Celtic’s death is end of a fine melody
THE uninitiated would have found it strange that the soccer fraternity has generally referred to the sale of Bloemfontein Celtic’s status as being akin to ‘a death’.
After all, clubs have come and gone, haven’t they? Players whose clubs get sold are signed up by others and life goes on, right?
So what’s so special about Celtic that has got just about everyone mourning following what would appear a sensible commercial transaction – a struggling businessman selling to another who has the financial means and is in the same industry at that?
Well, without Celtic – the club whose status was bought by KwaZulu-Natal businesswoman and renowned socialite Shauwn Mkhize – local football is literally going to be like a bird without a song. Celtic, you see, had the most vibrant soccer followers the country over.
In the local Premiership where a trip to the stadium is tantamount to speeding up one’s hearing impairment thanks to the din from those irritating vuvuzelas, a Celtic match provided a soothing sound for the ears – and soul.
As a journalist covering Celtic matches, I’ve occasionally been pleasantly distracted from proceedings down on the pitch by the spectacle that is the group of Celtic fans – Siwelele sa Masokolara as they are known – chanting, singing and dancing in what always appeared choreographed fashion. Once, in a cup match against SuperSport United at Pilditch Stadium, I sat among the Celtic fans and that experience remains the best I’ve ever enjoyed – no sound of a vuvuzela as the SuperSport crowd also sang in tune with a brass band.
It was usually at the end of matches though when the Celtic fans impressed. Win or lose, they always stood in waiting for their team to come over to their side for a dance and sing along. Many times when the team had lost, the players would be on the receiving end of unprintable expletives from disappointed and angry fans. But the players understood and often apologised before joining in the song and dance. Steve Komphela would probably admit to having had his best time as coach at Celtic and I remember once seeing him dance with them after a match even though he was a Kaizer Chiefs coach at the time.
Sure, it has been a while since we saw them given the Covid-19-induced spectator ban at stadiums. But to think that when the situation changes and fans are allowed back to matches, we won’t see Siwelele at our stadiums seems to confirm the general feeling that indeed there’s been a death in our beloved game.
Former players and businessmen from Mangaung rightly lamented Max Tshabalala selling the club to ‘an outsider’ and the Premier Soccer League approving of such as decisions that dealt a death knell to the area’s economy, for now Bloemfontein – and actually the Free State province – no longer has a club in the Premiership.
It was the words of the late Petrus Molemela’s daughter, however, that struck a chord with me when she said ‘it is like my dad has died once again’.
Though long gone, he died in 2017, and having already sold the club before his death – Ntate Molemela was Celtic. The older generation would never have seen the team clad in green and white kit and not have memories of good old ‘Whitehead’ – the man with the raspy voice.
The most lingering image I have of Ntate Molemela is from that glorious Saturday afternoon in 2005 at the Potchefstroom Stadium when Celtic beat SuperSport United to win the SAA Supa8. It was Celtic’s second trophy in their history, the first one having been won 20 years prior – after Molemela had fully taken the club over from the struggling owners of Mangaung United and renamed it Bloemfontein Celtic. I’ll get back to 1985 later.
In 2005, resplendent in a green sombrero and a matching long gown, he could have easily passed for a crazy Mexican as he pranced about the pitch in celebration of that victory masterminded by the maverick Paul Dolezar and the brilliance of Postnet Omony in goals. Molemela was no longer the owner then, but his life presidency status at the club meant he would always be a part of Celtic. And that victory was just reward for a man who had poured his body and soul into the club from the moment he was approached by the businessmen who owned it.
Ntate Molemela, the first black man to own a hotel in the Free State, had put together arguably one of the most talented teams this country has seen in that Celtic side of 1985. Locals Mike Yeliwe, Benjamin Reed and Litre Mokitlane were complimented by the likes of Malawians Ernest Chirwali, Cedrick Nakhumwa and Stock Dandize, while from Mozambique the club boasted the talents of Eden Katanko and Albert Sibiya, and Ronnie Malefetsane came in from Lesotho.
A shrewd football man, Molemela somehow found a way to register some of these foreign players as locals – with Katanko suddenly going by the surname Moleko. That though, was not before that great success of 1985 when Celtic beat African Wanderers 1-0 in the Mainstay Cup final – the country’s premier club knockout competition – courtesy of a Mokitlane strike. That victory put Celtic on the map and from then on the club enjoyed such a lofty standing that when they got relegated to the lower leagues the void they’d left was generally felt.
And in his inimitable way, Molemela – a benevolent man who helped put roofs over many families in his community – succeeded in making the people of Bloemfontein feel a part of the club. He allowed the fans to attend the club’s training sessions and to also interact with the players at his Molemela Hotel. It was such gestures that helped make Celtic truly a people’s team as compared to many others in the league.
They are well and truly gone now, Max Tshabalala – the third owner of the club after Jimmy Agousti who bought it from Molemela – having struggled to keep the club afloat financially and deciding to sell to Mkhize.
The talk and reports that he had refused to sell to Agousti and other Bloemfontein businessmen or even ask for help from them are neither here nor there, for a grand old belle of local football is no more. And Ntate Molemela is definitely turning in his grave, heartbroken that the Phunya Sele Sele he sacrificed so much for has been allowed to die. And with Celtic’s death, local football has been left bereft of a beautiful song.