I was robbing my family
“TAKING CARE CHILDREN OF THE THESE DAYS NOT CHEAP, IS ESPECIALLY THEIR IF STEPFATHER A FERRARI, OWNS BECAUSE NEED TO YOU MAINTAIN KIND OF THAT LIFESTYLE.”
From Cape to Cairo, Yeoville to Yaoundé, Addis Ababa to Dar es Salaam, no one did it like Junaid Hartley. No one. He was a footballer so gifted that the things he used to do with the ball at his feet on the training field often left his teammates in awe. For opposition players hoping to dispossess him of the ball, the sight of a clean pair of heels is all they would catch. But then if ‘catch’ is the key word, then an off-field life lived on the fast lane soon caught up with the erstwhile dribbling wizard. So much so that after all those experiences that shaped Junaid Hartley the footballer as well as the person, he found himself in a catch-22 situation. As a consequence, the man who made his PSL debut at only 16 couldn’t catch a break from the press, and the tag of ‘Bad Boy’ has stuck since. Could have, should have, would have! Great pity. In the first instalment of his interview with Soccer Laduma’s Masebe Qina, the 45-year-old relives a career of wrong decisions.
Masebe Qina: Compliments of the New Year, Junaid. How was the festive season for you?
Junaid Hartley: Thanks, my man, and compliments to you too. It was a good one and it was nice having the kids and everybody around. Suddenly, life is back to normal and I get to see things that I haven’t been able to see in a while. The kids got to be with their father for a change because their father is back into the society. The schools are re-opening this week, and it has been good that I got involved in preparing for that and lived up to those responsibilities. Taking care of the children these days is not cheap, especially if their stepfather owns a Ferrari, because you need to maintain that kind of lifestyle. You don’t want to be seen as not being capable because once upon a time you were the main guy. You must be ready to handle yourself now and you can’t feel sorry for yourself. You must be ready to stand up and be counted.
MQ: So, how many kids do you have?
JH: I’ve got four kids from three mothers. The two young girls are living with their stepfather. My exgirlfriend moved on with somebody else, but I do get to see the kids over time, and I’m very involved in their lives. They come and see me, and I was still involved in the three children’s lives even when I was in addiction. What I like the most is that being involved in their lives means that I can now live up to my responsibilities. I can take care of maintenance responsibilities if there are any additional costs. Like, if one of them gets injured and needs to see a doctor, I can take care of that bill. Those are the types of things that I can stick to right now and I can take them shopping whenever they want and that is not a problem. Before that, there was nothing like that honestly, because I was at the time even on the streets and I was begging. But all that life for me from all those years was an eye-opening experience and I’m enjoying life now.
MQ: What led you into that kind of life?
JH: Look, when I came back from Malaysia, that’s when things changed for me. As footballers and living that lifestyle, you become self-entitled and you think that things will always be like that. I bought my house and that was the fourth or fifth house that I owned. It was during the festive season and at the time ,somebody pulled out a bag of meth (methamphetamine) and that was the first time I tried it. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop for 30 days after that as one bag led to the other every day. If you take a drug for 30 days, you can be guaranteed to be addicted after the 30 days and there’s no way you can run away from it. When that happens, you obviously start being dysfunctional. You don’t care of (about) your responsibilities and as there is a bond to be paid, you fall behind. You must remember that you are not guaranteed an income. You have no club anymore and your career has ended. Your car needs to be paid for, your children need to go to school, and you need to take care of all your responsibilities.
MQ: That must have been tough. JH:
What made things even worse for me is that during those 30 days, I stayed next to a casino. I started gambling and for two or three months from January to April, the casino was basically taking care of me. I would win at the casino but then again lose, and that, together with substance abuse, I think is the worst experience. You can’t make the right decisions because you are not in the right frame of mind. After that, you start pawning your furniture, car, and pawning everything to stick to your habit – substance abuse and gambling. And you still need to take care of your responsibilities, and that comes with unnecessary paranoia because you lost control of everything. Before you open your eyes, you’ve lost everything … your house, cars, furniture … everything gone. Now what are you going to do?
MQ: Hmmm…
JH: During that period, my girlfriend, who later became my wife, did try to help and took care of the kids. But after a few months, she was married again as I was addicted to the substance. During that same period, my mother had lost her battle with cancer. This is what addiction to substance does, it goes opposite direction with everything that is the reality. So, if there is a problem, the minute you are high, you feel that the problem is under control and that it’s going to get better. You are used to money coming in and solving your own problems, but now you are not doing anything. The only thing you do is spending the money that you don’t have. People will be lending you money because they don’t know what you are going through. They only see you on the outside as this guy, and for who you are, and for a certain standard that you have been living, and they have no doubt that you will pay them back. Before you know it, you’re not only living with the casino money, but you are also living with other people’s money. Eventually, your wife will have to move on with her life because you are not taking care of the responsibilities and you are not taking care of the children. I think she’s moved on now for about five years. When she moved on, I knew about it because she told me, and it wasn’t a problem for me at the time. I’ve got a competitive nature and I’m always up for competition and it’s something that has been with me since my days of playing soccer. Soccer was my life and because of that, everything for me was competition. If there
was somebody interested in my wife when I was on top of my game, I know nothing would have happened because I was a responsible person. And how come now that there should be issues when there is somebody involved with your wife, because you were not doing what you were supposed to be doing? You didn’t care because all you were worried about was the addiction.
MQ: Did you also drink alcohol?
JH: Occasionally, yes. But with alcohol, you can’t drink every day. In the beginning, I used to drink and party a lot. But it got to a point where I couldn’t afford both substance and alcohol at the same time, no chance.
MQ: How many houses did you own?
JH: I owned five houses, but right now I don’t have not even one. I lost everything and there’s nothing that I have.
MQ: Where do you stay now?
JH: I’m renting my own place around Jo’burg. It’s a country estate in the same place where I lost the last house.
MQ: What puts food on the table for you? JH:
So, I was at the facility (rehabilitation centre) for one year, and since I came out, I have been part of the society for more a year now. When you get out of the rehab to be with the society, that’s when the real challenge begins. Okay, you have been clean for one year, but now the challenge is that you have to face the real life’s challenges. There’s no running away and you need to find something that sustains yourself quite instantly. A thousand rand for me could be most detrimental at this point compared to the money that I’m used to. It can’t maintain me, and it can’t put food on the table for* us for a week. That’s the kind of money that is enough to buy food for two days only. Instead of helping, that kind of money would risk putting me into depression again because I can’t take care of my responsibilities. I can’t be content with R1 000. I know there’s a Sassa (South African Social Security Agency) grant (which I receive) that I never applied for, but I have to look at my life now and decide what it is that I need to do. So, I can coach like I have been doing in the last few weeks at a youth level, but that is also not going to get me to the level of maintaining my standard of living like I am used to. Every time I sold a house, I was able to make profit. What does that tell me? It tells me that I need to venture somewhere into property because I’ve got the experience.
MQ: We’re listening.
JH: A friend of mine helped me into it and with the first client I got as a trial, I made R200 000 from that deal. From there onwards, there was a little bit of humanity coming back. I went from one deal to the next and fortunately, it brought me back on my feet. So, that’s how I’ve been able to take care of the children’s needs and so on. But the challenge doesn’t stop as I need to stick to that standard every day. You need to be consistent. Every day, you knew you needed to wake up and go to training to ensure that you were in the game for the weekend and that’s where you learnt about consistency. You know how to live life if it’s performancebased. You are your own boss and if you need to bring in cash, you have to hustle. In around 15 years that I have played football, I have met thousands of people and I know that can create opportunities for me even though I have made s**t and did bad things, but I am now trying to pull my life together. If those people hear that I am trying to pull my life together, some of them will come closer, and fortunately in my case, I’ve got my family. I’ve got my sister and brother, and they are the ones who have helped me to pull through this. My situation even went as far as me getting a court interdict where I had to go into a facility for no less than a year, otherwise the court would have chosen a facility for me and that’s a government facility. At that point, I didn’t understand why my family did that to me. The facility I went to has been the biggest lifesaver ever for me because I was in trouble, psychologically. It was bad, and there were days I would sleep in a classroom in a school that I used to go to.
MQ: For real?
JH: Yes. I remember this other day as I was lying in that classroom and I remembered that it was actually my classroom that I used to sit in and learn. A lot of memories flooded my mind as to who paid for my fees at that private school when I was still a learner. The kind of life I was living took away my dignity from me as there were people who still recognised me as a professional footballer and a star but were now seeing me in such a situation. When I was begging, I would approach someone in a car and would hear them asking each other, “Do you know this guy, who he is and what he had? This is what he had and if you don’t look after yourself and the things you have, this is how you might end up looking like.” Fortunately, I never got involved in robbing someone else, but I was robbing myself. I was robbing my family, my parents and my children from being a brother, father and son.