Trust account set up to help struggling heroes

EC personalities reach out to sporting legends who have fallen on hard times

AGROUP of senior Eastern Cape sports personalities have opened up a trust account in a bid to assist struggling sports veterans and legends from the province.

The Legends Sports Trust was established by former Bafana Bafana manager, businessman and renowned sports administrator Zola Dunywa, former journalist and now government official Phila Ngqumba, and Athletics South Africa former executive committee member Sindiswa Magwebu.

Speaking to the Daily Dispatch yesterday, Dunywa said the trust was established to honour sporting heroes and former sports administrators while they were still alive.

Dunywa said the trust was formed after noting the conditions some sporting legends were living in.

He said most legends in the province were struggling to make ends meet and felt neglected, despite the huge contribution they had made to South African sport, both as participants and as administrators.

Dunywa said their immediate task would be to raise funds for medical treatment for former ANC MP and Border Rugby administrator John Nomenti Ncinane, who is wheelchair-bound after losing both legs as a result of a long battle with diabetes.

Ncinane, who was instrumental in the formation of the National Sports Council and was also Border Athletics president, is being treated in a Cape Town hospital for diabetes.

Dunywa said they had decided to honour him while he was still alive and had chosen him as the first recipient for “the huge role” he had played in sport transformation during the dark years of apartheid and during the early years of the democratic dispensation.

“Ncinane, who is also a former Athletics South Africa president, played a very huge role in taking South African sport to the level it is today.

“He is one of the unsung heroes when it comes to sports transformation and administration in the country.

“He played a pivotal role in unifying sporting codes and in pushing the transformation agenda that is evident today in South African sport.”

He said the trust aimed to raise R100 000 in the next month to assist Ncinane and his family “during these trying times”.

He said they were planning to visit Ncinane’s Keiskammahoek home on September 25 to hand over the money “to him if he is out of hospital, or to his family, who also played a critical role in shaping him to being the man he was to South African and international sport”.

“We really need as a country to honour our ordinary people who have done extraordinary things in their lives,” Dunywa said.

“We don’t need to do that when those heroes and legends are no more, but it should be our prerogative to honour them while they are still alive.”

He said the trust would soon sit and draw up a list of those they felt deserved accolades for the work they had done in sport, “especially those who hail from our province”.

He said they planned to honour two more legends before the end of the year.

“Most of them are old, while others are dying without the role they played being acknowledged. That needs to change,” he said.

Sascoc president Gideon Sam said yesterday the trust was “a great initiative” that he would support wholeheartedly.

“I have already spoken to some of my businessman friends to support the initiative, which will go a long way in changing the lives of our heroes and legends,” he said. —