How the Primrose we know, came into being:-
Back then known as Violets, a community based club from Claremont playing in the Western Province Union in Green Point. Funny how it all started, with 2 delegates from Violets not attending the union meetings, but instead opted for a leisurely bite to eat at the Crescent Café. The union at the time suspended Violets from the rest of the seasons’ games d
ue to the indiscretions of the 2 delegates. The suspended team played numerous friendly matches and frequented the Mowbray sportsground (City & Surbubs) to watch weaker teams in need of assistance. These visits to the Mowbray field introduced them to the very weak Primrose team, who literally lost all their matches every week. Primrose was then logged as the weakest team and Yusuf Jacobs, along with other executive members of Violets approached the executive of Primrose with a merger proposal. At the time, it was very difficult for a predominantly Muslim club to be part of the City & Suburbs Union. The then executive of Primrose, Mr Louis and Mr Adriaanse, to name but a couple, met with the executive of Violets at the Athlone Hotel to discuss details of the merger. Ebrahiema Smith, Dout Vallie, Yusuf Salie and Achmat Vallie chaired the meeting and they used the names of prominent Muslim clergymen to get a foot in at Primrose. Primrose was keen and readily accepted the merger with the community based club so as to improve their log statistics. Imam Abdullah Haroun, Sheikh Nazeem and Hassan Hawa were instrumental in breaking the religious barrier that existed within the City and Suburbs Union. Early in the 1970’s they were fully fledged members of Primrose R.F.C. and belonged to City and Suburbs. The very first match played was lost, but after that it was full steam ahead landing them on an awesome winning streak. The stand at City Park was filled to capacity with the supporters of the new Primrose R.F.C. All major trophies were won that season, across all teams. Even the club’s Miss City Fair entrant took first prize. Winning streak all around! It was acknowledged that Primrose was producing the best rugby players (in the non-white clubs) and due to the lack of memory, to mention only the Majiet Brothers (amongst many others) who went on to represent Cities. At the time, the executive was well led by Dr Ismail Shreeff, Siraaj Abbas and Dr Gilby Samsodien who very proudly maintained and strongly instilled community values and principles. Boeta Yurie Abrahams also joined the club with the whole of the Grassy Park All Black team.
