ALFRED NDENGANE - UNATTACHED
(PART 2)
Alfred, welcome back, brother! Whoever didn’t read your stories last week, from the time you spent at Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila, really missed out as they were just world-class! Any more where that came from for us?
Ha, ha, ha. Yes, of course! There was a time when we were training at a school. A lot of us were coming from different teams like (Orlando) Pirates and (Bidvest) Wits. So, when we got to the training field in Venda… yho, yho, yho! The fact that we could not train with white socks tells you a story, ha, ha, ha. There was nothing we could do because that was our training ground. Let me tell you how bad it was… It was like training in sand, so imagine when it rains, it’s muddy. But we ended up getting used to it. And the funny thing is that at Tshakhuma, we used to wash our own kit. Your socks and everything, you had to wash it yourself. You know how football guys are. You get tired and then you forget to wash your kit, and then there is a smell, and you have dirty socks, ha, ha, ha.
Eish, that’s crazy.
And you must know that before training, we pray. We put our hands around each other and everyone will look at each other and be like, “I wonder who is smelling.” Sometimes you could smell it next to you and you felt like saying, “Bra yam (My brother), it’s bad.” But we enjoyed our time there with all these funny stories. If you had white socks and you did not wash them, then it was a problem.
Seems like you went through the most at the club.
Yes, we went through a lot, ha, ha, ha. But we had some good times. If you remember that season, we ended up going on to win the Nedbank Cup. So, even though it was difficult, we ended up enjoying it. Tshakhuma was hectic. I was there for one season, but you would swear I was there for five seasons, ha, ha, ha.
Talk to us about some of the other characters in the team while you were there…
We also had (Joseph) Molangoane. You know when they talk about confidence? That guy used to tell us so many stories about his times at (Kaizer) Chiefs and Pirates. He was a character. If there was one guy who would excel at coming late, it was him. And there was always an explanation, ha, ha, ha. They would ask, “Who is not here, guys?” We would know it was Joseph, ha, ha, ha. But he is a good player with a lot of experience.
Just from looking at “Tight”, and having spoken to him a few times before, one can tell there’s some kasi naughtiness about him. Let’s move on…
There is a story I can remember from the time I was playing for Pirates. You see (Mogamad) De Goede?
Yes…
So, a lot of people do not think I am from Cape Town. So, we were playing (against Stellenbosch FC) and there was a corner. There was a lot of swearing during the game. So, I spoke to De Goede in Afrikaans and he was like, “Huh, I did not know that people from outside the country can speak Afrikaans?’
Ha, ha, ha, so h et hough tyouw ere a foreigner? Yes! I swore at him, ha, ha, ha. I was like, “If only you knew that I grew up in Cape Town.” Afrikaans is like my second language. He was so surprised.
Talk about a defender caught unawares.
And then there was (Bloemfontein) Celtic, and we had Patrick Tignyemb. He would fight everyone, including the chairman, Mr Max Tshabalala. He was at Celtic for a long time, so maybe that’s why he was able to speak that way. There was a time when the club had problems with money, so Patrick would say, “We are not going to train.” There was this time when he approached the boss and he said, “You must sell this team! This team is not yours!”
For real? He was saying that to the chairman?
Yes, and we were like, “How can you say that to the guy who is paying your salary?” Patrick was a character, and he was never scared of anyone. He would say it like it is. Even during the game, he would swear at you. It did not matter if the referee was right next to him. Can you imagine? He would even swear in Afrikaans, even if he did not know the meaning. He would say it just because he had heard it somewhere, ha, ha, ha. There was a game when we played against (Mamelodi) Sundowns and he fought with Wandisile Letlabika. I remember I got a red card in that game. Sundowns were taking advantage of having one man more than us. So, there was a moment where Wandi did not clear the ball or he was trying to dribble at the back. Sundowns took the ball and they scored.
Yho! We can imagine that Tignyemb went ballistic…
Patrick went to him and he held him, and he was swearing at him. Imagine! The game was live on TV. Even the Sundowns guys had to come intervene. When we were in the change room, he was so mad! Patrick took the game so seriously. It’s not that other guys did not take it seriously, but Patrick did not like conceding, so I think the emotions came from that. But it was so funny.
Thank week, pecially where kits, Ha, ha, ha, that was funny. Thank you for the opportunity.