As a typical kid growing up, much of my free time in primary school was spent as a member of one gang or another.

Nerdy little groups with quirky little names like “The Sharpeners”, or “The Muck-ups”. There were others to be sure, but these two stick in the memory.

The Sharpeners existed for one reason only. We thought,  for reasons unclear, that it would be cool to collect ‘sharpen’ as we called it – the stuff that comes off your pencil as you twist it in the sharpener. So, we would collect our own, and anyone else’s were they kind enough to share, and meet behind the Standard 4 classroom at break to tally up. What we actually did with it is unclear to me now.

The Muck-ups on the other hand had a far more sinister goal. Ours was to ‘muck up’ the other gangs, or stop them from achieving their goals in whatever ways we could think of.

There is much that can be said about these innocent schoolyard groups and the role they played in our social development. But one of their most defining characteristics was that membership was a very fluid concept. It would change one day to the next. You could turn up for a very important gang meeting, only to find that the leader had invited his new mates to join. This would really piss me off. There were some people I would never share my carefully collected sharpen with, under any circumstances. By second break I’d make sure I’d joined some other clique.

Typically the gang phase passed. Not so much because I lost my passion for useless stationery, or because mucking up gangs when you are a member of half them is confusing, but rather with time we realized that the whole concept was kinda stupid. In short, we grew up.

Lately however, it has dawned on me that international sport has become just a glorified version of the Sharpeners vs The Muck-ups. I’m referring to the ease with which players seem to swap allegiances from one country to another. Something which ultimately demeans the whole concept.

I’ve always taken following sport seriously. For so many people around the world, it is not just as a pastime but rather a measure of pride in where you come from, be it your city, province, or country. It’s why I could never understand why some people chose to support teams from the other side of the country. Even if they had better players, to me there was no choice.

It was always quite simple. I was born and raised in Johannesburg, and so therefore I had to support Transvaal. Yes, this meant sucking it up year after year as Naas Botha and Uli Schmidt kicked and pounded us into oblivion, but there was always the hope that in the end we’d get one over them. It was part of the fun. In the meantime, we just had to sit there and take it. Such is the lot of the local supporter.

I understand that players are not fans. They follow whatever direction the money is blowing in, and that’s fine. As supporters, we don’t often like it, but we accept it.  At what point however, does a player moving from one locale to another go from acceptable to not? Is there even such a line?

For example, in the early 90s, James Small left Transvaal to go play for Natal. This really annoyed me, as I loved that man. But, it was acceptable.

At roughly the same time, Northern Transvaal legend and our tormentor-in-chief, Uli Schmidt, left Pretoria and headed down to Jo’burg to finally lift us out of our misery. Him I never really liked, but two Currie Cups, a Lion Cup, and the Super 10 championship later, he was my hero too. Acceptable.

Kevin Pietersen, not acceptable.

As much as I would like to see clubs only allow players who grew up locally play for them, I know it is not realistic. Take Yorkshire County Cricket Club for example. For years only players born in the county were eligible to represent them. A fine and noble stance. It lasted until 1992 when a 19yr old Sachin Tendulkar became available. So they did away with the rule, and they loved him at Headingley.

Which is why we have international competition. In all sports, it is meant to be the ultimate representative contest, not watered down by money. It is a genuine Us vs Them. Who is better? Who makes the fastest, strongest, the most skillful?

And this is where I fear that it has become a case of The Sharpeners vs The Muck-ups. Or rather more annoyingly, England’s South Africans vs France’s South Africans, or Ireland’s, or Scotland’s…

In this year’s Six Nations, each competing country had a South African in their squad. Shockingly, this actually means that somewhere out there, there are rugby players who, for enough money, would rather play for Italy. I just cannot think of anything funny to say about this.

But of course it is on the cricket pitch where most of the damage has been done. The talent drain from SA to the UK ultimately must wear away at the very fabric of international competition. If playing pride can be bought and sold, then supporters’ passions must surely fade over time.

This is not just sour grapes at England’s ability to cherry pick the best of the rest. They’ve been plundering the West Indies for talent for decades, and there is usually an antipodean or two on the fringes of their team. A benefit of once ruling half the planet I suppose.

Maybe I just wish we could do it too. We’ve only really tried it once, when Imran Tahir took a wrong turn from Lahore to London and ended up in somewhere between Pretoria and Johannesburg. We had finally managed some duty free shopping of our own, but test match figures of 0/180 in Adelaide in November 2012, must have had the team management frantically looking for the receipt. That he ultimately came good in the one day game and is one of the best in the world now only really underlines my point. When you pay with Rands, buying in bulk is not really an option.

Of course it is all about the money. Pounds talk louder than Rands. (Do Rands even make a sound?) I guess that is the way of the world. So we will just have get used to the fact that CJ Stander plays his rugby for Ireland and the British and Irish Lions, that a boy from Durban called Greg Rawlinson danced the Haka, and that far too many others  pretend to care about the Queen.

Will my passions fade over time? I doubt it. But there are times when I think back to January 1994 and wonder if the youthful innocence of my 2am dance with my mates as Fanie de Villers ripped the Aussies apart is gone. I hope not, but I do wonder.

Diego Costa played for Brazil before deciding he’d rather play for Spain. Wilfried Zaha could not get back in the England squad, and so headed back to the Ivory Coast. Loopholes in FIFA regulations made their switches technically legal, and good news if you’re Spanish or Ivorian, but as a fan of international sport in general, maybe world football is a little less shiny. Perhaps I am overreacting, but I just know that it feels wrong.

Of course, I see the obvious question. How is it that I can leave SA and make a life for myself elsewhere but sportsmen can’t? And if that genuinely requires an explanation then you do not truly understand what it is to be a fan.

When they retire they can do what they want. Uli Schmidt took his medal haul after his stint with Transvaal and has been living somewhere on the north coast of Queensland  for the last 15 years. I honestly don’t care. My abiding memory of him is scoring the winning try in the 1992 Currie Cup final. And yes, he wore the green and gold, so he can live where he wants.

Ironically the rugby player I hated the most was Australian legend David Campese. Cocky beyond description, I really disliked that man. For close on 10 years now he’s been living  in Durban with his South African wife and his South African children. Now if only he had met her 25 years earlier.

GPF

PS. If Kevin Pietersen comes back to play for SA and helps us win the world cup in 2019, I shall forgive him.