FOMOing at the Mouth

In accordance with the Knockandian philosophy of “No occasion is too mundane if beer is involved”, Knockando held an annual event known as the Knock Olympics.  A two-day event, the Olympics was divided into the Indoor Events (Basketball, squash, pool, darts, drinking competitions) which ran on a Friday afternoon in August, and the Outdoor Events (Soccer, rugby, tennis, road running, tug-o-war) which would occur the next day.  The res was split into 5 teams –Teams were based on where you stayed in the building, e.g. Residents of the top floor of the residence’s Williams Hall were team “4 th Floor” – and competition was quite fierce. During the 2000 Knock Olympics, competition was extremely fierce.  4 th Floor was engaged in a bitter struggle for top of the heap with their hated rivals C & D Units, and the difference between winner and second place was literally coming down to the single digits.  As such, extreme importance was placed on events where number...

One of the great stereotypes that I happen to conform to is that of “Former resident of a University house who keeps harkening back to the crazy shit he and his res buddies did”.  However, this is a badge that I wear with pride, as the four years I spent as a resident in what could perhaps be called Johannesburg’s rowdiest residence were amongst the most enjoyable of my life. I was a resident in Knockando Men’s Residence for 4 years, from 1998 to 2001, back during the tail end of what many regard as the house’s heyday.  At the time, Knock (As it was affectionately known) was a Johannesburg College of Education res that the University of the Witwatersrand, Rand Afrikaans University and Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) occasionally sent residents to, before subsequently being absorbed by Wits when JCE was subsumed into the University of Johannesburg.  Knock had long had a reputation for rowdiness – One of the fairly well-known sayings around JCE and Wits campuses at th...