Another Bok dies

On Friday, 22 June 2012 Dolf Bekker, part of a family of Springboks, died at the age of 85. This follows the deaths the week before of 88-year-old Willem Barnard and 75-year-old Mof Myburgh, both forwards. Bekker was a wing.

Bekker was born in Dordrecht and went to school the but like his remarkable siblings he went off to Pretoria.

The siblings were certainly remarkable as all five of the children of Christiaan and Johanna Bekker became Springboks.

Three sons played rugby for South Africa – Jaap, Martiens and Dolf. Daan, who played rugby for Northern Transvaal, boxed for South Africa, winning a bronze medal as a heavyweight at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne and a silver medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Sister Corrie represented South Africa at athletics. She did field events. In those days all South Africa's sporting representatives were called Springboks.

Jaap was born in 1925 and died in 1999. Martiens was born in 1930 and died in Ermelo in 1971 and Daan died in 2009 at the age of 77.

Dolf was first a representative and then went farming.

Dolf played on the wing for Northern Transvaal 29 times from 1950 to 1956. In 1953 he played in two Tests, scoring a try in the Durban Test. In 1956 he kicked a dropped goal in the Currie Cup Final when Northern Transvaal beat Natal 9-8 in Durban

Rudolph Philippus Bekker was born on 15 December, 1926. He married Agnes Nel and they had two children – Christiaan and

Ianthé.