Book review: Victor My Journey
Victor My Journey is an excellent autobiography with several excellent reasons to read it.
First, perhaps the lowest level, it is an excellent resume of Springbok, Super and Currie Cup Rugby over a 12-year period lot of it gloriously happy but ending sadly with the 2011 quarterfinal in Wellington at the Rugby World Cup.
Inevitably, it is a fascinating insight into the world of Blue Bulls rugby and South Africa’s top rugby and those who people it – above all the coaches, the players and the referees. There is nothing nasty in it all, no scandal – nothing at all but you know those were especially admired and those who were not liked. It is a wholesome book.
But it is more than wholesome.
There is so much of value in it, so much instructive information that it should be a setbook for all aspiring professional rugby players and indeed for many for many who are at present professional rugby players. Not that there is a wodge of instruction – not at all.
But if you read you know about sportsmanship and camaraderie, you know about the dedication and massive effort that goes into being a professional rugby player, you know about loyalty and you know about getting the balance right, the priorities – job and family, fitness and fun, ambition and loyalty. You know about the glories of victory, the joys of travel and the hard slog of touring, you know about the importance of planning and you know about the importance of consultation, you know about the devil of disappointment, you know about the importance of playing structures and even more so the structures that support your person – mostly family and friends.
And in it all you know about goodness. He is clearly just a good man and a good companion.
Victor Matfield makes you proud that he is a rugby player and enormously proud that he is a South African and one who really cares for his country.
Victor started with advantages. Both his parents were schoolteachers and so he had a moral basis and a work ethic and a play ethic. They lived on a school property with all the country-club advantages. His very first chapter is a lesson his mother gave him in sportsmanship. It was not about the big victories of World Cup, Tri-Nations, Super Rugby or Currie Cup; it was about sportsmanship.
It is obvious that he was an excellent schoolboy – taking part in all activities and doing well enough at his studies to get three distinctions – maths, science and economics – in matric. You also hear him say at the end of his career that he should really have finished his university career.
Victor My Journey, written with De Jongh Borchardt whose privilege it was to enter into the lives of the Matfield family, is an excellent book. Like Matfield it is big and serious. Like Matfield it is full of fun and sheer goodness.
Title: Victor my Journey
By Victor Matfield with De Jongh Borchardt
Published by Zebra Press
337 pages
Soft cover
2011
Illustrated in colour
ISBN 978 1 77022 144 4
By Paul Dobson
