not afraid of committing myself to is that, in all things, the wheel turns and nothing lasts forever. So, Northcliff’s run is going to end one day. The interhigh trophy shows that through its history a number of schools have enjoyed lengthy unbeaten runs. But they all eventually ended.
Just how that’s going to happen is an entirely different discussion. I suspect the demand for other activities to be allowed might be the thing that changes it. Long-standing traditions are under threat these days and school rules that have survived for a long time are becoming the target of those who want things to fall.
And, the demand for soccer as a third term sport must be there somewhere and not everyone is a runner.
And, of course, people come and go. It’s always all about leadership, and if the people at the top change, inevitably everything else does too.
In the meantime, though, it was marvellous to witness the record being set. This is one unbeaten run I don’t want to see the end of. - Independent Media