Nobody in South Africa has played The Game longer than Bishops - the Diocesan College in Rondebosch - and they have book/booklet/magazine, called Platinum Blue, to celebrate the 150 years that they have been playing the game.

Nobody in South Africa has played The Game longer than Bishops - the Diocesan College in Rondebosch - and they have book/booklet/magazine, called Platinum Blue, to celebrate the 150 years that they have been playing the game.

They started playing it in 1861 when the school was just 12 years old  and the few boys they had were sore in need of control. Along came a new principal, Canon George Ogilvie whose nickname was Gog. To help in controlling the boys he started them playing games, a tactic used in the unruly public schools of England which were in creasing in size and number with the demographic changes of the Industrial Revolution.

When Ogilvie got his pupils playing, Rugby football was played only at Rugby School and there was as yet no soccer anywhere. Schools developed their own games, often fashioned to suit the ground available. The game Ogilvie introduced was based on that played at his old school, Winchester, and was referred to as the Winchester Game or Gog's Game or Gogball. Some 17 years later the Rugby came to the Cape.

Ironically when the boys asked Ogilvie if they could switch to rugby he was displeased but told them to go ahead if they wanted to kill themselves. Yet he is regarded as the father of rugby in South Africa.

But the idea is not farfetched as he got people playing that sort of game when rugby itself was not available to them. He got the ground ready, as it were. That got the enthusiasm going at the Cape - an enthusiasm that would be eagerly taken up by those whose ancestors came from Holland and from Muslim lands of the Near and Far East, even though in Holland, Egypt, Malaysia and Indonesia that there was and still is little interest in rugby in any form.

Inevitably rugby at Bishops has many great traditions, achievements and tales. Many great personalities have been involved in the game, including top players and coaches. There is some of this in Platinum Blue but not just the past but also the present and even a look into the future by Professor Tim Noakes, himself a former Bishops player, and the keynote speaker at an excellent dinner to celebrate the occasion. It is bright and light and colourful.