Cameron Fullerton (Clayton 2019) took a big step forward in a hockey journey that hasn’t always been smooth when he was included in the Senior Men’s High-Performance squad.
He played in his first senior IPT for Southern Gauteng this year, after being overlooked in previous years, and must have done enough to catch the national selectors’ eyes.
“I’ve somehow missed out on the selection of squads and teams quite often,” he said. “I made the Southern U18B team in my Grade 11 year but was not in the A team the next year, initially, although I was a late replacement, and went on to make the SA U18B team.”
He went on to play at Wits University, where his career was interrupted by COVID-19, before playing for the Southern Gauteng U21 side, which won their IPT in 2022. However, he never made the national U21 squad.
“Then I wasn’t chosen for the Southern Gauteng men’s side until this year, and here I am in a senior men’s squad.”
Cameron sees this recognition as an important first step and as motivation to keep working hard. “There are some very experienced players in this group, so I don’t expect to make the international team straight away,” he said. “But I’m going to keep going, and I want to get noticed at the training and selection camps that we will be going to.”
That perseverance and resilience are something he gives St John’s College some credit for. “We were taught that giving up wasn’t an option and that hard work will be rewarded,” he said. “They are lessons that have served me well.”
He used those lessons in his studies at Wits, where he earned a Master’s degree in Accounting. He is now doing auditing articles at Deloitte, on his way to a CA (SA) qualification.
“It’s taken some balancing to succeed both academically and in sport,” he said. “That’s another lesson I learnt at school. There are very few stars who are specialists at St John’s. I learnt the value of spending time on more than just one thing.”
It’s been a while since we have had an international hockey player come from St John’s, Tumi Ramphele (Hodgson 2018) was the last one, in 2018. Don’t be surprised if Cameron Fullerton is next.