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Shimlas aim to entertain in home semi-final

14 April 2022 | Story Jóhann Thormählen

It was their aim to entertain, and now the University of the Free State (UFS) Shimlas want to continue in the same vein in front of their home fans in the Varsity Cup semi-final that will be played on Shimla Park on the Bloemfontein Campus on Monday 18 April 2022 at 19:00.

According to Thabang Mahlasi, the Shimla captain, his side is excited to have a home advantage against the University of Pretoria (UP) Tuks and would like to reward their supporters by scoring more tries.

The Shimlas also got their faithful involved this week by launching an ‘Every Fellow’ campaign on social media to encourage supporters to stand together and sing the Shimla song.

One of the Shimlas’ biggest fans, Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, says he will cheer on the team, wishing for another Varsity Cup trophy if the UFS reaches the final. “The UFS is home to top sports stars and winning the Varsity Rugby Cup – following our triumph in the Varsity Netball competition – will be great. Good luck to the team and know that every fellow Kovsie is behind you.”

Big turnaround
The UFS defeated the Nelson Mandela University 72-24 in Gqeberha in its last league match this week to end first on the log. It was the fourth time in 2022 that the Shimlas scored 50 points or more.

This means they will host UP Tuks, who finished fourth, at Shimla Park on Monday, while the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University will play in Cape Town in the other semi-final.

The UFS play against the defending champions in the semi-final in what will be a tight affair. In a previous encounter with UP Tuks this month, Shimlas won 26-15.

It was quite a turnaround for the Shimlas, who finished seventh last year. It will be the first time since 2019 that they play in a semi-final.

“What a big confidence booster to play in front of our own supporters,” says Mahlasi.

“Apart from that, we don’t have to travel, which means our bodies will be fresh come Monday.”

He thanked the fans for their continued support and says, “they will be in for quite a show on Monday”.

Sign of unity
The Shimlas got their supporters behind them with a campaign on their Instagram page (@shimlasrugby). Fans can win money if they sing the Shimla song, ‘Every Fellow’, in a video, or use the audio with their favourite Shimla memory.

Mahlasi says the idea is to get fans to sing the song to motivate the team while playing.

“And also, after the game it would be nice if we could all stand and sing together. As a sign of unity.”

“Our main focus is scoring tries,” says Mahlasi.

“For us, it’s not about the semi-final. For us, it’s just another opportunity to score as many tries as we can.”

News Archive

UFS hosts first ACS Institute held on African soil

2015-12-08

The first ever Association for Cultural Studies (ACS) Institute hosted on the African continent is taking place on the Bloemfontein Campus. At the event are, from the left: Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS; Prof Jean Comaroff, Alfred North Whitehead Professor of African and African-American Studies and Anthropology at Harvard University; Prof Helene Strauss, Chair of the Department of English at the UFS; and Prof Gil Rodman, Chair of the Association for Cultural Studies and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Photo: Johan Roux

The University of the Free State (UFS) is hosting the 2015 conference of the Association for Cultural Studies (ACS) Institute – the first time for this international event to take place on the African continent.

From 7 – 12 December 2015, some of the world’s leading scholars in cultural studies are taking part in the conference on the Bloemfontein Campus. The event has been organised by the UFS Department of English in collaboration with colleagues from other departments in the Faculty of the Humanities.

The ACS is the foremost international association for scholars in cultural studies, and has been hosting the biennial Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference since 2006. In 2011, the ACS held its inaugural institute at the University of Ghent (Belgium), followed, in 2013, by one at the Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt (Austria). As the 2015 meeting of the institute is the first to be held in Africa, the organisers aim at highlighting the contributions that scholars from our continent and other (post)colonial contexts have made to cultural studies, even as it engaged many of the long-standing theoretical concerns generated for the field by scholars from the Global North.

Themed ‘Precarious Futures’, the conference explores how cultural studies might assist in charting more equitable futures by reflecting critically on the cultural, economic, and political trajectories within which precariousness – a state increasingly anticipated for the planet – might be altered. Experts in a diversity of disciplines are sharing their perspectives in the form of seminars and lectures.

Keynote lectures are delivered by Prof Jean Comaroff (Harvard University), Prof John Erni (Hong Kong Baptist University), Dr Jo Littler (City University London), Dr Zethu Matebeni (University of Cape Town), and Prof Handel Kashope Wright (University of British Columbia).

In her opening lecture on Monday 7 December 2015, Prof Comaroff addressed the challenging relationship of law, detection, and sovereignty in contemporary African polities within the South African post-apartheid context.

Topics discussed include climate change; the archives of everyday life; cross-racial intimacies; ethnography; meritocracy; cultural studies and human rights; China and globalisation; gender, sexuality, and race; and governance, embodiment and the work of care.

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