Doc’s memory bank: That man knows his story

I never thought coach Khabo had it in him to be so funny and be able to crack jokes. He always shows this serious side to him but, after spending some time with him, I realised that there was actually more to him than just being serious. During one Talent Search in East London, Eastern Cape, he made us laugh so hard! There was a moment where one of the trialists came to try his luck and we got a moment out of this world from that incident. It was something I had never witnessed in football, as both a player and a coach, and unfortunately I’m not going to go into details about it or explain what really happened, because of the nature of the incident. Coach Khabo noticed it and turned it into one of the best jokes I have ever heard, serious as it was. You should have been there to understand how unbelievable it was for him to turn the incident around and find a funny side to it, right on the spot. We all laughed so hard because we couldn’t believe what we had just heard. Sometimes we would identity a player and when we gave him the player’s jersey number, he would be like, “Hey Mdokisi, asikhulumeni iqiniso ngebhola madoda. Asiyekeleni ukudlala maan (… let’s talk truth about football, guys. Let’s stop playing around),” and that would be his way of showing disapproval for my selection. That meant the player didn’t impress him at all. Funny enough, he would explain to us why he doesn’t rate that player, what he’s lacking and what needs to be worked on in his game. After listening to him, Jerry and I would look at each other in complete agreement with the coach. That man knows his story when it comes to talent identification and I take my hat off for him. A very unbelievable coach when it comes to talent identification or scouting.