Five years after telling a university gathering he struggled to keep from vomiting on the national jersey, four years after escaping South Africa to play for English club Bath, and two years after returning to the country’s rugby-rich Eastern Cape to help build a Super Rugby team, the Southern Kings captain discovered old habits die very hard in his home province.
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‘‘People think it affects me but it doesn’t, I’m used to it now,’’ the former Springbok says.
‘‘It wasn’t necessarily in that format but I’ve had criticism from a young age. I remember in junior school when I was a pipsqueak being bullied for who my dad was. This is the same thing on a different level, with just a few more people.’’
His father is Dan ‘‘Cheeky’’ Watson, a white winger who came to prominence in the 1970s for rejecting the chance to play for his country in favour of competing in illegal mixed-race rugby competitions.
Cheeky Watson’s stance and subsequent involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle cost the family dearly. They were ostracised and repeatedly threatened. When Luke was four, the family home was burnt down. Luke’s father spent time in prison as a suspect in an arson attack.
Now a successful Port Elizabeth businessman and chief architect in the birth of the Southern Kings, Watson snr has never quite reconciled himself with the Springboks jersey. His shadow has loomed large over Luke’s life.
‘‘I think a lot of the jeering and booing that’s aimed at [Luke] is actually aimed at me because of my stance in the past on the Springbok emblem and Springbok rugby,’’ he says.
‘‘They can’t get to me so they get to the person that’s on the field. If you’ve been in the liberation struggle in this country, you expect that and you take it on the chin. It’s not the most ideal situation, but we’ve got a little way to go for this democracy of ours and to ensure that there is unity in the country.’’
It is late afternoon in Port Elizabeth, and the Kings are training in the shadow of Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, the billowing ‘‘petals’’ of its roof glowing white in the setting autumn sun.
While the younger Watson is belted in an opposed session between Kings forwards and their feeder team, the elder Watson holds court in a sparkling white Land Rover on a bank above the training fields.
The family and its legacy divide opinion in Port Elizabeth, and all of South Africa.
Watson snr’s detractors were affronted by his calls to do away with the Springbok emblem and detest his continued influence as an operative within the African National Congress party.
His son’s detractors will forever condemn the 29-year-old for his comments about the Test jersey, and view his forced inclusion in the 2007 World Cup squad, against the wishes of then-national coach Jake White, as an example of nepotism within the ANC.
Hence the booing when Watson jnr took the field against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein a week ago, and the cheers as he came off early in the second half as his side went down 34-0 to the Bulls at home a week earlier.
Yet the fates of Watson, the Kings and supporters of Eastern Cape rugby are bound together for better or worse this year.
He is the controversial former Test player returned home for a second chance. It is the team fighting for survival beyond its first season. And this is the region long known for producing some of South Africa’s best talent without being able to offer it a future.
‘‘It has been a long, hard fight. This area is the heart and soul of non-racial rugby,’’ Watson snr says.
‘‘We had been promised [a Super Rugby side] in 2005 and it’s been a tremendously hard fight to eventually become part of the Super family and we realise it’s not an ideal situation to have uncertainty because it affects sponsorships, players’ contracts and it affects all the structures.’’
He is referring to the conditional presence of the Kings in this year’s competition. Controversially given a berth at the expense of the Johannesburg-based Lions at the end of last year, the Kings have a guaranteed life-span of one season under terms dictated by the South African Rugby Union.
Anything past that will be determined by a two-match promotion-relegation series between the Lions and the last-placed South African team. With just two wins and a draw under their belt so far this season, the Kings appear bound for the play-offs.
‘‘For us to have longevity here and something sustainable you can’t just say ‘develop a union, develop a province, develop young talent and bring it through in six or seven months,’’’ Luke Watson says.
‘‘It’s not a constructive way of doing things. We’ve been given the short straw here. It wasn’t optional, but we’re doing everything we can to make sure that this vision is something that is sustainable, and not just a one night sort of thing.’’
After playing with the Stormers and Currie Cup team Western Province in his pre-Bath days, Watson returned to the Eastern Cape in 2011 to help push for a new team.
Still widely known as ‘‘Luke the Puke’’ or ‘‘Puke Watson’’ from his 2008 gaffe, he kept a comparatively low profile playing for his home province’s Vodacom Cup [a division down from the Currie Cup] team the Eastern Province Kings.
But when SARU gave the go ahead for the Kings Super side, director of rugby Alan Solomons came knocking.
Watson snr is adamant his role at the club had no influence on Solomons’ recruitment of his son and the make-up of the rest of the squad bears that out.
As well as several foreign players – concessions from SARU – the Kings are not a team of stars.
Watson, as one of their most experienced players, was made captain early on but injury delays have limited his on-field influence. Negative reactions from sections of the team’s supporters have not helped either.
‘‘He’s had to navigate that [criticism] all his life,’’ Watson snr says from his seat in the Land Rover.
‘‘I must be honest with you, that when I sit there and I hear the crowd booing him, a sense of pride wells up within me. Luke has come through it before and I’m sure he’ll come through it again.’’
For a man whose life has been so affected by the choices of another, Luke Watson bears no resentment towards his activist father.
‘‘I’ve made some stupid mistakes, with arrogance and pride and a bunch of things as a youngster and I’ll be the first to admit that,’’ he says.
‘‘For my father, there is a large part of society that won’t let go of what he did but I don’t think they should. It shouldn’t be forgotten that he stood up when very few would. That’s a legacy that I’m very proud of.’’
