Kitch Christie
George Moir Christie, better known as Kitch Christie (January 31, 1940 – April 22, 1998), was a South African rugby union coach most famous for leading the country's national team, the Springboks, to victory at the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
Early life
Born in Johannesburg to a Scottish father and English mother, he was educated at Leith Academy in Edinburgh and The London Institute of Electronics. He picked up his lifelong nickname of "Kitch" from his fellow pupils, who named him after Don Kitchenbrand, a South African footballer with Rangers in the 1950s.
Early career
Christie returned to his homeland, joining the Pretoria Harlequins club as a flanker. While he had an uneventful playing career, never earning national selection, he developed his coaching skills there, eventually becoming a selector for Northern Transvaal.
In 1980, he spent the South African winter (Northern Hemisphere summer) in the United States, coaching the Chicago Lions club. Although he spent less than three months in Chicago, he made a lasting impact on the club, leading them to the Midwest regional crown.
Denied an opportunity to coach at Northern Transvaal, he accepted an offer from Louis Luyt, then the president of the Transvaal union, to take the reins there in 1992. Luyt would go on to play an important role in Christie's later career.
Christie became one of the hottest properties in South African rugby at Transvaal, leading them to consecutive Currie Cups in 1993 and 1994.
The Springboks
By that time, Luyt had become president of the South African Rugby Football Union. The Springboks coaching position came open in mid-1994, after Ian McIntosh was sacked following a series defeat to the All Blacks in New Zealand. In October of that year, Christie accepted an offer to take over from McIntosh.
He entered at what was arguably the most pressure-packed period in South African rugby history—the run-up to the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted by South Africa, and the first major competition for the Springboks after their return from international exile with the demise of apartheid.
The Boks went off to a flying start in the World Cup, defeating defending champions Australia in the opening match. They went on to sweep their pool matches, but not without an out-and-out fight against Canada in the final pool match.[1] The Boks then defeated Manu Samoa in the quarterfinals, and scored a narrow semifinal win over France, winning after stopping Abdelatif Benazzi just short of the tryline in the final minutes.[1] South Africa's reward for defeating France would be a date with the All Blacks and mighty wing Jonah Lomu, who had torched England for four tries in the other semifinal.
The Boks defence stood up to the challenge, keeping Lomu off the scoreboard (in fact, he would never score a try against South Africa in his career). The match ended in a 9-9 draw in regulation, sending the teams to extra time, where Joel Stransky's drop goal won the Webb Ellis Trophy for South Africa. This led to the especially memorable awards ceremony in which South African President Nelson Mandela, wearing a Springboks jersey—long a symbol of apartheid—and matching baseball cap, handed the trophy to the Boks' Afrikaner captain Francois Pienaar.
Christie coached the Boks in 14 tests, winning all 14. At the time, this was tied for the longest consecutive Test winning streak in history for a coach, with 1960s All Blacks coach Fred Allen. This record would later be broken by Boks coach Nick Mallett.
Final years
In March 1996, Christie was forced to step down from the Springboks after being diagnosed with leukemia. Initially, his treatment went well enough that he was finally able to fulfill a longtime dream of coaching Northern Transvaal, accepting the head coaching job there for the 1997 Super 12 season. However, he proved unable to travel with the team to Australasia early in the season, and he took a turn for the worse, landing back in the hospital several weeks later. Christie was fired as coach while he lay in his hospital bed.
By the end of 1997, his condition worsened to the point that he sought specialised treatment in the U.S. He was able to return to rugby as a technical advisor to the Falcons in 1998, but worsened once more, entering the hospital for the final time on Easter Sunday of 1998.
References
- "Rugby world mourns the great Kitch Christie". South African Press Association via Daily Dispatch (East London, South Africa), April 24, 1998. Accessed March 11, 2007.
- ^ a b Butler, Eddie (1999-09-30). "Off-colour Springboks". The Observer. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help)