Bacher laments current SA Jewish contribution to sport

MIRAH LANGER

“Sadly, in 2019, sport at a high level within the Jewish community is at its lowest ebb; it’s almost non-existent. There is hardly a Jew today playing provincial sport or for our country,” he said.

Bacher, who was addressing an event this week in Houghton organised by the Union of Jewish Women, cited numerous previous great Jewish South African sportspeople, noting, for example, that there had been 10 Jewish Springbok rugby players, “who not only played for our country, but played with distinction”.

Yet “the only Jewish sportsman of note today is Dean Furman, who plays for Bafana Bafana,” the former South African cricket captain suggested.

Bacher attributed the status quo to a number of factors. First, he said, local clubs like Balfour Park (where he used to play) were once great platforms for budding Jewish sports performers. “It was a really formidable sporting entity where Jews migrated, played sport, and then went on to play provincially. It was a home for so many young Jewish sportsmen on the weekend.”

It was a pity that the club had fallen into financial difficulties, and eventually closed.

Second, he said, emigration in the Jewish community meant that there was now a much smaller pool of potential.

Lastly, he suggested, the lifestyle stresses of young people were greater than before.

Universities which once encouraged top sportspeople to come to their institutions by offering support for their degrees are no longer doing so. As such, “students now are under so much pressure to excel from an educational point of view, they can’t do both”.

In regard to the general state of cricket in South Africa, Bacher said the sport was probably in for a tough time. Though the national side has good players, they are still young and need more experience. “We need a bit of time to have these young players come through,” he said.

Born in Roodepoort to Lithuanian Jewish parents, Bacher was at the helm of transformation of cricket at the end of apartheid.

He recounted the impetus for his involvement in this change. “I’m a very positive person. I’ve always been positive about my country, and I still am. In 1986, for the first time, I got nervous. There were horrific killings in the townships. I called a few people [in the cricket world], and said, ‘We have to do something. We can’t sit back.’

“We went into Soweto … We didn’t know what to expect. We got lost, and people were looking at us thinking, ‘What are these whites doing in Soweto?’,” he said.

Yet, when he and his group eventually got to the sports fields where they were going to introduce cricket skills, he was amazed to see “about a thousand kids, and for the next few weeks, they kept coming back”.

As he rolled out cricket training programmes in these poverty-stricken areas, township children got to experience the glory of the gentleman’s game, and enjoy the euphoria of getting a wicket, or batting for six.

Bacher shared a number of other memories of this time, in particular his interaction with Nelson Mandela.

He recounted how as cricket began to emerge from the racial divide of the past, “the world was looking to us to play international cricket”. However, there was no talk within international sporting institutions of that involvement reaching the level of test cricket or the world cup. During Bacher’s first meeting with Mandela in 1991, there were Swedish journalists in the room. When one of the journalists asked Mandela about South Africa participating in the 1992 world cup, “Mandela said, ‘Of course, they must play’.”

The comment “went around the world”, recalled Bacher. By the next day, Bacher had received calls from key international cricket officials. The ball was rolling, and it culminated in South Africa’s participation in the world cup the next year.

Bacher reminisced about another encounter with Mandela a few years later. One day, Mandela simply phoned him, and asked him to pop over. “Off I go to his home in Houghton. We sit down, and have a cup of tea. He is waffling around.

 “He said, ‘Ali, you know, two weeks ago, I went to Pietersburg. I went to one village about an hour away. Ali you can’t believe the conditions, the toilets, nurseries, the state of the buildings.’ And then, he said, ‘Ali, would you say that I helped you chaps get a little bit back in world cricket?’. I said, ‘Of course!’”

Then Mandela made his pitch, saying, “It would be a nice gesture if you gave me a million rand to give to the community.”

Bacher said he told Mandela he would have to get the approval of the board of Cricket South Africa. “Fine, I’ll leave it to you,” Mandela said.

At first, the proposal didn’t go down well at the board meeting.

Raymond White, the then chairman of Cricket South Africa, came up with a cunning plan. “He [turned to the board], and said, ‘All those opposed put up your right hand’. I tell you, not one person put up their hand.”

Bacher delivered the cheque to Mandela the next day. He brought along his family, including his two grandchildren, who were then about five and six years old. “Mandela put my grandchildren on his lap, and sang to them. He really was the most extraordinary person.”