Western Province Rugby will bid a heartfelt farewell to the charismatic and popular administrator Ria Malan, who retires this month after 33 years of dedicated service to the union.

Having grown up in the Free State as a Province supporter, Ria first started working at DHL Newlands in 1981, when she was employed as a receptionist by SA Rugby. Over 38 years later she ends a remarkable career for which her contributions will be fondly remembered by generations of players, coaches and staff.

After working for SA Rugby for five years, Ria was offered a job at WP in 1987, which crucially included the benefit of a DHL Newlands season ticket. Her memories of the famous ground in those days remain close to her heart to this day.

“It was the place to be, it was always a sell-out and I have a lot of special memories,” she said.

In her second year at WP, Ria was appointed as secretary/personal assistant to Hennie Bekker who was in a Director of Rugby role, overseeing coaching, clubs, schools rugby and referees.

It was then that she started forging strong bonds with the players and staff, some of whom she remains in close contact with to this day.

In the early 1990s when rugby became unified, Ria held the position of Secretary of the Western Province Rugby Football Union and had a front row seat as rugby moved towards professionalism.

One of her duties back then was to co-ordinate the kit and clothing and book flights for the various teams, which soon became her focus area as Logistics Manager and eventually the position of Manager: Player Affairs which she retires from.

With the development of the stadium in the early 1990s and an influx of new staff members with the advent of professionalism, the environment at DHL Newlands changed quickly.

Her memories of the 1995 Rugby World Cup are not so much of the action on the pitch as off it, where it was ‘all hands on deck’.

“We never sat and watched the matches, there were only about 20 staff members at that time, so everyone helped all over. I was assigned an upper gallery, level two of the grandstand, so I only caught little bits of the action between all the running around,” she said.

As the staff member in charge of the kit, Ria often found her office full of players who were training at DHL Newlands and she formed close bonds with the likes of Dick Muir, Tiaan Strauss, Toks van der Linde, Chester Williams, Corne Krige, Faan Rautenbach, Werner Greeff and Robbie Fleck, who she worked with for over 20 years as a player and a coach.

One of her most remarkable and treasured memories is calling Chester Williams to inform him that he had been called up by the Springboks.

“Back then there were no cellphones, so we had to do a lot of calling around to get hold of players and make travel arrangements. Chester was playing for the WP Sevens team at the time, but luckily his replacement Tinus Linee was about the same size so we could just give him Chester’s kit,” she revealed.

It was around the early 2000s that she became known to the players as ‘Tannie Ria’ – as much a symbol of their affection and respect for her tireless work and friendly attitude as anything else.

Apart from her connections with famous players and coaches, Ria has also made some lasting friendships with fellow staff members, such as long-serving kit manager Jeffrey Cornelius Revenne Maritz who started working at WP the year after her in 1988, Gerna Knipe and Suhair Bardien, who have all been stalwarts at the union and those that Ria counts as ‘friends outside of work’.

Looking ahead to the future, Ria says that she ‘will always be a WP supporter’ and plans to still come and watch the team play, although she is also looking forward to doing some traveling with her husband Jacques and ‘organising some flights for myself for a change’.

In her 33 years with WP Rugby, Ria has seen the rugby landscape develop beyond recognition, but one thing that has remained constant is her friendly demeanour and commitment to her job. Her retirement truly marks the end of an era and everyone in the greater Western Province Rugby family wishes her everything of the best for the future.