Billy Bragg rarely gets quoted in the Guardian these days but the bard of Barking has always been an underrated philosopher. "I'm not into all this nostalgia that's flying around at the moment," he told a recent gig, "and to prove it here's a song from my first album." Within the South African sporting community this morning, many will have similarly conflicting emotions.
For, lest anyone had forgotten, it is 10 years to the day since South Africa walked out at Kensington Oval in Barbados for their first post-isolation cricket Test. Within four months the Springboks also took their first delirious step back into international rugby union at Ellis Park against New Zealand. The world applauded the rebirth of this most fervent sporting nation and sat back awaiting their inexorable rise. Few imagined, a decade later, that the politest way of marking today's anniversary would be to gloss over the present and reminisce about the class of '92.
Others are much better qualified to pinpoint exactly why the South African cricket team failed to trouble Australia in their most recent home Test and one-day series, or, for that matter, why the once-mighty South African provinces are currently bumping along the bottom in rugby's Super-12. For those few of us lucky enough to have witnessed both those epic, vibrant Bridgetown and Johannesburg milestones, however, the past 10 years have arguably crushed as many sporting dreams as did the grim apartheid era that preceded them.
Cricket first. South Africa did not have a particularly great side in 1992 - they had 10 Test debutants for a start - but their deep sense of gratitude at playing Test cricket abroad for the first time since 1965 gave them a tangible edge. On the final morning they resumed on 122 for two, requiring only another 79 runs for a historic win, only to lose their last eight wickets for 26 to Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh.
Among all the memories of a truly great game, two remain vividly etched. The first was the rest-day boat trip on the aptly named Jolly Roger, when even callow scribes wondered if the partying South African players weren't looking a shade too relaxed. Their young middle-order batsman, smug smile on his face, was showing off his limbo dancing skills. Hansie Cronje, for it was he, scored only two in that fateful second innings and his reputation as a God-fearing paragon remains in limbo to this day.
The second telling incident occurred immediately after the game. Sensing my chance to gather that definitive quote, I approached Ambrose, intent on asking him to describe this career-high moment. I never did write anything down. "Fuck off, whitey," he snapped and brushed me aside. There was, I would humbly suggest, more than a hint of black pride in Ambrose's extraordinary bowling that day.
Still, it didn't matter. The story spoke for itself and the tour was a surreal joy. I and the photographer Shaun Botterill drove around Barbados in our shared Mini Moke with, to our glee, Mike Brearley wedged in the back seat. At sunset that now much-missed journalistic legend Chris "Crash" Lander would insist on summoning me to the beach for compulsory beers or rum punches with the South African coach Mike Proctor. In Kingston I overheard the West Indies opener Phil Simmons promising his hairdresser he would score a century the following day as a thank-you; Phil "the Thrill" duly scored a sensational 122.
Fortune also smiled when South Africa met the All Blacks in August. By chance I managed to eavesdrop on Danie Craven presenting his new Springboks with their first caps. Conducted in a cool, panelled room, it was nothing less than a religious anointment. Outside, large sections of the crowd howled the white anthem Die Stem while the rest of us closed our ears. The home side lost 27-24 but, once again, the bald result told barely half the tale.
A decade later, however, the Boks have stalled and the burning issue is suddenly this: is South African team sport losing the ferocious hunger which used to define it? In rugby it is an open secret that a whole new raft of experienced Springboks are considering jumping ship to play for clubs in Europe, attracted by the prospect of all those juicy pounds and euros. They will leave behind a sporting nation, to borrow again from Billy Bragg, desperately seeking their next great leap forward.
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