Greatest Moments in Wits Sport (1922-2022)
1922: The University College, Johannesburg, was granted full university status on 1 March 1922. The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg came into being and the All Sports Committee was formed.
1922: Buster Nupen threw the cricket ball from one side of the sports field to the other – a distance of 113 yards – to win the event at the intervarsity. He later captained the South African cricket team to a series victory over England in 1930/31.
1923: The mascot Phineas made his first appearance at Wits when he was used to draw attention to the first intervarsity boxing tournament.
1924: George Stott, the first South African high-jumper to clear 6 feet, broke his own national record during the Wits internal meeting with a leap of 6 feet 1⅜ inches.
1927: Wits women’s hockey won the university’s first senior provincial competition when they emerged top of the Southern Transvaal First League. They included two players – Jennie Jacobson and Emmie Hartmann – who represented South Africa.
1930: J.H. ‘Snaar’ Viljoen, Wits’s all-round star in 1927, later won gold in the high jump and silver in the long jump at the Hamilton Empire Games in 1930.
1931/32: Henry Forrest was selected for Bennie Osler’s Springbok side that achieved the ‘grand-slam’ during their tour to the British Isles in 1931/32.
1932-33: Wits cricketers achieved their first trophy – the Chauncey Cup – for winning the Johannesburg third league. They were led by Tom Fraser, who was later awarded a Cambridge University blue.
1933: Wits won the Buffalo Grand Challenge, the country’s premier rowing event, at the East London regatta, and then retained the trophy in 1934.
1934: Willie Botha was second by inches in the London Empire Games, having tripped and sprawled headlong with 250 yards left in the race.
1935: Wits rowers won the first ‘official’ intervarsity regatta at Vereeniging.
1938: Louis Fouché won gold in the shot put at the Sydney Empire Games in 1938.
1939: The All Sports Council (ASC) was formed on 1 September.
1939/40: Two members of the cricket team – Eric Norton and ‘Scotch’ Taylor – later represented South Africa.
1940: Wits won the Dalrymple Cup for a record sixth successive year. Their success came when Vic Turnbull won the last race of the day – the 440 yards – in a record time.
1940: Wits finished third behind Cambridge and Aberdeen in the Empire intervarsity shooting competition.
1941: Jannie Joubert won the 100 and 220 yards, long jump and shot put at the Dalrymple Cup.
1947: Harry Brews won the Boyd Quaich Inter-Commonwealth golf tournament at St Andrew’s, Scotland.
1947: Three Witsies went on to play international rugby overseas between 1947 and 1953: Syd Newman (England), Harry Small (England) and Chick Henderson (Scotland).
1948: Paddy Dobson was Wits’s first men’s hockey Springbok.
1949: Syd Levy represented South Africa in the Davis Cup and was the country’s number 2 behind Eric Sturgess for the next three years. He defeated England’s number 1 Tony Mottram at the British hardcourt championships in 1951.
1950: Ian Stephen won a bronze medal in the 2000-metres sculls on Lake Karapiro in the Auckland Empire Games. Two years later at Helsinki, he became the first South African to qualify for the final of an Olympic Games rowing event, finishing fifth.
1952: Des Cohen, who had represented South Africa at swimming at the 1948 London Olympic Games, was selected for the water polo team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games. A former Witsie, Gerry Goddard, captained the side.
1952: Tom Ferguson had coached Wits to 18 successive intervarsity swimming victories prior to his death that year.
1952: Wits was well represented at the Helsinki Olympic Games with their entire fours crew – John Webb, Robin Veitch, Don Dyke-Wells and Damian Nichol – being selected for the Springbok team.
1953: The South African Rugby Annual headed their university section ‘Witwatersrand Varsity Champions’. Wits defeated Cape Town (14-13), Pretoria (13-9), Natal (21-6) and Rhodes (19-3), while Stellenbosch withdrew.
1953: In exceptional fashion, Elaine Winter won the Roger Dyason Shield on her own. Her grand performance included a national record in the 80-metres hurdles. Winter later represented South Africa at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
1953/54: Wits won their first major Transvaal League cricket competition – the Lionel Phillips trophy. They had to win their last match outright. Chasing 161 in 75 minutes they collapsed to 79 for 8, before Adrian Couzyn and rugby star Freddie Herbst struck out boldly to score the runs.
1954: Reg Taylor and Roger Brews were the first Witsies to go on to represent South Africa at golf. Dave Symons followed shortly afterwards.
1955: Two members of the Wits First XV, Wilf Rosenberg and Clive Ulyate, represented the Springboks against the British Lions in 1955, and on tour to Australia and New Zealand in 1956. Rosenberg and Joe Kaminer were selected for the Springboks against France in 1958.
1957: Wits increased their unbroken sequence of intervarsity swimming victories – the Roberts Trophy – to 23.
1957: Athol Jennings won the South African mile title for the eighth successive year. He had earlier represented South Africa in the 1500 metres at the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games.
1957/58: The Wits’ cricketers, captained by Fritz Koch, won the Transvaal Premier League for the first time.
1958: Gordon Day (athletics) won a bronze medal in the 220 yards and gold in the 4x440-yards relay at the 1958 Cardiff Empire Games. He was in the 4x400 metres relay team that finished fourth at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games.
1958: Fencer, Andree Sacco, was fifth in the 1958 Empire Games at Cardiff.
1959: Ray Weedon represented South Africa in the Davis Cup, defeating Norway’s Gunnar Sjoewell in his first international match.
1960: Robbie Schwartz participated in the waterpolo and swimming at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. He later represented South Africa at flying.
1960/61: Michel Antelme was chosen for the Springboks at home against the All Blacks and in the grand-slam winning side on tour to the British Isles and France.
1960/61: The Sunday Times commented on the ‘“Wonder water polo season for Wits’ when 22 matches were won and one drawn out of 23 fixtures. They won the Transvaal league, Hancock Cup and SAU.
1961/62: Eddie Barlow was first selected for the South African cricket team as a student against New Zealand in 1961/62. He became vice-captain of both the Springbok cricket team and a World XI that thrashed England in 1970.
1962: Neville Graham was South Africa’s sole representative at that year’s world championships in Prague. South Africa’s champion gymnast a record six times, he was selected for the Springbok team that was barred from the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964.
1962: Danie Burger, the 1959 South African decathlon champion, represented Wits either side of winning a silver medal for Rhodesia in the pole-vault at the 1962 Perth Commonwealth Games. He became the first South African to clear 15 feet in the event.
1963: Jon Lang was third in the Athens Marathon. He won the South African marathon in 1963 and 1964 as well as three and six-mile national titles.
1963/64: Wits’s first cricket team under Don Mackay-Coghill won the Transvaal Premier League for the second time.
1965: Peter Rich won the South African 440-yards hurdles title for the first time. He went on to win the event (which became 400 metres) a further four times.
1967: Hugh Baiocchi dominated the golf intervarsity tournaments during 1966 to 1968, winning his third title by a massive nineteen strokes. He received Springbok colours as a student in 1967, and achieved the distinction of winning South Africa’s amateur, open and professional titles.
1967: Wits won the Pirates Grand Challenge for the first time since earning a place in the competition in 1913. The winning captain Alan Menter was selected for the Springbok team in 1968.
1968: Future national hockey captain, Neville Berman, inspired Wits to victories in both the Southern Transvaal Premier League for the first time, and the intervarsity.
1968: Paul Nash equalled the world record for the 100 metres five times (once wind-assisted) in 1968. At Standerton, he became the first athlete in history to equal the 10-second mark for the 100 metres twice in one day. In less than an hour at the Zurich Athletic Club championships – and while running into a slight headwind – he ran the 100 metres in 10.0 seconds and the 200 metres in 20.1 seconds.
1968: When the South African Lawn Tennis national rankings were released, there were three Witsies – Alan Schwarz, Clive Brebnor and Keith Brebnor – in the top ten.
1969: Wits won the annual golf intervarsity for the seventeenth time out of a possible 19.
1969: John Mandilas won the South African singles crown. He was selected for the Springbok team the following year, having earlier represented Greece.
1971: Sonja Laxton won both the South African 1500 metres (in a new record time) and cross-country championship. She was also on her way to becoming the first woman to be chosen for Springbok track, cross country and marathon teams.
1971: Dave Levick won the London to Brighton race, with fellow Witsies Trevor Parry second and Rob Gardner fourth.
1972: Kathy Hardy reached the final of the British Open (then the unofficial world squash championship) and was South African champion as a student on three successive occasions (1972-73-74).
1974: Neville Berman led the Springboks to victory over Olympic champions, West Germany in an 8-nations tournament. Fellow Witsies Steve Jaspan and Alistair Forbes were responsible for two of the three match-winning penalty flicks.
1974: The first full-time sports officer, Arthur Zimmerman, was appointed.
1974/75: Erich Essman achieved the 100 and 200-metres ‘double’ at the intervarsity at Cape Town and then repeated the performance at the South African Championships.
1975: Adam van Tonder, a South African boxing champion, was widely regarded as the hardest puncher, pound for pound, in the country during the mid-1970s.
1975: Wits hockey under Noel Day reached the final of South Africa’s ‘Champion of Champions’ tournament in 1975 and 1976.
1976: Witsies, Ian Holding and Dave Scott were drawn to play each other in the semi-final of the World Amateur Championships in London. The latter was subsequently beaten in the final but when the winner turned professional, Scott was regarded as the word’s number 1. Holding became Springbok squash champion and was ranked 14 as a professional.
1977: Gary Bailey was selected for the Springbok team that played a friendly international against Rhodesia at Salisbury. He later represented Manchester United and England.
1977: Wits baseballers won the national inter-club competition, known as the South African Breweries Castle Cup Knockout Series.
1977: Wits won the men’s South African basketball club championships. Vaios Kokkoris, Chris Jonker and ‘Neels’ Boschoff were prominent in the Wits team.
1978: Wits entered the new multi-racial National Professional Soccer League. They also beat Kaizer Chiefs 3-2 in the Mainstay Cup final (the equivalent of the FA Cup) at Rand Stadium.
1978: Colin Dowdeswell beat the world’s top-ranked player Guillermo Vilas in the South African Open. Having already represented Rhodesia, he became Great Britain’s number 1 in the Davis Cup.
1978: Witsies Udo Sachse and Franco Busetti were members of the Springbok skydiving team that won the four-way world title at Rheims.
1980: Wits won the first South African equivalent of the Oxford-Cambridge boat race. They received an historic rudder presented by the Cambridge University Engineers Association.
1980: The entire 1980 Wits rowing squad were awarded Springbok colours on their return from a five-week tour of Britain. The President of the South African Amateur Rowing Union, Greg Gearing, described the team as being ‘the finest ever to represent South Africa’.
1980: Wits rowers secured their third successive victory in the Buffalo Grand Challenge. The feat was repeated during 1986-88, when John Myburgh’s earlier effort in appearing in all three victories was emulated by Robin McCall.
1981: Bruce Fordyce won his first of nine Comrades Marathons. He would also win three London to Brighton races (including a world record for the 50 miles), and the United Sates 50-mile championships. He braved the Arctic chill in 1987 to win the 84-kilometre Midnight Sun Marathon of Hope on Baffin Island in a new record time. Thereafter, he won the inaugural Standard Bank 100-kilometres Challenge at Stellenbosch.
1981: Mandy Yachad led Wits to their first success in the South African ‘Champion of Champions’ indoor hockey tournament, an achievement they repeated in 1986.
1982: The Wits entry BMW Sensation finished third in their class and sixth on handicap out of 48 entries in the Cape to Uruguay race.
1983: Melanie Dembo was the only westerner to qualify for the final of the All Japan karate championships. She finished seventh.
1983/84: Wits achieved the Transvaal cricket ‘double’ – Premier League and Limited Overs. The team, led by Craig Benadie, owed much to the future England all-rounder Richard Ellison.
1984: Wits footballers won the BP Top 8 competition 4-3 on aggregate.
1984: Mark Plaatjes became the South African cross country and marathon champion. In his Johannesburg Marathon victory, he equalled the world altitude record. Running at Port Elizabeth in 1985, he broke the South African marathon record in 2:8:58. His time was the fastest run on the African continent and thirteenth fastest in history.
1984: Wits men’s and women’s basketball teams won their respective provincial and SAU competitions.
1985: Momentum Life finished second in the final line honours and was the first South African yacht in the Cape to Uruguay race. There was drama brought on by engine problems, storms, breakages, huge waves and a crew member flung over the side of the boat during the night.
1985: Wits won the JPS trophy (the League Cup) after a 330-minute marathon against Kaizer Chiefs. With the sides locked at 2-2 after two matches, Wits won the third (4-3 on aggregate) in extra-time.
1985: Natascha Meisler, a judo Springbok, was runner-up in the United States Open Under 48kg category while representing West Germany.
1986: The skydiving club’s finest year included a world-first outside the United States, when they completed a ‘four-by-side’ manoeuvre at Klerksdorp that involved canopies of the parachutists joining together from the middle rather like the spokes of a wheel.
1986: Harry Chweidan and Angela Toulouras won the South African men’s and women’s JKA kata championships. The following year, Wits took four (Chweidan, Pavlo Protopapa, Russel Koton and Panico Protopapa) out of the first five places in the South African All-Styles championships with the odd man out being former Witsie, third-placed Colin Smith.
1987: Extensive negotiations led to the decision that a second student sporting body would exist: the South African Tertiary Institutions Sports Council (SATISCO), to be known as SATISCO-Wits. Like the ASC, it would fall under the general control of the Sports Administration
1987: Victor Radebe became the first Witsie to break the four-minute barrier in the mile. His time of 3 minutes 54.62 seconds made him the ninth fastest miler in the world that year and the fourth fastest in South African history.
1987: Gary Beneke set a new South African 10-kilometre cycling record; became the first Maddison champion, and won eight national ‘classics’.
1988: Frith van der Merwe set a new record for the women’s section of the Comrades Marathon and the following year reached the 30 and 50-kilometre marks at the Two Oceans in world-record times.
1988: Gary Wilson was the top amateur in the Rapport Tour and he and Andrew McLean were awarded Springbok colours.
1988: After the rowers had won the South African ‘eights’ seven times in ten years, they recorded the fastest time ever in the country over 2000 metres. In a memorable year Wits won both the men’s and women’s boat races on the Kowie River. It was the inaugural women’s race with Wits becoming the first holders of the Isis Blade.
1988: During a university vacation, Pavlo Protopapa represented Cyprus at the European karate championships and finished third in the kumite.
1988: Wits finished as the top sports university in South Africa in a points table compiled by the SAU Sports Council and based on 30 intervarsity tournaments staged during the year.
1989: Gabriela Petras, a Czechoslovakian junior and Springbok senior volleyball player, captained the Witwatersrand team to victory in both the RSA Cup and the South African inter-provincial tournament.
1989: Rugby star James Small represented South Africa under-20 ‘A’ in 1989. Two years later, he was Wits’s ‘Player of the Year’ and then in 1992, he was selected for the Springboks against the visiting All Blacks at Ellis Park.
1991: SATISCO and the South African Tertiary Institutions Sports Association (SATISA) merged. The merger involved a change of name to the South African Tertiary Institutions Sports Union (SATISU)
1992: At Wits, the process of unification was entered into by the three main players: the ASC, SATISU -Wits and the Sports Administration. Unity was achieved on 22 October 1992, with the Wits Sports Council (WSC) becoming the new governing body of student sport.
1992: Mark Perrow and Neil Evans won the world-renowned Descent of the Sella canoe race, with fellow Witsies, Graham Bird and Gavin Cooke, second The same year, Perrow competed in the sprints at the Barcelona Olympic Games and, with Evans, later triumphed in the famous Dusi race, setting a new record.
1992: Kim Carter won the South African road-cycling 80-kilometre race and set a national record in the 3 000-metres pursuit.
1992: Alec Lanham-Love and Martin Lambrecht won the 1992 Fireball World Championships in North Carolina, and competed in the Barcelona Olympic Games.
1992-93: Wits again achieved the Transvaal cricket ‘double’, this time with James Teeger as captain. South African opening bowlers, Richard Snell and Steven Jack were major figures in the Wits team over several years.
1993: Hendrick Ramaala began running at Wits; won gold at the 1993 Australian Student Games, and became South Africa’s student cross-country and 5000-metre champion. He became a three-time Olympian and won the New York City marathon in 2004.
1993: Kim Carter won the Cape Town cycle tour, the first event outside Europe to be included in the International Cycling Union’s Golden Bike series.
1993: Former student Mark Plaatjes qualified for the United States team and, at Stuttgart, became the world champion, the first American to win the title.
1994: Shane Dorfman became the world’s youngest fourth dan after his grading in Japan, and runner-up in the open men’s kata at the world JKA karate championships.
1994: Pavlo Protopapa became the first non-Asian to win the individual open kumite event at the world karate championships in Philadelphia – 206 of the world’s best Shotokan fighters competed, with fellow ex-Witsie Colin Smith third.
1995: Wits footballers won the BP Top 8 trophy when student Bradley Carnell scored twice in a 2-0 victory over Kaizer Chiefs. A second major achievement during the season saw Wits overcome Orlando Pirates 1-0 in the Coca Cola Cup final at the FNB Stadium.
1995: George Mallory, who once chaired the Wits mountain club, joined an international expedition that successfully climbed Everest, using the route on which his grandfather, the legendary George Mallory, had disappeared in 1924.
1995: Antje Manfroni, a former world champion, was the first woman (K1) in the Dusi Canoe Marathon, the Drakensberg Challenge, the South African marathon championships, the ICF International Breede River Grand Prix, the KWV Berg River Marathon and the South African 200 metres sprint championships.
1996: Sally Buckton – South Africa’s judo captain – was a double bronze medallist at the Commonwealth Championships and a double gold medallist at the South African International Open.
1996: Craig Jackson captained the South African hockey team at the Atlanta Olympic Games.
1996: Nuno Gomes established a world’s best cave dive of 282.6 metres at Boesmansgat that was recognised by Guinness World Records. In 2005, he travelled to the Red Sea where he achieved an overall world deep-diving record of 318.25 metres.
1996: Cathy O’Dowd who began climbing at Wits and has written of her experiences, was part of the first South African team to climb Everest in 1996. She is also the first woman to reach the summit from both south (1996) and north sides (1999).
1996/97: Wits became the first PSL side to beat all three of Pirates, Chiefs and Sundowns in the same season. They would achieve the feat on five separate occasions, more than any other PSL side.
1997: During the university’s 75th Anniversary year, Professor Charlton officially opened the new Sports Administration complex at Sturrock Park on 21 October 1997.
1998: Lydia ‘Skillz’ Monyepao was chosen for the South African basketball team to compete at the All-Africa Games. She also represented the women’s national football side Banyana Banyana in Egypt.
1998: Athol Myhill won a bronze medal in the rings event at the Commonwealth championships in Kuala Lumpur in 1998, and then again at Manchester in 2002.
1998: Owen Nkumane was the first black African to become a Springbok. He had played two years for Wits under 21 and captained the university at senior level.
1999: Tandi Gerrard won the Czechoslovakia Open Diving Championships in Pardubice. She had already achieved gold at the All-Africa Games and dominated the South African championships. She later became a three-time British diving champion and a bronze medallist for the synchronised springboard at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. She represented Great Britain at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, finishing fourth in the synchronised springboard.
1999: Claudia Holgate, who captained the South African team at the African fencing championships in Tunisia, became the ladies’ épée champion of Africa.
2000: Colleen Orsmond, who had competed at Atlanta in 1996, was fifth in the coxless pairs at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
2000: Alan van Coller reached the sprint final at the Sydney Olympic Games and was ranked fifth in the world.
2000: Warren Levi was placed first in kata and unison at the International Japan Karate Association world championships in Budapest and third in kata at the JKA world championships in Wales.
2001: Raymond Fletcher triumphed in the high jump and the decathlon at the South African championships in Durban.
2002: Sophie Mayer scored a hat-trick in six minutes for South Africa against Malaysia at the Manchester Commonwealth Games.
2002: The Wits Football Club announced a major sponsorship deal with the Bidvest Group Limited.
2003: The newly-formed Wits women’s water polo team won the SASSU tournament, and over the next year provided the South African goalkeeper Hayley Duncan and captain ‘Nicki’ Poulos.
2004: Verna van Schaik set a women’s deep-cave world record of 221 metres in 2004. The record stood until 2021 when it was beaten by former Witsie Karen van den Oever.
2004: Present and former Witsies, Fiona Butler, Sharne Wehmeyer and Caroline Birt represented South Africa at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. They thrashed Germany – the eventual gold medal winners – 3-0 in the group stage, with Wehmeyer scoring the opening goal in the fourth minute.
2005: Graeme Willcox led the Wits team that went down by just one point in the 2005 Lipton Cup. The following year, he completed a rare ‘double’ as part of winning teams in both the Lipton Cup and Cape to Rio races.
2006: Bidvest bought a 60 per cent majority shareholding in the university’s football club.
2008: Odette Richard, South Africa’s leading rhythmic gymnast, and hockey player, Fiona Butler, took part in the Olympic Games at Beijing.
2008: Wits won the men’s and women’s events in the 2008 boat race at Port Alfred.
2010: Wits played AmaZulu in the Nedbank Cup final, the first competitive fixture to be hosted at Soccer City, the iconic venue that would stage the FIFA World Cup final that year. 71 956 fans saw Bidvest Wits win 3-0.
2011: Hedda Wolmarans became the South African NBO champion during a period in which women’s boxing was very popular at Wits.
2013: Wits produced South African martial arts champions in judo (Rudolf van Schalkwyk and Calvin Fourie) and karate (Priscilla Garvey and Dylon Adam).
2013: Acting head of sport Marius Henn oversaw a process through which Wits adopted a new direction in supporting high-performance sport. It initially involved rugby, hockey and football, and was established with a focus on ‘Varsity’ sport.
2014: Wits Yacht Club again sailed the ‘Cape2Rio’ race. Their entry, Amtec-Wits, arrived in Rio in a creditable sixth place.
2014: The era of high-performance basketball began in style, when Wits ‘Lady Bucks’ achieved gold at the 2014 USSA tournament at the University of Pretoria. Modiegi Mokoka, Bronwyn Tyler, Fortunate Bosega and Yowana Nyangu were international stars.
2016/17: Bidvest Wits won the MTN Top 8 when they beat African club champions, Mamelodi Sundowns 3-0 at the Mbombela Stadium.
2016/17: Bidvest Wits raised the Absa Premiership trophy for the first time at the FNB Stadium. The championship race was keenly-contested. Bidvest Wits were two points clear of Sundowns with two matches to play. They defeated in-form Polokwane City 2-0 at the Bidvest stadium in Johannesburg, while Sundowns unexpectedly stumbled against Maritzburg at home.
2016/17: Wits won the first Gauteng T20 cricket championship.
2017/18: Wits achieved their third ‘league cup’ victory – the Telkom Cup – when they beat Bloemfontein Celtic 1-0 at the Princess Magogo stadium in Durban.
2018: Wits won the first Varsity Cup basketball tournament. Evaristo Pasipamire played a decisive role in their decisive 77-55 victory over Cape Town. He contributed 28 points for the winners and was named the ‘most valuable player’ of the tournament.
2018: Wits reached the final of Varsity Football. They beat the University of Johannesburg 4-3 on penalties in their semi-final but lost narrowly 2-1 in the final against the defending champions Tshwane University of Technology.
2018: Marvin Orie made his Springbok rugby debut against Wales in Washington DC.
2019: The Wits men’s hockey team won the Southern Gauteng Premier League for the second successive year and triumphed in the USSA final.
2019: Wits won the Pirates Grand Challenge for the first time since 1967 and for only the second time in more than 100 years. They beat defending champions, North-West University Pukke 36-33 in a tense contest at Alberton.
2019: Wits travelled to Guangzhou to participate in the world elite university football tournament hosted at the South China University of Technology. They defeated Leiden University 3-1 in the quarter-final, and Cambridge University 3-2 in the semi-final, before going down 1-0 to the German side University of Tübingen in the final.
2020: The Wits yacht JM Busha 54 finished in third position in the Cape to Rio race but won the class-one handicap and class-one line honours.
2020: Bidvest Wits sold their top-flight football status to Masala Mulaudzi, a Limpopo-based businessman
2021: Robyn Johnson, Nicky Veto and former Witsie, Toni Marks, represented the South African women’s hockey side and Rusten Abrahams the men’s team at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
