THABISO HLALELE
(PART 3)
Thabiso, we’re now in the ‘last third’, so let’s finish things off in style. Although you were a defender and far from being a good finisher during your playing days, ha, ha, ha. What more can you tell us? Let’s start with Jomo Cosmos…
My roommate at Cosmos was Lucky Mhlathe, and at other times Bamuza Sono. Those two knew that I never pulled out of tackles and so they didn’t have to worry about anything if they were playing in front of me. Mhlathe used to call me “Ford Cotina”. They also used to call me (Audi) “TT”, which is the fastest car. When I go forward, I go forward. I remember one time I was marking Daine Klate, who was at SuperSport United, and he ended up asking one of my teammates, Dikgang Mabalane, to switch positions with me. He shouted, “Dikgang, come this side!” Mabalane was like, “No, I’m not coming! Never!” Ha, ha, ha. I would match him for pace, dispossess him of the ball and then go on the attack and put in a cross, all while he was standing there.
Impressive!
But I still remember one time we were playing Orlando Pirates and, at the time, Teko Modise was on top of his game. We reported for camp and everything was going well. The following day, when we were about to leave for the stadium, I started having problems with my stomach. I then told Jomo (Sono), “Today I don’t think I’m going to be able to play, I’m not feeling well.” Yho! He said, “You’re scared of Teko Modise?” Ha, ha, ha, I had to tell him, “No, Mjomana, I’m not feeling well at all, and I’m sure you can also see it.” I think Pirates beat us 3-1 or 4-1 that day, with me watching from the stands. I’m telling you, even after the game, Jomo was going on and on about how I didn’t play because of Teko Modise.
Teko was something else hey.
There was one guy we called Gabo – his full name is Daniel Gaborone. We used to play with him at Cosmos. I remember the last time I went out with him and Gerald Modabi. So, one day we went to Pretoria, and at the time I didn’t know Pretoria that well. When we got there, Gabo said me, “Thabiso, we must act like policemen.” I was like, “Policemen?” He said, “Ja, investigators. We have to go to that flat and knock.” It turns out he wanted us to go to this particular flat to look for some woman that stayed there, ha, ha, ha. I then said to him, “But we are soccer players and…”, which is when he interjected, “No, they don’t know us. We’ll just go there, pretend to be policemen and ask for Nonkanyiso. If she is there, re tsamaya le yena (we’re leaving with her). She’s my girlfriend.” So, we went there and we started knocking. Luckily, it was a woman who opened the door for us. Then Gabo said to her, “Let’s go.” Wow! Trust me, if it was a guy that had opened the door, I was ready to run back to the car, ha, ha, ha. The things we do sometimes as players…
Hmmm… So, before I got a driver’s licence, the one that I have now, I bought a car.
Oh, you still had that ‘student card’ that you bought for R3 000? Ha, ha, ha, no, man! So now, the question was, who is going to drive my car? I had to hire someone with a licence to drive me to training and back home. It was only much later that I came to my senses and realised that what I was doing was wrong. The money that I was paying that person to chauffer me around, I should have used it to go to a driving school and get my own licence. Eish, how stupid can you really get as a person? But sometimes when you have capital, you don’t think properly, man. You don’t think the same way as other people, you just think that a car is going to take me from one place to another, so I can hire anyone (to drive me around). That is why most of the time when we go back to kasi after our careers are finished, some people laugh and others say, “Uyidlile imali yakhe lo (This one wasted his money).” They don’t know how much we were earning. The only thing I can tell you is that at Free State Stars, in 2002, I was earning R1 5000. And the team was playing in the PSL! At Manning Rangers, I think I was earning R6 000. One of the pastors then came to me and asked me, “Are you a soccer player?” I said, “Yes, I am.” His next question was: “How much are you earning?” I told him, “That’s confidential.” But he was insistent, saying, “Tell me.” are playing soccer, you put money first instead of hard work, but it is your hard work that will work for you so that you can earn more.” I was like, “Wow!” It then dawned on me that what he was saying was the absolute truth, that you have to work first and then money will follow you. After that, the harder I worked, the more teams were after my services. They put in good offers for me. Nowadays, players put money first instead of hard work.
one interesting experience for you.
You also played for Black Leopards. We understand that was
I had a good time at Leopards, but the adjustment fromFreeStatewaschallenging, especially because of the weather. Free State is cold, and when you get to Limpopo, you have to adapt to two things. One of them is the weather and the other is the language spoken there. It was difficult to the point where I found myself walking around with a translator. If there was a girl I was interested in, he would come in and do his thing. I would instruct him: “Tell her I love her”, and the rest is history, ha, ha, ha. The funny thing for me was the back and forth, as I also needed to hear what the response from the other side was. Every day, I had to give this guy R200 for his translating duties. Even if I wanted to go to Nandos, I had to tag him along and buy him food and something to drink. There was nothing I could do about it, he was my translator! Funnily enough, language was the only thing that mattered between the two of us. If we were with a lady, not much else happened other than the translation. I kid you not, we only communicated when I needed to say something to the woman, ha, ha, ha. When I went home with the lady, and then I felt she had overstayed her welcome, I had to call him to come and tell her it was time to say goodbye.
Ha, ha,
ha. Then I would give him his money and off he went. The main problem was that the guy could speak English, but the lady couldn’t. She only spoke Venda. She wanted to see what kind of person I was before fully committing to anything because soccer players have always had this bad reputation when it comes to women. When she finally decided she was getting into a relationship with me, I heard her speaking English. He monna, she was flowing, ha, ha, ha. I was like, “So, all along you can speak English? Do you know how much I spent for someto one translate so I could be able to speak to you?” She said, “Don’t worry, money is not important.” Limpopo life for you! I really enjoyed myself there because unlike in Free State, there you don’t go to the shop to buy a mango or a banana. No, never! You would just stumble on a mango tree while walking down the street. Avocado. I wished I could take all the mangoes, bananas and avocados and go sell it back in the Free State.
Good old days.
You can say that again. You know, the funny thing is that when I was a youngster, I was told that I would be earning “fifhundred”. teen That sounded like a lot of money, so I was very excited as I signed that contract. Of course, I later learnt that in actual fact, I was earning R1 500. This was at Free State Stars. Hey baba, kunzima (man, it’s tough), ha, ha, ha!
Thanks for the laugh over the past three weeks, brother. Ke a leboga (Thank you), ngwaneso.