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TSHEPO BULU – UNATTACHED (PART 3)

Zoro, welcome back and we hope you have more hilarious stories for us this week. Ha, ha, ha, yes bro, I do. You know, I was coached by the current Baroka FC coach, Wedson Nyirenda, at Clube Ferroviario de Beira in Mozambique. He was such a funny coach and I really enjoyed working with him. I remember one story he told us, saying he was playing against his brother who was goalkeeping for the opposition. He says he kept on trying to score, but his brother would stop everything coming his way, so much that he sometimes only used one hand to stop his shots and grab the ball. “I kept on trying, without any luck, but I told myself that I was not going to give up. I had to finally beat my brother and score,” he said. You know how people telling stories, especially when they are sharing the stories with people who were not present, always win at the end, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, so true. So, he says he eventually managed to find the back of the net and scored an unforgettable goal that some people are still talking about, ha, ha, ha. He says he won the match for his team that day and we had no choice but to believe him. Whenever we had a new player joining, the coach would make us open a circle for the player to dance before he could officially join the team for training. That was some kind of an initiation and that always created a great vibe in the team. How I miss those days! Another thing people probably don’t know about coach Nyirenda is that he is such a religious person. Before and after every training or match, we would pray, but the way he’s so funny, you wouldn’t associate him with religion at all, ha, ha, ha. That guy will make you laugh all the time and we used to call him “Hero” because that’s exactly what he is, a hero in everything he does. Right. But coach (Jacob) Sakala takes the cup when it comes to funny coaches, ha, ha, ha – that guy is something else man. He once told Walter Ramulondi,Ramulondi at Black AcesAces, that he was going to start the game. We were strike partners, but the coach, it turns out, told Walter that he was going to play alone up front as he was going to drop me to the bench, ha, ha, ha. Walter prepared himself leading up to the game, knowing that I wasn’t going to play, without telling me what he had been told by the coach. The next thing, we’re playing a practice match and Walter comes oneon-one with the goalkeeper and misses an easy chance. The coach was like, “No, no, no, Ramu, I’ve changed my mind. Tshepo, you will be starting. Walter, you’re sitting on the bench.” Ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, just like that? First of all, I didn’t even know there was an arrangement and, secondly, Ramu is standing there surprised and asking, “But how can you do that, coach. You told me I’m starting?” With everyone surprised, the coach responded, “No, man, you’re going to cost us. Sifun’ imali

thina (We need cash) and you’re busy missing easy chances like that.that We will never get win bonuses with strikers like you, man. No, you want to get me fired by the bosses? You want to get me fired, Ramu?” Ha, ha, ha, we couldn’t stop laughing at the coach and, true to his word, Ramu didn’t start on the weekend. Ha, ha, ha, coach Sakala! He always had his cell phone in his pocket at training. On payday, if he gets a notification message that his salary has been deposited into his bank account, whether we’ve been training for 10 minutes or less, you’ll hear him saying, “Hey madoda (gents), hey madoda, ingenile, sobonana (it is in, I will see you),” ha, ha, ha, and he will be running to the change room that time and he’s gone. He’s trying to beat the debit orders so that he can withdraw as much as he can before the debits go off, ha, ha, ha. Eish, la muntu (that guy) is a character, man. He once told us, before training, “Err, guys, today we are going to have a light session for about 30 minutes and then go home.”home” We were all excited about it and, before we knew it, the club bosses arrived to watch our training. The way the coach turned against us after seeing the bosses, ha, ha, ha. “Madoda nimile

la, nenzani (Gents, you’re standing here, what are you doing)? Kanti bengitheni kuni (What did I tell you)?” he asked. While we were all surprised, he got us running nonstop for such a long time and we were all so surprised. The session took way longer than 30 minutes and the bosses left after a while. Guess what happened? Please tell us, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, that was the end of the session. We asked him, “Coach, what happened to the 30-minute light session. Why make us run like that?” He just looked at us and said, “Did you guys see the bosses? Do you want them to see you guys walking around and not working hard here? We are working here, guys, otherwise we will all get fired. You have to impress these people.” Ha, ha, ha, we couldn’t believe it! Crazy stuff. There was a stage when we were in the relegation zone and went to play against Vasco da Gama in Cape Town. The bosses promised us big win bonuses, and everyone was really motivated and looking forward to the game because we were going to make a lot of money if we won. We had Dikete (Tampungu), the Congolese goalkeeper, in our starting line-up. We caught Vasco on a counter-attack, but missed a chance to score and their goalkeeper grabbed the ball and launched an attack of their own. I don’t know what happened because I saw the ball bounce right in front of Dikete, who slipped and the ball went over him and straight into our goals, ha, ha, ha. This was right towards the end of the game and I had never seen coach Sakala so angry, ha, ha, ha. We lost the game and clearly the coach had planned for the big win bonus only for us to lose the game with that solitary goal, ha, ha, ha. “Tell me, did they pay you? Yes, they paid you to concede that goal, Dikete, and you clearly want me to be fired!” was his response to our goalkeeper’s mistake, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, eish. He wouldn’t talk to Dikete after that incident because of the way he was so angry. On our way to the airport, we were all dejected. The coach would eavesdrop on everyone who was on the cell phone, trying to find out who they were talking to, as he firmly believed the game was ‘sold’, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, eish, unfortunately we have to hold it there for this week. Thanks, once again, for another crazy episode man. See you next week. Ha, ha, ha, sure, no problem, my brother.

“He firmly believed the game was ‘sold’.”