The Intervarsity weekend was a lucrative one for a number of Grahamstown businesses, as the town played host to many hundreds of students from Rhodes, NMMU, Walter Sisulu and Fort Hare for the annual sporting and social extravaganza.
The Intervarsity weekend was a lucrative one for a number of Grahamstown businesses, as the town played host to many hundreds of students from Rhodes, NMMU, Walter Sisulu and Fort Hare for the annual sporting and social extravaganza.
Xtreme Embroidery on New Street was a hive of activity on Thursday afternoon with students clamouring to get their white overalls ahead of their opposing teams' arrivals.
“Other than O-week, Intervarsity is the best time for overall sales,” said store manager Lorraine Vos. “On average we sell one or two a month but for Intervarsity we ordered 400 and we were sold out by 3pm on Thursday afternoon.”
For the requisite purple splashes on their overalls students used fabric paint, permanent markers, face paint and dye. Another popular 'dye' was gentian violet – a topical anti-fungal medicine normally used in the treatment of thrush (fungal infection).
Wallace's Pharmacy at Pepper Grove Mall sold over 100 bottles and 15 bottles of purple hairspray. Pick n Pay store manager Werner Pienaar stocked up on pies, braai packs and jumbo Russian rolls at reasonable prices, doubling sales volumes, he said.
Meanwhile, the Vineyard Liquor Store recorded a 20% increase in sales; as did the House of Pirates bar and pizza place. Both brought in extra security to manage the hundreds of students who trooped through their establishments during the weekend.
Graham Hotel manager Eugene Repinz said he was pleased to have full occupancy due to Intervarsity, but was infuriated by the behaviour of some students from the University of Fort Hare. According to Repinz, the students occupied half of the hotel and on several occasions he received complaints from other visitors about unbearable noise.
At one stage he was even called to rouse students who had passed out in the hotel foyer, he said.
Head of Rhodes University's Campus Protection Unit, Dave Charteris, said there were a handful of instances of drunken and disorderly behaviour, damage to property and vandalism. The police were also called out on a couple of occasions to break up brawls.
Charteris said that some Rhodes students had been involved in a punch-up, but declined to disclose further details. “We’ve given the names of the students concerned to the Dean of Students and they will face the university’s disciplinary procedure, he said. The same has been done with the students from the other university [involved].”
There was also a traffic incident in which a female student walked away unscathed after a car bumped into her on New Street on Friday night.
