Stormers coach JOHN DOBSON was the founding editor of SA Rugby magazine in 1995. He reflects on four fun-filled years …

I cannot believe it has been 300 issues and more than 27 years since SA Rugby magazine was launched.

I was involved from the beginning, thanks to an incredible creative bon vivant called Richard Whittingdale, a well-known sports publisher on the Cape Town scene.

Until the 2000s, magazine editing and publishing was a big industry. It was trendy, it was happening and there were hundreds of print titles before the online revolution.

Whitters was a debonair figure who had launched South Africa’s Sports Illustrated. He claimed to be a sanctions-buster because he didn’t have the licence from the US version.

In 1994, he started SA Cricket Action. Brian Lara was the first cover, after scoring that 400 not out, and Whitters got my dad, Paul, to write a piece on him. I had just graduated from law and I got a job as a copywriter at an advertising agency. Whitters knew I could write and knew I liked rugby, so I asked him if we could do a rugby thing.

Monthly sports magazines had not really worked in South Africa until then. There were a litany of failed titles. Nick Mallett had just come back from playing rugby in France, but had started getting involved with SA Cricket Action on the marketing side, so myself, Nick and Richard were the guys who started the magazine.

I was made editor of the first issue. The staff was minute. They gave me an Apple Mac, which I didn’t know what to do with. We had a designer, a funny, patient and rightfully paranoid GM in Clive During, and Brett Baker, who took over as MD from Richard. Chris Whales was managing editor and the remarkable Howard Kahn was editorial assistant.

One of our first content ideas was to have six beers with Guy Kebble or Peter Whipp. Not always six, but it was a nice way to justify sinking a few with James Dalton at lunchtime on Sundays. That feature became a bit messier when Captain Morgan took over as sponsor! It was renamed ‘Six Double Captains with …’

So April 1995 we launched. Chester Williams was on the cover in a jersey we had made up with the new South African flag. We deliberately launched it before the World Cup. We then stumbled across a New York photographer who did this amazing shoot with James Small boxing, making for a stunning second issue. Sales absolutely flew.

In those days before digital, each photo was a little transparency that you put on an old-fashioned slide machine. We had to use light-boxes and then lay out the pages. They would come back with what were called positives – big A3 layouts of what the magazine would actually look like. I had an old Land Rover bakkie and I put these layouts of the Francois Pienaar issue in the back just before the World Cup. Driving past UCT on the M3, I just saw these things flying out the back. We were on the way to CTP Publishers and Printers, and there’s me and Howie trying to stop traffic to redeem our World Cup issue!

When we got our first advanced copies of the magazine, it was an amazing feeling. You were proud of it, went through it, grimacing when you spotted some mistakes.

GALLERY: Every cover since 1995

There was always a great culture of energy. I left four years later, when things were starting to move online, but I can honestly say I absolutely loved that job and magazine. We tried to make it entertaining and edgy and had some great characters contributing in Norman Canale, Dan Retief, John Reason and Stephen Jones.

When I think of that time I think of the amazing writers, characters and stories that birthed the SA Rugby magazine brand, and I am proud and thrilled that the mag has reached 300 issues.

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– The 300th issue of SA Rugby magazine is on sale now! Get the digital edition.