
It was a decent game between the Springboks and the Georgian team on 19 July 2025. I watched it at a public venue with a large screen and an even larger crowd—some in green and gold, others just there for the atmosphere (or the pizza).
Now, it’s not that I’m an eavesdropper. Truly. But I couldn’t help noticing her.
Seated right at the head of the big table—not just metaphorically, but literally, like a matriarch presiding over her clan—was a woman who became increasingly fascinating to me as the match wore on. It became obvious after a while that she was a grandmother. Before kickoff, she was busy entertaining her grandchildren, feeding them, fussing over them, handing out juice boxes and whatnot.
But once the game started… she didn’t look at the screen. Not once.
Now, you might ask: how could I possibly know this? Well, she was directly in my line of sight to the screen, so if she had looked up, I’d have seen it. She didn’t. Ever. While the Georgians mounted some very decent early defence against the Boks, she was scrolling on her phone. A committed scroll. Thumb flicking like it was trying to earn a varsity scholarship.
She occasionally made comments to others at the table—who, I assumed (always a dangerous sport) were her family. Perhaps the younger woman was the mother of the grandchildren. Perhaps not. These were strangers, after all. I’d never seen them before in my life.
Then came the pizzas—giant slabs of them. Our rugby-ambivalent granny tucked in with gusto. Still no glance at the screen, even as the Boks finally broke through with some beautiful play. I was starting to get genuinely intrigued. Why had she come out to watch the game? Or had she? Maybe this was a hostage situation, rugby fan edition.
Meanwhile, the Georgians gave a surprisingly solid performance for much of the first half. I’d read earlier in the week that they learnt rugby from the French during the 1950s, back when Georgia was still under Soviet rule. Back then, rugby training was frowned upon, if not banned outright. But you know the French—subversive and persistent. If there’s one thing they’ll teach you despite the odds, it’s how to make a good sauce or a decent rugby tackle.
Today, Georgian fans are wild for the sport, complete with traditional cheering chants. Their national team now sits around 11th in world rankings—no small feat.
By the second half, the Springboks were in full control, racking up points, eventually thumping Georgia 55–10. And still, Granny munched her way through more pizza, chatted here and there, tapped on her phone, and never once so much as pretended to care what was happening on that giant screen in front of her.
I wasn’t the only one distracted. There was also a young woman wearing low-slung Wrangler jeans and Calvin Klein underwear peeking out just enough to draw the attention of several guys nearby, who tried valiantly to keep their comments to the jeans rather than what was in them. She held a baby for most of the game and looked equally unimpressed with the sport. I asked a nearby woman if she was the baby’s mother. “Nope,” she said. “Babysitting.” In Wranglers and Calvin Kleins. Style matters, even when you’re not watching rugby.
At the end of the game, I turned to someone at my table and asked, “Did you notice that granny never watched a single minute of the game?”
She chuckled. “Maybe she should’ve stayed home and watched it in her lounge.”
I replied, “With all the eating she was doing, she might’ve been better off in the kitchen—with the grandkids.”
We laughed, but I must say: in a room full of rowdy Springbok fans, one woman sat unbothered, undistracted, and absolutely, gloriously disinterested.
Truly, the world’s greatest rugby fan.