Welcome back, Sammy. Continuing from last week’s conversation, it seems you considered it a real blessing to play in the same team with the legendary Marks Maponyane, at Wits University.
That’s true, but the only thing that was strange about him is that he was never injured, instead he injured defenders. That’s the only thing that I failed to learn from him, I guess he never gave me a recipe for it, ha, ha, ha. I will never forget that guy. He would come to me and say, “Don’t get frustrated, stay in the box.” Pitso (Mosimane) did the same thing while I was at SuperSport (United). There was a time I was frustrated, I was not playing, and they gave me a chance in one game. Pitso would shout at me, “Stay in the box! Sammy!” Every time he said, “Sammy!”, I knew what he wanted me to do. Eish, ngeso sikhathi badlala kamnandi (that time they were knocking it around nicely), I wanted to touch the ball. That is how I managed to get goals. Like I said last week, I had fun at Wits, but at (Jomo) Cosmos it was a jungle. Yho! Survival of the fittest. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed myself there because I spent most of my time ngikhahlela abantu (kicking people). You don’t enjoy football when you train to be fit to mark someone, not to play. I know somebody would say, “You played a lot at Cosmos”, but it doesn’t make any difference because I was playing to defend, as in spend my time ngigijima nabantu (running with people). I didn’t enjoy because mina I’m a goalscorer by nature. So, Wits and SuperSport I enjoyed. SuperSport management, make no mistake, they would make you feel at home. The problem was inside, from the players who came from Pretoria, as they had this belief that, “This one from Jo’burg has come here to take our position.” They would never come straight to you and talk about it, but you would hear them in the change room. Tommy (the late Thomas Madigage) and Pitso used to try and make me feel welcome, but the important thing was that angidlali no (I’m not playing with) Tommy, angidlali no Pitso, I’m playing with the players who are gossiping about me.
Talking about Cosmos being a jungle, what do you make of this notion that you were a team that went out to intentionally break legs?
I’ve got a simple answer for you. In the eight years that I spent at Cosmos, not even once did Jomo (Sono) say, “Khahlela (Kick).” Not even once. It was a case of either the opponent wins or you win – one of the two. Because Jomo would say, “Uyak’hlula
(He’s conquering you)”, you understand?” Nowhere did he say, “Kick him.” Not even at training. He would ask you, “Uyak’hlula?”
and the answer would be, “No, akang’hluli
(he’s not conquering me).” It will come automatically to you to say use your brains to neutralise this player. So, the neutralising, it has to be the threats, where off the ball you tell him, “I’m going to kick you.” He has never said khaba umuntu (kick somebody). Even if he did those hand gestures, it was never negotiated or taught to us that, “When I do like this, I mean kick him.” Because mina, all the time I used to take it as qina baba, qina (be strong, man, be strong). That was my idea (interpretation) of that sign. But other people watching from the outside, they thought of another thing. If they had taught us, I would tell you the honest truth now, I have nothing to lose. The only question was, “Is he conquering you? If he is, let us know so that we can take you out and put another player in.”
Glad you’ve cleared
As for the kicking, we were competitive from training – people are missing that point. Cosmos used to have almost 52 players, and we were fighting for 11 positions… well, we were fighting to be in the 18-man squad, let me put it that way. So, you can’t be in that 18 if you’re going around and giving people hugs. Anyone who stands in your way, he has to make way because one position is contested for by seven players. You need to be outstanding and be better than the other six, meaning you have to remove every obstacle in front of you. As a result, our training sessions were like serious games, and watching it you would say these people don’t know each other from a bar of soap, they only met today or they must be fighting over something. We fought from training, and if you started a game, you wouldn’t believe it because of how many players there were. Also, Cosmos would travel with only one goalkeeper just to create space for another player.
Furthermore, there was a school of thought that Jabu Pule (now Mahlangu) gave Mjomana sleepless nights…
I think that answer of “let me sort out your problems” came