Rugby club bids farewell to famed Springbok

Hero: Spencer King with the painting bequeathed by the late UCT and Springbok player, Louis Babrow, to the UCT Rugby Club.

Last week, the UCT Rugby Club paid homage to Louis Babrow, the former UCT, WP and Springbok player who died in January last year, aged 88. With the university's blessing, family, associates and friends got together to scatter Babrow's ashes on the UCT rugby fields. The club also put up a plaque in Babrow's honour. Club member and executor of Babrow's estate, Louis de Waal, then handed a painting and Barbarian jacket (with some Springbok ties in the pockets), items that Babrow had bequeathed to the club, to UCT director of rugby Spencer King. Borrowing from an inscription in London's St Paul's Cathedral in memory of its architect - "Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you" - speaker Judge Pat Tebbutt invited those at the Babrow event to do likewise to see the Springbok's monument at UCT. "Look at these fields, look at this club," Tebbutt said. Babrow studied and played his rugby at UCT in the 1930s, and returned to coach here from 1949 to 1963. He also served on the university's Council for 25 years, retiring in 1988.