Tony Stoops Rugby Festival

The Tony Stoops Rugby Festival was born in 2008 from one man's conviction that festival rugby shouldn't belong only to the privileged few. Tony Stoops, "Oom Tony" to a generation of Western Cape schoolboys, was a retired teacher who personally financed a festival for schools outside the traditional top tier, giving hundreds of boys each Easter an experience that would otherwise have passed them by.

From humble beginnings it grew into the biggest 1st XV festival in South Africa, drawing over 40 schools at its peak to hosts including Tygerberg, Brackenfell and De Kuilen, and even attracting touring sides from as far afield as Canada. The format was pure festival: opening-day fixtures set in advance, then strength matched against strength as the days unfolded. After each edition a touring squad was selected from the participants, with tours to Ireland and Portugal changing the lives of boys who might never have been seen otherwise.

Following Oom Tony's retirement the festival continued under a new name from 2023, but the fifteen editions that carried his own stand as one of school rugby's great acts of generosity.