(TENSE MUSIC BUILDS) In early games, the English rugby team played at different venues. But in 1907, the Rugby Football Union paid �5500 to purchase Billy Williams' Cabbage Patch in South West London. With rugby fast growing in popularity, England could now afford to build its own national stadium. ARCHIVE: Even though you're picked for England, you play for pleasure, not money. Twickenham would come to symbolise the sport. Appearing at Twickers was the highlight of a player's career. 'Amateurism' is a word that the aristocracy made up instead of using the other word, which is 'exploitation'. ARCHIVE: Fulfilment in rugby is still running with a ball to score a great try at Twickenham. We were poor. We would all love to have been paid. You could sense pressures coming for the game to change. This is where a lot of boys became frustrated. There was too much pressure on them and not getting rewarded for their true worth. The game was dishonest. (TENSE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) Captions by Kristin Williams. Edited by Starsha Samarasinghe. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 (SLOW, BROODING MUSIC) (CROWDS CHEER) (MAJESTIC MUSIC) (TENSE MUSIC) (GULLS SQUAWK) The swinging '60s introduced new forms of entertainment and social attitudes to Britain. (UPBEAT RETRO MUSIC) It was an incredibly intoxicating period. Everything exploded. (ROCKET RUMBLES) The British go on package tours abroad for the first time. You know, we buy TVs. People certainly have a car, maybe even a second car. For a young British Welsh boy, it was absolutely wonderful. (PSYCHEDELIC ROCK MUSIC) (AUDIENCE SCREAMS) Colour telly transforms the look of sport on telly. Rugby becomes the kind of rock 'n' roll of British life, I think, in the 70s. It's the first time Rugby really gets any glamour. (PSYCHEDELIC ROCK GUITAR RIFF) (CROWD CHEERS) Rugby was huge. And everywhere you went, people were speaking about it and revelling in it. This was the era of Fred Allen's All Blacks, Carwyn James' Lions, and the mighty Welsh. They had the kind of Beatles haircuts and the sideburns. There were kind of like rock stars on the pitch. They had all this hair that streamed behind them. They were sort of muddy and tough. I have to tell you, I had a bit of a crush on Gareth Edwards. It seems very strange now because when I look at photographs of him, he looks terrifying. (PSYCHEDELIC ROCK MUSIC STOPS) (ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) In the discreet heart of London, lie two dozen private gentlemen's clubs of note. One, the East India Club, was the unofficial home of the organisation which ran world rugby ` the International Rugby Board, known as the IRB. Eight countries were represented ` the four home nations, three white dominions and France. Members were often former players and always male and white. They passed new rugby laws by scrummaging in their shirt sleeves. There'd be two old blokes with their ties on. The IRB was seen as some distant body of gentlemen who sat at the East India Club and drank lots of gins and made stupid decisions. They didn't appreciate what really was going down in the wider world out there. But rugby's comfortable world was about to explode. (WHIMSICAL MUSIC) ARCHIVE: South Africa offers you a warm and sunny welcome all the year around. White South Africans were never particularly intellectual. The novelist Olive Schreiner described us as a nation of 'lower-middle class philistines.' We loved sport. And the sun always shone, and you could play tennis and rugby and cricket. (FOREBODING MUSIC) But the miracle didn't include all South Africans. (EERIE MUSIC) It was a country with which most of the British nations and the New Zealanders felt the greatest affinity for. That brought rugby face-to-face with a situation it had never experienced before. It was on the wrong side of politics. Uh, we, as the Springbok team, wouldn't like to lose our identity. The Springboks have always been associated with whites. My view was not unconventional. My view was 'Get on with the game. 'Politics don't belong in sports.' I was fed that mantra, and it suited me. In 1969, South Africa's unsuspecting Springboks arrived in London for their seventh tour of the British Isles, and discovered the '60s weren't swinging for them. (RETRO MUSIC) So, the '60s and '70s were a frightening time. And we've glorified them in so many ways from some of the colourful people and events that happened, but people were being shot and our political leaders were being killed and there were riots. Pro-tour supporters loudly proclaimed that sport and politics should never mix. I've heard all my life, you know, 'We should try and keep sport out of politics.' We can't keep sport out of politics. Sport is part of politics. You know, the nation state is part of politics. I understood if you could hit at sport, you could really deliver a hammer blow against apartheid. We decided to launch a campaign to stop it as much as we could, to disrupt it. CROWD CHANTS: Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil. Sieg Heil. (CROWD CLAMOURS) There was a real, real bitter war going on between the spectators and us. It was pandemonium. I remember hearing some of the things that these protesters were saying, and I can remember feeling very, very, kind of conflicted. The rugby fraternity, they saw themselves as the civilised essence of Britain and us as these renegade, disreputable, long-haired, drug-taking, Communist agitators. (CROWD CLAMOURS) The demonstrations against the Springboks in '69-'70 shocked white South Africans to the core. Meanwhile, a little-known political prisoner 11657/63 entered the seventh year of a life sentence on Robben Island. His name ` Nelson Mandela. The white warders ` fanatical Springbok fans ` started inflicting their fury at the demonstrations and their frustration on Mandela and his comrades. 'Your demonstrators are wrecking our matches.' Not realising, as Mandela said, actually they were communicating precious information. Though 80% of South Africa's non-white population was squeezed into just 13% of the country, the IRB had no interest in politics and approved a British Lions tour there in 1974. The whole officialdom was as crusty as hell. They used to say things like, 'Well, of course. We don't understand apartheid. 'It's up to South Africa what they do in their domestic politics.' The prevailing rugby wisdom was that we weren't supporting apartheid, we were building bridges. I wanted to go a see for myself, if I'm honest. And I felt that the sport should be there to be played and not be defined by opinions of others. One of the things you felt about English sportsmen at the time who went on these trips, it's just that they were refusing to take a stand. They were kind of hiding. It felt like it was time to make a decision which side you were on. I was a rugby player. I wanted to play against the best in the world, and the Springboks were right up there. And, really, I never even thought about apartheid. I went to see the team captain, Willie John McBride, but he refused to listen. I've never got involved in politics, and my God, when you're Irish, you don't get involved in politics. (CHUCKLES) Willie John McBride was not interested in our arguments. It was another dialogue of the deaf. I believe that rugby football brings people together. And I felt, isolation proves nothing. It probably is more destructive than anything. And my view was, 'Let's go. Let's play'. There was only one international player who refused to play against the Springboks, and that was John Taylor, the Welsh captain and British Lion. He alone, amongst all his peers, took a stand against apartheid. I couldn't see anything good about what was happening in South Africa at all. Some of the English high-ranking officials told me I was a disgrace and that I shouldn't be allowed to play international rugby again. That's what we wanted to be, is rugby players. Didn't want to be involved with politics. Didn't wanna do anything. Just want to go and play rugby. Become a British Lion. Naive young men full of ego, just wanted to be superstars; just wanted to play for the Lions, put that jersey on. The thing we noticed most that the non-white part of the crowd were all stuck behind the posts in the sun, so they were probably the worst seats in the house. And funnily enough, they were all supporting the Lions. They were there to actually watch the Springboks lose more than anything else. (CHUCKLES) The 1974 Lions, they were in a class of their own. Just wiped the Springboks off the pitch. ARCHIVE: A good turn of speed. Flicks it back inside to JPR. Five yards short to JJ Williams again. He's going to score under the post. The Lions leap in the air. JPR Williams to JJ Williams That was my Everest, was 1974. To go to South Africa` They had never been beaten before, not even by the All Blacks. And we were the first to crack it. But even rugby's dance with the deaf, could not ignore events in the township of Soweto in 1976. ARCHIVE: South African Police have fired on school children in the black township of Soweto. They were protesting against the compulsory use of the Afrikaans language. In total, 176 people were murdered by government forces. Overnight, South Africa has catapulted from being a nothing story to the number-one television story in America. While an appalled world condemned the massacre, New Zealand's All Blacks arrived in Johannesburg to begin their fifth tour of the Republic. They found a South Africa on edge, with riots throughout the country. But that was politics. The New Zealanders were there just to play sport. The consequences of the tour played out at Montreal where politics met sport in a head-on collision. African countries threatened to withdraw from the Olympics if New Zealand participated. The best way now is to try the isolation method. In other words, don't play with them. Don't invite them. Don't go to them as long as long as they practise this racism. Our position is quite clear. In no circumstances will we voluntarily withdraw, no matter what may come. Making good on their threat, 25 African nations called their athletes home and boycotted the games. The '76 Olympics was huge, and to have them disrupt it was just catastrophic. ARCHIVE: Leslie with an inside. The awful bitterness of that tour when New Zealand went there, it really should have been red flashing lights to rugby, which it even ignored. * In a cynical attempt to maintain world sporting relations, South Africa's government had conceded visiting rugby teams could tour with players of colour and upgraded their status to honorary whites. (EERIE MUSIC) After Montreal, South African rugby went one very reluctant step further. One of my first objectives is to bring the Coloureds and Blacks closer to us and to do justice to them ` to give them equal opportunities. There is nothing more we can do in rugby. We have opened the doors for everybody. There was always obstacles in my way as a man of colour. Doc Craven, well, he was very, very direct. 'If you're good enough, you will play for the Springboks. He always started with that word, 'If you're good enough.' And Doc Craven stood up and he said, 'You are good enough.' He said, 'Errol, you are born for this game.' (CROWD CHEERS) The politicians are against it. Everything is against the guy. But he gets selected, and he definitely gets selected on merit, and he just is an amazing teammate. I don't think people really know where I went through to become a Springbok. I had to work my way up through so I was accepted. ARCHIVE: There he is, switching directions. And Tobias` Tobias is gonna score on his own. Tobias going for the corner. Errol will score. Yeah, he does. Right over the try line by Errol Tobias. He had Williams with him. (EERIE MUSIC) South Africa's supporters hailed the selection of Errol Tobias as proof its rugby was multiracial. The IRB agreed. (JAZZY MUSIC) Come on to New Zealand ` a land of variety and contrast. A rugby tour of New Zealand was the holy grail for a Springbok ` the one country guaranteed to roll out the red carpet. Not in 1981. The Springbok tour, it made the news. It was a big deal. Why was it so important for something like the Springbok tour to go ahead? Because it signalled normality and acceptance. It had been 16 years since the last Springbok visit to New Zealand, but the country was no longer united over rugby. We're inviting them here. It's wrong. It's morally and ethically wrong. Three and a half million New Zealanders were now angrily divided at the presence of the Springboks in their country. (CROWD CLAMOURS) (TENSE MUSIC) (PEOPLE CLAMOUR) You've got this fundamental split between the old and familiar and the new and often liberal. The biggest shock is to see how the New Zealanders fight one another. It wasn't just pushing or shouting. It was fierce. (CROWD CLAMOURS) I got a telephone call. It was a threat. It was a threat. And I said to them, 'Fuck you. Rugby is what I do. 'And I'm in our national team. I'm playing for the All Blacks.' For almost three months, protests follow the South Africans everywhere. In the tour's final game, a rival showdown between protesters and police took place outside Eden Park. We were there from early in the morning, looking at the huge crowd that gathered and walked down to Eden Park in protest. ARCHIVE: This is the day, the day that the controversial Springbok tour ends on the field. (POIGNANT MUSIC) Over to Loveridge. Away to Pokere. Heads for the ball. First time in test rugby. Hewson up and through and charge for Wilson. Wilson pulls it down. A try. ARCHIVE: The police struck back with force and became more aggressive as the battle dragged on. I asked myself over and over, is this needed? Why do we have to insist on playing? What are we trying to prove? I find it hard to believe it's actually the country that I grew up in. It was incredibly divisive. (PEOPLE CLAMOUR) I think the tour as a whole was a high point in my life. When you pull that green and gold over your shoulders, there's some magic happening to you. (PEOPLE CLAMOUR) ARCHIVE: It's changed now to quite an unusual feeling of tenseness because there is a light plane circling the ground and dipping in low and dropping flour bombs. The image of that plane going over and flour bombing people and Gary Knight being hit by the flour bomb is just unbelievable. ARCHIVE: Smoke bombs have been thrown on to Eden Park. You know, those people are a long way away from us, and they really, really believe that we're doing something wrong. I felt that the tour should have been called off. You know, when it comes down to it, those people who were trying to preserve the ethos of rugby, what ethos of rugby was there in that? The ethos of rugby was out the window. ARCHIVE: Allan Hewson has a chance to win the series for New Zealand. (CROWD CHEERS) And he's done it. It was awful to see that nation of peace fighting one another, and because of our laws ` the apartheid laws. And it changed me as a human being. I said to myself, 'No. Things need to change. 'The world is not accepting us with these laws any more.' You're preapproved for a secure Gem car loan, and you're still winding the windows down by hand. You won't miss out when you find the car you want, with approval before you buy and a rate from 9.99% fixed per annum. You can do better with Gem, powered by Latitude. Apply today. * (BRIGHT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) Lancashire and Yorkshire had remained the stronghold of professional rugby since the game split into two rival codes in 1895. Since then, Rugby League had endured with a small but dedicated following. (APPLAUSE) And, unlike rugby union, league proudly paid its players. (BRIGHT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC) It is shocking to Americans that in the 1980s, Rugby Union still had an amateur code. It's baffling. (CROWD CHEERS) (SLOW JAZZ MUSIC) They didn't tell us about rugby league at school, but then, we were middle class, lived in the south and played rugby union. The rugby community did little to hide its deep loathing of rugby league. (CROWD CHEERS) When you saw it on television, it always seemed to be a northern commentator. NORTHERN ENGLISH ACCENT: England's average age is 27; Wales' average age is 30. And the stadiums always seemed somewhat shabbier, if you like, than the stadiums that one was accustomed to in the south. Come on! Get all of 'em! ARCHIVE: And the language, another difference. What a contrast from Old Deer Park or Twickers. Oh, they've thrown you into the shit now. (ALL CHUCKLE) That's a bloody shame. As a game, it was absolutely terrible. They'd give it to six big balding blokes up front, and they'd run it on a terrible rugby field. And it would just go on like that for ages. The only way that you could benefit professionally in those days was to go to rugby league. And I think, you know, there was a lot of chasing of the Welsh players at that time ` guys who were very much the backbone of Welsh rugby. Billy Wood and Ken Broom of Wigan are experts at invading union territory. I've been on several pitches ostensibly looking for an autograph, but, in fact, the usual approach is 'Put your address on here. We know your name.' And, of course, if you get the chap's address, well, you also know that he's at least interested. Well, from then on, it's pure business. It was done very, you know, covertly. It's always a note or a phone call to you seeing if you're interested in talking to the rugby league club, so it was a very dangerous situation to be in. It's usually a working class type of fella that, shall I say, takes the bait or makes the right decision. If you were actually caught talking to a rugby league club, you could be banned from ever playing rugby union ever again. Rugby league was never difficult to dislike. In Europe, the Italians and French paid lip service to rugby's amateur regulations and blithely paid players under the table. We all got looked after very nicely, but it didn't change, for me, my attitude how to play the game. I think the era that I lived through was fantastic because although it was illegal, I was making money. I was going to Italy. France had a completely different kind of definition of what 'amateurism' really meant. The mayor of a little French town, he said, 'I've got a proposition for you,' and he showed me pictures of a villa, and he said, 'If you play for us for two years, this villa will be yours.' First time I was introduced to money was literally French francs in my shoe after the game. I knew if I'd score a try or two, there would be more money in the shoe. I didn't come home and say, 'You've gotta pay me. I'm not playing.' It didn't bother me. I mean, one year I got $60,000, and that's a lot of money back then. So, I was never begrudging the game had to go that way. The unity of the IRB slowly unravelled over to how to deal with amateurism. You just couldn't carry on with the dishonesty. We were losing lots of players to rugby league, and we felt we had to do something about that. We wanted to export our beers to the UK and to Europe, and we thought the best vehicle for doing that was the All Blacks. I said, 'Well, mate, we're all struggling, and we're playing a test match with all your shit 'all over our jerseys, right? And I bet you you're gonna sell some beer.' You had to find a way to pay them, because otherwise they'd have to go to work and not have enough time to train. I said, 'I want you to employ us all.' He said, 'Right-o. Meet me in my office on Monday.' (SCOFFS) So, at one stage, I had working for Lion and the beer business, 11 All Blacks, and we paid them salaries. Business wasn't too bad either. In South Africa, sport was now inseparable from politics. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) # Free... # Nelson Mandela. # It really wasn't until the mid-80s that South Africa became something that you couldn't ignore. Apartheid became something that was present in all our lives. (EASY-GOING MUSIC) (CROWD CLAMOURS) The white population was seeing nowhere to go in terms of sport ` isolated from the Olympics; ISOLATED from cricket, from soccer, from now rugby. And that hit really hard. And by the late '80s, this is a clamouring call which neither the apartheid rulers nor their international backers can ignore any longer. By 1986, the IRB had a clear fault line running between the northern and southern hemispheres. The IRB still wanted to control the game. They're making millions. But that was life. Professionalism was considered beyond the pale, particularly by administrators in the northern hemisphere. Australia and New Zealand openly broke ranks and co-hosted the first ever Rugby World Cup in 1987. (FAST PIANO MUSIC) The RFU nearly didn't go to the '87 World Cup because they said, 'Well, we don't need a World Cup. We've got a Five Nations.' And the Aussies and Kiwis said, 'Look, we're doing it anyway. If you don't wanna come don't bother, but everybody else is invited.' Notably, there was one IRB member that was not asked to participate ` South Africa. The '87 World Cup was absolutely stunning in its sort of naivety. You know, five or six beers afterwards in the changing room, a couple of cigarettes. You know, all that sort of old school stuff. If you think of the opening game at Eden Park, the ground was far from full. Six years previously, Eden Park resembled a battleground. On the 22nd of May, 1987, it made history of a different kind. We played Friday afternoon at 2.30. I think there was 13,000 people at Eden Park. No one thought much of it, so it was just another afternoon where we were just having a good time. The change when people started loving rugby again, I think actually happened on the rugby field. It was a try that John Kirwan scored when he ran about 80m and beat 11 players. (CROWD CHEERS) ARCHIVE: And what a way to bring in 50 points. And all of a sudden, the switch was flicked from being a game that we'd fallen out of love with to a game that we loved again. (UPBEAT ROCK MUSIC) ARCHIVE: It's a standing ovation all around the crowd. By the end of that tournament, the game had changed. We'd created this beast. ARCHIVE: Campese! He's there! That's a world record! Once it was played in '87, it had this authenticity, and it became the goal of every aspiring international that you wanted to play in a World Cup and you wanted to play in a winning team at a World Cup. ARCHIVE: Kirk has gone straight through. The All Blacks' dominance over France in the final showed what money and rugby could deliver. New Zealand were light years ahead of the other countries in the world, precisely because the guys didn't seem to have to have proper jobs. No longer could you speculate whether you're the best team in the world. Here was the chance to say that at that point in time you were the best in the world. It really changed the nature of the game. (DON'T STOP ME NOW BY QUEEN PLAYS) Beyond long wear - fresh wear! Infallible Foundation by L'Oreal Paris. Full coverage in a breathable formula that stays fresh hour after hour. And still looking for your best concealer? Discover new Infallible More Than Concealer. By L'Oreal Paris. * (AMBIENT MUSIC) In 1991, the second Rugby World Cup took place without controversy. This time the tournament was held in the northern hemisphere, and Twickenham hosted the final. (CROWD CHEERS) ARCHIVE: It really does seem to have grabbed everybody. Not that anybody in the last couple of weeks who's not aware that it's rugby's World cup final today at Twickenham. That was one of the things we really sensed while we were over there, that the people back in Australia ` whether you're an AFL follower, a rugby league follower, a cricket follower, not a sport follower ` they felt really proud about our team, and they desperately wanted us to do well. We were besieged and amazed and astonished with the number of faxes. Remember things called fax machines that we used back then? 3000 or 4000 would turn up overnight. We couldn't believe that so many people were interested in what we were doing. ARCHIVE: And he's away. Horan down the wing. England in trouble here. It's a try. Sold-out stadiums and wall-to-wall coverage created a global TV event. (GENTLE MUSIC) The pace. Rory Underwood. But he can't hold it. And that's it. (CROWD ROARS) Nick Farr-Jones ` the Australian Captain. (CROWD CHEERS) When we got home, we were amazed at the publicity that the team had been receiving. Having our premier of New South Wales wanting to put on a George St ticker tape parade, and I pleaded with him, 'Please don't. 'I don't want 200 or 300 people just throwing toilet paper at us.' But, unbelievably, they had about 130,000 people. The commercial success of the second World Cup was saluted within the IRB. But on the issue of paying players, they doubled down. Rugby was really behind the times in just about every way. The IRB saw amateurism as a philosophical, almost moral, matter. The consequence of allowing players to be paid is, of course, the players have to choose between their career and playing rugby. These are successful people in their own right. You've got submarine captains. You've got captains of industry. They were protecting some real amateur tradition that we held close to us. Well-meaning men who, I think, were simply out of touch with the global potential of the game the global amounts of sponsorship and broadcasting money that was available. (CROWD CHEERS) (HIP-HOP MUSIC) In 1992, the prevailing wisdom of how any sport survived financially was that gate receipts and sponsorship were the cake, and TV deals, the icing. The Premier League turned this formula upside down. The Premier League was a moment in time when the owners saw an opportunity to make money at this, and that was a crazy idea at the time. No one thought you could make money from professional football. One man, however, was prepared to take the risk on what he saw as a golden opportunity in sport. We are seeing the dawn of a new age in this country of freedom for viewing and freedom for advertising. In the 1990s, Rupert Murdoch was one of the rare people on Earth who understood the potential of television. Rupert Murdoch is a complicated, controversial character, but his impact on sport has been enormous. Huge. He saw sports as the irresistible main dish for television viewers everywhere. He understood that there were two things that were gonna get BSkyB ` his enterprise ` into British homes, and that was football and soap operas. So, he started buying these rights for really what we now realise was a song, but at the time seemed like this incredible, outrageous sum of money. He took a huge personal gamble. As Murdoch's bet on football paid off, rugby clubs and players could only look on enviously. (LIVELY, PERCUSSIVE MUSIC) Meanwhile, the whole world watched on television as South Africa's era of apartheid came to an end. There's Mr Mandela, Mr Nelson Mandela ` a free man taking his first steps into a new South Africa. (CROWD CHEERS) But his country was still prisoner to its terrible past. (LIVELY, PERCUSSIVE MUSIC) The white community was still pretty tetchy about it, still suspicious. He had been the terrorist ogre for all those years in prison, and then he becomes their president, and there was a great deal of antagonism towards him. (LIVELY, PERCUSSIVE MUSIC) (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) Rock, paper, scissors. Wow! (ALL CHUCKLE) Mandela then delivered a political masterstroke that shocked both supporters and enemies. MANDELA: Our national teams now enjoy the support of all South Africans. This is spirit with which our nation will be approaching the coming World Rugby Cup. Mandela must have had the most acute understanding of the Afrikaners' vulnerabilities, and the single greatest chink in their armour was their overwhelming love for rugby. And to defuse the likelihood of race war, and especially to charm the really hardcore racist right wing, he chose the most deadly weapon. It was like the equivalent of a nuclear strike against the Afrikaners' deepest regions of our psyche. The success of the ANC at that time, was to say to us, 'If you go the democratic way to negotiate and to give every South African the vote, 'we will bring you into international sport.' There was one condition ` the South African rugby unions based on race must now come together as one colourless organisation. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) * (FRENETIC PIANO MUSIC) By 1995, Rupert Murdoch had struck gold with his investment in English soccer. In deep secrecy, the New Zealand, Australian, and South African rugby unions now approached Murdoch about doing a TV deal for the game in the southern hemisphere. I just think it took the northern hemisphere too long to wake up and realise it was in a global competitive environment where all the top athletes in every sport got paid. Tensions between players and administrators grew. Will Carling spoke out and was sacked as England's captain. ARCHIVE: You do not need 57 old farts running rugby. It was obvious that, you know, the revenues that were being generated in the game, and the players were sacrificing a lot. The game had to move on. (CAR HORN TOOTS) (FRENETIC PIANO MUSIC) Against this disruption, the 1995 Rugby World Cup began. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) ARCHIVE: We would prefer you to wear the referee's attire. (LAUGHTER) MANDELA: But I'm sure that we have a very good chance of emerging victorious. The miles of television cables ready to beam pictures to a worldwide audience ` evidence of the sport's increasing business potential. At the 1995 World Cup, rugby's first genuine TV superstar made his entrance ` 19-year-old All Black Jonah Lomu. (UPBEAT MUSIC) When Murdoch said, 'I'm just watching this. 'This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life. 'We have got to have that guy.' He just lit up the whole sporting world. (CROWD CHEERS) On the eve of the World Cup final, to the horror of the northern hemisphere unions, events took a very unexpected turn. (TENSE MUSIC) We received an invitation saying, 'Come and join us. There is something very important coming.' Every accredited rugby media guy in the world was there for this big announcement. And Louis Luyt, the head of South African rugby, announced that they'd signed a contract with News Corp ` the Murdoch company... ...for the sum in excess of US$550 million. And I was one of virtually every reporter in the room that sniggered cos we thought the silly old fool had got the figure wrong. We thought it was US$55 million for 10 years, but Louis was right. And from that moment before that World Cup Final everything turned upside down. They were so caught up in the little amateur bubble of the English Rugby Union where the rest of the world were just saying, 'Right. We've gotta get on with this now and stop talking about it.' And they were completely taken about and shocked by it. And they couldn't handle it, to be honest. Rewarding their president's optimism, South Africa's Springbok's made it to the final. Their opponents were New Zealand. As we walked out on to the field, I heard this chanting ` 'Nelson, Nelson. 'Nelson.' CROWD CHANTS: Nelson! Nelson! Nelson! Nelson! 60,000 predominantly white people who many five years earlier would've been indoctrinated into calling President Mandela a terrorist are now cheering and chanting his name. Sean Fitzpatrick, my great friend, will say when he saw President Mandela with the Springbok jersey on, he knew that they were in for a tough day at the office. (CROWD ROARS) ARCHIVE: Mehrtens just fell over. (CROWD CHEERS) Oh, and that's dangerous, but Lomu has it. This is a game that's sort of simmering and waiting to boil Back it comes to Stransky. Up goes the kick. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Stransky! Joel Stransky got that drop goal. I've never screamed like that ever in my life. (CHUCKLES) Oh. (CHUCKLES) I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it. (WHISTLE BLARES) ARCHIVE: The time's up. South Africa have won the World Cup. It has to be said, a victory against all the odds. I cried when I saw it. The sun was shining, and Nelson Mandela's like this glorious` Like, it all seemed to be this supernatural halo around him. For him to be the president wearing a shirt that used to be part of a symbol of oppression, that is incredible. We had had to use the stick against the Springboks. Now Nelson Mandela was using the Springboks as a carrot to bind a society together. He came in as a president for the whole of the country ` not just for the black majority, long oppressed by the white minority, but for the white minority as well. They're all South Africans. The way everybody reacted to that, it was, uh... I don't think we're ever going to live that sort of exuberant fellowship and friendship that we saw on that day. (POIGNANT MUSIC) (CROWD CHANTS INDISTINCTLY) (TENSE MUSIC) Seven weeks after the World Cup, and almost 100 years since the issue of amateurism split rugby in two, the IRB called an extraordinary meeting. Breaking with tradition, it was held in France. All the international board meetings to date had given us nothing. You'd go there thinking something's gonna happen, and it would all be rubbish. There were rumblings and that there was gonna be a breakaway. But you turned up there not knowing exactly what the announcement was going to be. ARCHIVE: The International Rugby Board has begun a three-day meeting that's expected to end Rugby Union's amateur status. I'd been through the report, and I'd help edit it, so I knew how powerful it was. ARCHIVE: Nobody had expected the International Rugby Board to go so far. READS: 'Rugby will become an open game. There will be no prohibition on payment 'or the provision other material benefit to any person involved in the game.' They put up the white flag. They realised it was too late. The only way to save the traditional game was to go professional. And one of the England representatives on the international board was standing with his head against the wall just slowly banging his forehead against a brick wall like that. For a century, the IRB had aggressively defended its stance on amateurism. It now gave in to the inevitable, and dispensed with everything it once stood for. So, this great matter of principle which they'd held on, these old guys, for years, I don't think that one person resigned, and that disgusted me. Captions by Kristin Williams. Edited by Starsha Samarasinghe.