Lekoane Lekoane
The former Kaizer Chiefs striker tells of the harsh treatment he received from teammates at Naturena during a tumultuous stay at the Soweto giants.
All the glitz and glamour that Lekoane Lekoane imagined Kaizer Chiefs to be when he was admiring from a distance proved untrue as he was caught in a web of a toxic dressing room environment fed by poisonous characters. He was regularly mocked and ridiculed and, in the end, left dejected. KICK OFF’s Lovemore Moyo tracked down Lekoane in his native Lesotho.
Acareer that started at Mathebe FC in Levi’s Nek in the Leribe District of Lesotho did not seem worthy of taking Lekoane Lekoane outside the country’s borders, let alone land him a contract at Soweto glamour club Kaizer Chiefs.
When he crossed the border into South Africa in 1988, it wasn’t for football, but to seek employment in the mines as an underground casual worker earning R600 per month.
From Mathebe he had spent two years with Arsenal when he arrived at the Vaal Reef mines in the North West province, and was there along with plenty of his fellow countrymen chasing a better living.
“My first time coming to South Africa was to work in the mines with football not a priority,” reveals Lekoane.
Even though his occupation was going underground, his passion for football never went away as he joined local mines league club Vaal Reef Ambassadors.
“I was a general hand, but I wasn’t doing any of the strenuous work underground. At times I would just be pouring water for the guys operating the machinery. I would go underground in the morning and then come out after lunch so that I could then go for training, which was just a part time thing.
“My bread was buttered from the R600 I got in the mine with nothing from football,” he recalls.
After a year and a half of wearing protective clothing he traded it all for full time football in 1989. This was after Russell Sebatane offered him what was “an incredible salary” of R2,000 to join Majantja (Mohale’s Hoek) back home in Lesotho.
“What would you have done if it was you?” he asks laughing out loud.
Moving to Chiefs
Lekoane stayed home and focused on his football career, spending five years at Majantja before joining Bantu FC in 1994 when they played in the CAF Cup Winners’ Cup, coming up against Witbank Aces, who were winners of the 1993 BOB Save Super Bowl.
Though the Basotho club were hammered 8-2 on aggregate, Aces took note of Lekoane, who scored the consolation goals in both legs. But what was meant to be a move to Aces in the coming months took a dramatic twist when Kaizer Chiefs came into the picture.
“The guys from Aces wanted me to have a trial with them because they liked what they had seen of me, but I had to come back home. Just after my club had spoken to Aces about me, Chiefs suddenly came up, which changed everything that had been planned with Aces.
“Chiefs sent their official [Cecil Motaung] to come and fetch me in Lesotho, which showed how serious they were with me. With Chiefs in the picture, they obviously had an upper hand because not only were they a bigger club, but my boss Ntate Sebatane was a fan of them.
“When the club boss is a Chiefs fan, and they are interested, then it becomes obvious what is going to happen. A day after Chiefs came for me, I left for Gauteng and that is how Aces lost out, despite having been the first to show interest,” he discloses.
His arrival at Chiefs midway through 1995 brought him both the fame and fortune that he had long yearned for.
It was year in which Trott Moloto had temporarily been in charge of the side after taking over from Augusto Palacios, but was then replaced by Jeff Butler – who was returning for his fourth spell at the club.
“I was signed after one day of trials and then had to go back home to fetch my clearance. I had been earning R2,000 in Lesotho, which was big money, and when I got to Chiefs they gave me R5,000 which was massive.
“They also gave me a signing on fee of R20,000, but I got R15,000 after tax. That was my first time to have that kind of money in my life. I couldn’t believe that this was all my money. I was frightened.
“I had been a guy that had been on R600 in the mines the last time I worked in South Africa, but I now had R15,000 plus R5,000 salary. I bought a VW Citi Golf cash with all of my signing on fee because I knew I could still live comfortable with my salary,” reveals Lekoane.
‘Chiefs wasn’t a fertile environment’
When the business that brought him to Chiefs got going, it suddenly dawned on him that the excitement that he had envisaged at Naturena would be smoke going up in the air.
He was made to feel like a stranger at the club. In the two years he spent there, he was housed at the White Horse Hotel next to Carlton Centre in downtown Johannesburg central.
“THESE GUYS FROM THE GAUTENG TOWNSHIPS DON’T SEE YOU AS HUMAN ENOUGH.”
Some teammates never saw eye-to-eye with him, and that led to tempers boiling over and matters even turning physical.
“Chiefs wasn’t a fertile environment to succeed at the time because of the animosity which prevailed. There were some players who had so much of this entitlement mentality which made them think Chiefs is their club that only players from Gauteng must play for them.
“You know that primitive mindset that some locals tend to have about things that don’t even belong to them,” he says.
His stay at Chiefs wasn’t the slam dunk that he would have anticipated. The tension was brewing and the anger simmering.
“When you are from Lesotho or from the farms in Free State, the players from the townships in Gauteng like Soweto will look down on you. These guys from the Gauteng townships don’t see you as human enough.
“It is even worse when you get to where they are playing and all you want is to perform better than them. Maybe they feel threatened. I think they hate feeling challenged by someone they consider as not being one of theirs.
“May Thabang Lebese rest in peace but that was one guy who made my stay
“I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT THIS WAS ALL MY MONEY. I WAS FRIGHTENED.”
at Chiefs a bitter pill to swallow. I know very well that football is not for sissies and there are always fights, but you don’t have to be so openly hostile towards your own teammates like what Thabang did to me.
“He had a stinking attitude. I think he just wanted me to hate football or leave Chiefs. Maybe he hated a challenge. I don’t really know what his motive was, but it just didn’t come from a good place in his heart.
“Whenever I scored, he wouldn’t celebrate with me as a teammate but would instead be complaining about why the ball was passed to me and say some nasty insults about my mom’s private parts.
“It got so bad that one time while we were in camp preparing for a 15h00 game, we were playing a game of snooker and he intentionally hit me with a ball as a way of showing me how much he undermined me.
“That day he had pushed me to extremes, so I retaliated by taking the snooker cue and bashing him as punishment for all the bad he had done towards me all along,” tells Lekoane.
“Then, during a game against Cape Town Spurs, the team doctor had to intervene by telling the other guys that if they stopped being jealous, then I would score goals for them. After that away game at Spurs, in which I had scored, Thabang came to me again at the airport and said nasty things to me.
“I asked him what it is that he really wanted from me and Thabo Mooki had to intervene, but Lebese had already insulted me with some vulgar words. It wasn’t nice at all anymore to be at Chiefs because it was just a combination of factors coming against me, so much that I even had to watch one derby in my hotel instead of at the stadium.
“All I ever did while at Chiefs was work hard for my place in the team, but some people were not happy with that at all,” adds Lekoane.
‘Thabang and Isaac were jealous’
The tone of Lekoane’s voice on the other end of the phone has changed at this juncture.
“The people whose attitude was stinking towards others were Thabang Lebese and Isaac Kungwane. David Modise also had issues with these two guys because they just didn’t like that he wasn’t from Gauteng.
“Thabang and Isaac had so much jealousy in them. Maybe they didn’t like that someone from Lesotho could play as well. Upfront I played with Pollen [Ndlanya] but Shakes [Kungwane] never passed to me or would make sure that he makes blind passes to me.
“The other guys went as far as asking why they didn’t pass to me and their response was always insults like ‘voetsek’.
“I remember even in the game that we lost 4-1 (1996 BOB Save Super Bowl semi-final against Orlando Pirates), I had to fight hard to get the ball from opponents.
“Besides these two players, I had great times with the rest of the players like Aaron Lubunda, Ntsie Maphike, Jacob Tshisevhe, Pollen, Brian Baloyi and Lefa Gqosha, who went as far as fetching us from the hotel where I stayed when we had weekends off.
“I was the one who asked for a loan move to Venda to join Dynamos because Chiefs wasn’t a conducive place for me to continue playing. It was best that I leave. I played for Chiefs but didn’t find so much happiness because of the characters that I found at the club.
“Maybe they had issues with the fact that I didn’t need an appointment to speak to Kaizer Motaung,” he says.
Lekoane was the kind of forward who didn’t mind playing on the press and putting in the energy as well. Goals didn’t come in bucket loads from him, but in his last season at Chiefs in 1996/97, he scored five from seven starts before heading out to then Venda based First Division club Dynamos, with whom he won promotion under Owen da Gama.
“I left Chiefs because of the growing tension with Thabang and Isaac, both of whom just didn’t like me. I didn’t even talk to those guys in the end. Chiefs was just hectic,” he says.
“HE HAD A STINKING ATTITUDE. I THINK HE JUST WANTED ME TO HATE FOOTBALL OR LEAVE CHIEFS.”
Surviving getting shot
His time at Dynamos was cut short by injury and after recovering he surfaced at Bloemfontein Celtic in 1999, where his career eventually came to an end before he had even signed.
Lekoane’s former coach April ‘Styles’ Phumo oversaw Celtic at the time with fellow countrymen Lebajoa Mphongoa and Lehlohonolo Seema under contract as well.
“I got injured while at Dynamos and it took a while for me to recover, so I eventually had to leave and went to train with Celtic. I had successful trials but while I was in the process of signing for them, I was a victim of an unfortunate incident when some guys broke into my place and shot me on the foot.
“When these guys broke in, I was sleeping, and it was sad that they still shot me even after taking whatever they wanted. The other guys that were playing at Celtic who stayed at the same block had gone out, but I stayed behind because I wanted to relax.
“So, when these robbers came in, they thought we had all gone out and were not aware that there was somebody sleeping in the house. That then eventually became the end of my career because after that I couldn’t play competitive football. I used crutches for three months and only fully recovered in 2003,” says Lekoane.
Since then, he has been involved in coaching, taking charge of Liphakoe and then Majantja when Kutloano Sello was the boss, but then had to leave at the height of the infighting.
Besides working at Lesotho Funeral Services – owned by Selllo – some years ago. he hasn’t had any formal employment and survives by engaging in whatever project comes his way.
The 52-year-old is now a father of five. When the mother of his first three children passed away in 2012, married for a second time.