Author: Grocott's Mail Contributors

Grocott’s Mail readers should be informed that the Settler City’s “crowning glory”, the Settlers Monument atop Gunfire Hill, may shortly be no more. The CEO of the National Arts Festival and Executive Director of the Grahamstown Foundation, Tony Lankester, has confirmed that a name change is being considered both for the Monument building and the Grahamstown Foundation. The proposed name changes follow the gazetting of a new name for the city on the eve of last year’s Grahamstown Festival. The Festival responded immediately by adopting the name of Makhanda Festival even before the name change became effective. The Minister of…

Our town’s residents are showing the resilience they’re known for, as they prepare for what may be the most serious water shortages our town has seen. Humour is an important part of our defence against despair, and so we’re sharing this poster Ben Cobbing sent us after three days without water. Image: Ben Cobbing

By ASHLEY WESTAWAY The most significant aspect of Grahamstown’s 2018 matric performance is the phenomenal increase in the cumulative number of Bachelor passes from the six no-fee schools. The previous high was 62, but in 2018 this number leap-frogged all the way to 102. Significantly, 89 of these Bachelors (or 87% of the total) were delivered by three schools, namely Ntsika, Nombulelo and Mary Waters. In this piece, I try to help the readers of Grahamstown understand what lay behind this achievement. In 2014 Dr Sizwe Mabizela was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of Rhodes University. In his Inaugural Address in…

The St Andrew’s College Firsts Cricket team started their year off with declaration fixtures versus Hoërskool Menlopark, St Andrew’s School (Bloemfontein) and St Alban’s College in the Grahamstown Schools’ Cricket Festival hosted by Kingswood College. The longer match day format, starting at 9am and finishing after 6pm with no enforced declarations, again provided a real “Test” cricket environment for the cricketers to experience. The second new ball option after 50 overs also played its part in declarations and injected energy into the final overs of each innings. In their first match of the festival, SAC took on Menlopark, who were…

The young 2019 Graeme First Team cricket side got off to a great start at the 2019 Grahamstown Schools’ Festival. Their first encounter was against Hellenic Academy from Harare. Despite Hellenic seeming to take charge initially, Lakhanya Sam led the bowling attack superbly well for Graeme, and built good pressure up front. It was Mihlali Kobese (2 for 6 in 5 overs), who made the initial breakthrough though. From there it was the Graeme spinners who dominated. Aaron Richardson picked up his best bowling figures for the first team in a superb spell, finishing with 4 for 37. Hellenic ended…

I live in Randburg, Gauteng.  I have an aunt who lives in Grahamstown and on Wednesday 26 December, our family, having made many, many unsuccessful attempts to contact her on both 25 and 26 December, were, to say the least, extremely concerned. Being holidays, the only assistance we could enlist was that of the Grahamstown Police. To this end, I would like to sincerely thank a very special Constable Frans. Sadly, I have no other information*.  He was an absolute lifeline, calming me down and offering every possible assistance to find my aunt. He is to be commended!  How wonderful…

By CHRIS TOTOBELA Makhanda recently witnessed the third edition of the New Year’s Cup, which I have been following for the past two years. The 2018 edition started with a low-key launch which included speeches from various sponsors and stake holders which also concluded with the draw. It was very disappointing to notice that the local football association took no part whatsoever in that launch. Certificates were awarded to the recipients of the NYC fund which helped them with sport administration courses. What seemed so strange was that most of those recipients, if not all of them, did not even…

By ASHLEY WESTAWAY Gadra Education is delighted to announce the 2018 results of the Gadra Matric School (GMS). In 2018, GMS enrolled 173 students. Of these 101 (58%) obtained Bachelor level passes, 67 (39%) Diploma passes and 5 (3%) Higher Certificate passes. Not a single student from the Class of 2018 failed. For the past few years, GMS has specifically focused on enabling its students obtain good quality results. It is thus very pleasing that GMS has again, for the 4th consecutive year, assisted over 100 of its students to obtain a Bachelor level pass. This strong performance in the…

By CHRIS TOTOBELA All roads led to JD Dlephu stadium on New Year’s Eve, where the final of the 2018 edition of the New Year’s Cup took place. In the third- and fourth-place play-off, Zwide Pirates beat Manyora by a single goal – which was an own goal. Zwide Pirates took home R25 000 while Manyora went home with R20 000. In the main game, underdogs Grahamstown United faced overwhelming favourites Addo Academy in front of a packed stadium. The game started at a very high pace with both teams attacking each other and missing early chances. The home side…

By CHRIS TOTOBELA The semi finals of the NYC 2018 took place at at a packed JD Dlepu stadium on Friday 28 December. In the first game Makhanda’s Grahamstown United took on Zwide Pirates from PE who were yet to concede a goal in this year’s tournament. The home side made their intentions very clear from the first whistle as they immediately took the game to Pirates. It was clear from the first 10 minutes of the game that it was going to be a war, as the tackles flew all over the field. The home side missed two glorious…