Benni is still showing us the magic of the moment
His own country did not make enough of a fuss about his success as a football player
OFTEN we berate the past, feel anxious about the uncertainty of the future and forget to enjoy the moment.
That “now” moment didn’t escape me this week. And if it escaped you, allow me to remind you of the virtues of a special soccer night in Athlone when one of Cape Town’s original citizens inspired a team dubbed “the citizens” to a famous win against Premier Soccer League (PSL) giants Mamelodi Sundowns.
The original citizen is Benedict Saul McCarthy, born on November 12, 1977 to parents Dudley and Dora. McCarthy was raised on the unforgiving streets of Hanover Park on the Cape Flats, along with brothers Jerome and Mark. All three brothers would trade the streets of survival for soccer’s field of dreams.
All three would succeed, but Benni would be the one to return to those streets as a saviour to every young dreamer who sought the power of romance over the rawness of their daily reality.
McCarthy did it all in Europe, came back and did it again for traditional powerhouse Orlando Pirates, and he is now doing it for Cape Town City as the head coach/manager.
It was on the sports pages of the Cape Times in 1997 when we first raised awareness of this phenomenal soccer talent.
Rob Moore, then owner of Touchline Media and local soccer club Seven Stars, called to tell me the Cape Times sports readers would only be enriched knowing the story of an 18 year-old, who, he said, would become South Africa’s greatest striker.
Moore wasn’t wrong. McCarthy’s 31 goals remain a Bafana Bafana record. He is also the only South African to ever win Europe’s Champions League. He did it with Jose Mourinho’s Porto in the 2003 and 2004 season.
McCarthy would stutter before he would strut. His professional introduction was strained and he scored just one goal in 29 matches in 1995 and 1996.
Moore never stopped believing in the brilliance of this kid Benni and in 1997 the potential turned to potency. McCarthy scored 12 goals in 20 matches, which was the catalyst for his first overseas contract with Ajax Amsterdam.
Moore in those early years would berate the lack of exposure for coloured and black soccer players in what was a white-biased South African print media.
He would tell me McCarthy was among the best-paid South African sportsmen because of his Ajax contract, but that when McCarthy returned home for a holiday in Cape Town, he could walk through the Waterfront without being recognised. He urged us, as a South African sporting media, to make right the wrongs.
“Start telling the good news story of those who fought prejudice, poverty and injustice to prevail,” said Moore.
McCarthy, in the 2003/4 season with Porto, scored 20 goals in 23 matches, including two against Manchester United in the Champions League. He won the golden boot and his transfer from Spain’s Celta Vigo to Porto made him South African soccer’s most expensive export at the time.
Internationally, McCarthy’s influence would be as massive. He scored in the 1998 World Cup in France and, with his powers at a peak in the late 90s and early 2000s, was the first name on the match day XI.
McCarthy’s journey would take him from Europe to the English Premier League, where he would play for Blackburn Rovers and West Ham. He’d score 151 goals in 418 matches in 14 years in Europe and the UK before returning to South Africa to play out his career for Orlando Pirates.
He would win the PSL title with Pirates and be instrumental in the club’s second treble.
He would also make history by becoming the first South African player to win three league titles with three different football clubs on two continents.
Why the trip down memory lane? Because McCarthy’s international ending, when he was omitted from the 2010 World Cup squad because of weight and fitness issues, can never be the lasting impression of a remarkable international and professional career.
McCarthy’s playing heroics have to be told and retold because it ignites passion. It screams of what is possible and McCarthy, the youthful professional manager, is again showing us the magic of the moment – a moment this week that should tell us he will be as special a manager as he was a player.
Keohane is an award-winning sports journalist and the head of sport at Independent Media.