Having held the club’s cards close to their chests for nearly 81 years, Bonecrusher, Chicken Man, Two-Ply, Stonewall, Maestro, Master Painter, The Ed and Lucky Larry have finally shown their hands.
The eight poker-faced men – who go by their witty nicknames when they meet in the President’s Room at the Port Elizabeth St George’s Club every Friday – comprise the city’s “oldest established permanent poker game” and are formally known as the Port Elizabeth Club Poker Club.
On Friday, Weekend Post was invited to the table to witness club members – chair Roy Skinner, former Herald editor Derek Smith, treasurer Mike Mourant, Talbot Cox, Mike Stapp and club scribe Pat Moffett – continue a tradition which stretches back to 1937 when six businessmen met “over cognac and cigars”.
It ’s two other members, Larry Martin and Graham Tunstead, were absent from Friday ’s jovial proceedings.
The club, in the words of Smith, was formed on December 7 1937, a month after Adolph Hitler had sat down with his generals to plan the subjugation of Europe.
“The new club, members decided, would be not only a diversion for the well-heeled, but a force for good or ‘Poker with a Purpose’,” said Smith, who pointed out that in the 80 years of the club’s existence, it had contributed thousands of pounds and rands to charities.
These included Community Chest, bursaries to help deserving students and the Herald Christmas Cheer Fund.
“Ernie Hunt, an American who was one of the early bosses of General Motors, is credited with facilitating the founders’ meeting, and he was duly elected first president,” Smith said.
He said every game had been minuted and salient facts documenting the winners, losers and hard-luck stories had been faithfully recorded since the club’s fourth meeting during early 1938.
With three octogenarians and the youngest member aged 70, considerations around the future of the club are, according to the group, on the cards.
“We have a careful selection process for new members,” said Moffett, who described new incumbents as “Patsies ”.
“They come into the club by invitation only. Naturally, in order for the club to continue, new members will have to be introduced as time goes on.”
Talbot Cox, exhibiting the driest of the good-natured humour that clearly hallmarks the tight-knit band of players, wryly pointed out that the club was the last of the “gentlemen’s clubs still withstanding the threat from feminism”.
“The players stand in a moment’s silence on the anniversary month of the death of each past member, but the question now is whether this Port Elizabeth institution can survive another 80 years.
“It may not be what it used to be, but I’m betting a limit that it can,” Smith said.