1 The Crowning Glory

It was 24 June 1995.

For more than a hundred years, those black and coloured South Africans who had showed any interest in rugby enthusiastically supported whatever team was playing against the Springboks: Lions, All Blacks, Wallabies, France, Wales, England, Scotland or Ireland; it did not matter. For many millions, the foreigners would be heroes if they could defeat the team in green-and-gold.

No Springbok captain had ever been recognised as a role model in every community of his sadly divided nation; no Springbok team had ever played with the united support of all South Africans.

It was 24 June 1995, and everything changed.

Before 65 000 fortunate spectators watching in the stadium, an estimated worldwide television audience of more than two billion and, surely, many rows of sepia faces gazing down proudly from above, South African rugby lived through an experience, a moment, an image of staggering proportions.

The powerful river of Springbok rugby, relentless yet ever restricted by the rigid banks of South Africa's social and political reality, finally flowed into the wide and open ocean where the team would not only be cheered by all South Africans but would also earn effusive praise in every corner of the globe.

And magazine posters of the Springbok captain would be enthusiastically pinned to bedroom walls in the township of Soweto ...

It was 24 June 1995, and grown men wept.

Rugby, so long regarded as the defiant, breast-beating drum of apartheid, was suddenly producing a sweet symphony for the new South Africa, the young, liberated democracy inaugurated barely 12 months earlier; and the Springbok captain seemed a relevant, recognised leader across the nation.

Ellis Park Stadium was bathed in warm, slanting winter sunshine, and an eerie glow had descended upon the arena. Amid thousands of flags, wide smiles and tears, South Africa had somehow won the Rugby World Cup final, defeating odds-on favourites New Zealand by 15-12 after extra time.

The eyes of this occasionally fragile nation, so earnestly desperate to be a success, were focused on a podium that had been wheeled onto the field in front of the main stand for the trophy presentation.

In this place, at this time, two South Africans arrived from opposite ends of the country's social spectrum and stood together, side by side, wearing identical Springbok jerseys, emblazoned with No. 6 on the back.

President Nelson Mandela and François Pienaar.

Mandela, the global icon who had committed his entire life to the liberation of South Africa, had emerged in 1990 from 27 years of imprisonment to inspire and drive a miraculously peaceful negotiated revolution. As he was inaugurated the first president of democratic South Africa, his country was transformed from a polecat nation into a shining example of peace and reconciliation.

His experiences of rugby had been limited to watching impromptu games played by his fellow prisoners on Robben Island, but he had taken care to attend the first Test match played during his presidency, against England in Pretoria on 4 June 1994. A stunning, unexpected defeat prompted Mandela to express the hope to the then president of the South African Rugby Football Union, Louis Luyt, that the Springbok team would improve for the 1995 World Cup.

Prior to the opening match of the tournament, he visited the Springboks at their training ground, playfully placed Hennie le Roux's Bok cap on his head as he was introduced to the players, and, in that one gesture, guaranteed a future for the team's proud emblem that had been threatened by leaders in the National Sports Council who felt it should be abandoned as a symbol of the past.

Part of Mandela's genius was to take elements that had once represented bitter division, and transform them into vehicles for national unity. As May became June in 1995, his endorsement meant that Springbok caps were soon being worn by aware, fashion-conscious young men in the townships.

On the morning of 24 June 1995, the president went a step further. Only five hours before the World Cup final was due to start, Mary Mxadana, from the president's office, contacted Russell Mulholland, liaison officer with the team, at the Sandton Sun Hotel, and asked whether a spare Bok jersey was available.

Every player had been provided with two green jerseys for the match, one to wear and one to swap with their opposite number, each specially embroidered with the words "RWC Final 1995" beneath the Bok emblem. Mulholland took one of the No. 6 jerseys prepared for Pienaar, and, confident of finding a replacement jersey for the captain in due course, happily handed it over to Mxadana when they met at eleven o'clock that morning in the foyer of the Sandton Sun.

And so Mandela strode out onto the field at Ellis Park to hear the national anthems and be introduced to both teams, wearing not only the green Springbok cap but also the No. 6 Springbok jersey. Immediately, the capacity crowd roared its approval of this remarkable gesture. Many heads of state would have looked ridiculous in similar circumstances; Mandela looked magnificent.

"Nel-son!"

"Nel-son!"

"Nel-son!"

The bellowing stadium began to chant in unison. Heavyweight Afrikaners, born-and-bred rugby men who for so long would have condemned Mandela as a terrorist, suddenly found themselves chanting his name. "My father was a serious far right supporter," says one young man, who was sitting in the East stand, "and he was certainly no fan of the new South Africa. But, when he saw Mandela walk onto the field in the Springbok jersey, he leaped to his feet and started cheering. I could not believe my eyes. I think it is accurate to say that moment affected my father's entire outlook on life. It was an incredible gesture."

Amid such emotions, moments after the final whistle, President Mandela stood on the podium on the field at Ellis Park, beaming.

The other man wearing a Springbok No. 6 jersey at Ellis Park on 24 June 1995 was the oldest son of a steel worker from the Transvaal hinterland. His first meaningful interaction with a black compatriot had been when, at the age of nine, he gashed his hand as a man tried to snatch from him a plastic carrier bag full of empty bottles. Young François Pienaar ran all the way home.

Through high school and his years at the Rand Afrikaans University, he was brought up in the traditional mould of white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans: brave and bold, God-fearing, fiercely loyal, inherently colour-suspicious.

In June 1993, at the age of 26, he was selected to play flanker for South Africa, and named as captain. Surviving series defeats in Australia that year and in New Zealand in 1994, his squad started to thrive under the skilful guidance of his hugely respected friend and mentor, coach Kitch Christie.

Broadly written off before the 1995 World Cup, Pienaar's Springboks won their group safely, and heroically triumphed in a colossal, waterlogged semi-final against France at King's Park in Durban. Although the popular consensus held that the South Africans would be overrun by Jonah Lomu and the All Blacks in the final, yet again they prevailed by sheer force of will.

Pienaar, well spoken and sensitive in public, led his Springboks in every possible respect. With the countenance of a Roman general, he laid his body on the line at the apex of the fiercest drives and the roughest mauls; and he earned the absolute respect of his players and, in most cases, real affection.

During the brief interval between the first and second halves of extra time in the World Cup final, the captain had gathered his tiring players around, in the middle of Ellis Park, and emotionally asked them to look at the new "united South Africa" flags being waved in every corner of the stadium.

"Come on guys, we have to pull it through for these people," he said, as he knelt on one knee, stressing every word with a sweep of his hand. "We have to do it for our country. We need this. We all need this."

And Joel Stransky kicked the decisive drop goal, and referee Ed Morrison blew the final whistle, and, again, Pienaar called his players into a huddle. At the moment when most sportsmen would have embarked upon an orgy of unbridled and self-indulgent celebrations, this captain gave thanks.

A photograph of the newly crowned rugby world champions kneeling in prayer was later framed and presented by manager Morné du Plessis to Pope John Paul II when the squad visited the Vatican City five months later, during the preparations for their Test match against Italy in Rome.

As 65 000 people pinched themselves to make sure it was all true, rubbed their eyes in wonder, and waved their flags, the exultant Springbok captain made his way across the field and eventually reached the podium.

Pienaar looked up through the throng, and saw Mandela.

He had first met the President before the ill-fated Test against England in 1994, shaken hands and nodded. He met him again during preparations before the opening match of the World Cup, and shortly before that match. To his great surprise and pleasure, the captain was phoned by Mandela on several occasions as the tournament ran its course, off the cuff, mobile to mobile.

"Hello?" Pienaar was answering his mobile telephone while swigging from a water bottle during a tough training session before the semi-final.

"François, how are you?"

"Er, Mr...