in Touch With... TSHEPO BULU – UNATTACHED (PART 4)

Zoro, welcome back. You spent some time at SuperSport United and surely you must have a story or two about your time at the club?

Yes, bro, and I was playing under coach Gavin Hunt – ha, ha, ha, what a character! I remember Fikru Tefera fighting with Anthony Laffor at training and we were all busy trying to separate the two players. The coach wanted none of it and said, instead, “No guys, it is good that they fight. It shows team spirit and passion, you clearly love this team.” Ha, ha, ha, I couldn’t believe it because the two guys were really fighting because of a bad tackle or something and the coach just decided to see the good out of it, while we were worried about our teammates exchanging blows. What happened was that Fikru reacted with a full clap on Laffor’s face and Laffor wanted to retaliate, and that’s how the fight started. Eish, Fikru was something else, man, and he was very temperamental and therefore it didn’t take long to get him going. He would argue and fight with anyone in the team, such a crazy character!

Ha, ha, ha, we’ve heard that Fikru was a nutcase.

Ha, ha, ha, he really was. What I liked about him is that he was consistently crazy, it didn’t matter who he was dealing with. Coach Gavin would always be on my and Morgan Gould’s case if we arrived late for training. He would just say, “Ahh the f@#king Soweto boys are always late.” But let it be the other guys’ turn to arrive late, the coach would have nothing to say about it and life went on, ha, ha, ha. Together with his then assistant coach, Kwanele Kopo, they were crazy.

Any more stories?

At Kaizer Chiefs, we were in a pre-season camp in Cape Town and, as the team normally does, they would give us allowance fee for the duration of our stay in camp. Skhokho (Cyril Nzama) loved to play dice and he challenged everyone to a dice game in his room. Straight after having dinner, most of us went to Cyril’s room to get the game going. Eish, the dice literally rolled for Tiger (Ditheko Mototo) that night. He beat everyone and must have walked away with between R15 000 and R20 000 that night and we were so disappointed, but the man was boasting about it and acting like a king, ha, ha, ha. He walked around in his gown that night with his winnings in his hands for everyone to see. He was just short of a cigar and a glass of whiskey to complete the look, ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha, he must have enjoyed every minute of being the king.

Ha, ha, ha, he really did. In the morning, at breakfast, he continued from where he had left off the previous night. We had this young goalkeeper on trial and Tiger adopted him as more like his masseur from that night, ha, ha, ha. Tiger was really enjoying himself, while we had to go around borrowing money to play again and try to win back our money from him. From breakfast, we were given a break and then went to training. After training, we planned to have another match, at the same venue, and Tiger also agreed to play. He lost all the money he had won, ha, ha, ha, and had to go around asking for cash to play again, just like we had done the previous night, ha, ha, ha. Unfortunately for him, even after his second attempt, he still lost all the money he had and everyone was laughing at him because he was the big boss the previous night, only to become a beggar the next one, ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha, poor Tiger!

“That was enough to win Zuke over.”

As if his loss wasn’t enough, we were given a day off the next day, so we all went to the mall and, while some of us deposited their money into our accounts, he had to withdraw from his and pay back the money he had borrowed from people to play dice, ha, ha, ha. I still laugh whenever I think about that time in Cape Town. I must say, we felt for Tiger because he was like a real boss after winning, only to lose all the money the next day. I have another one from Cape Town… You know when Mxit was an inthing in social media, Sandile Zuke was busy chatting with this beautiful ‘girl’ that kept him online for hours on end, not knowing it was a fake account created by one of our teammates, Gert Schalkwyk, ha, ha, ha. Gert put a really beautiful lady’s profile picture and that was enough to win Zuke over. I know my boy, Zuke, is going to kill me for sharing this story, ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha, and we’re going to kill you if you’re thinking of not sharing it…

My boy thought he had found new love from a really beautiful chick. He asked the lady to please send him some pictures of herself and Gert did just that. We go to lunch and Zuke is glued to his cell phone, so busy with this ‘lady’ that he paid little to no attention to anyone else. He didn’t know the ‘lady’ was in the same room as him, ha, ha, ha. The ‘lady’ asked him to send some pictures and tell ‘her’ more about himself. He introduced himself as a Kaizer Chiefs player and even sent an action shot of himself in the club’s colours, ha, ha, ha. Gert kept showing us the conversation and we just couldn’t stop laughing, but he still didn’t know what was going on. We kept quiet until breakfast, the next morning, before asking him what’s keeping him so busy on his phone. He confirmed that he was chatting to this ‘beautiful lady’ he met on Mxit. You won’t believe that Gert kept the prank going for almost five days before finally coming out, and to say Zuke was angry wouldn’t be a true reflection of what happened, ha, ha, ha.

Oh, Nkunzi, maan! He must have been devastated and angry at the same time!

Ha, ha, ha, he really was. We also had another nickname for him, other than Nkunzi, but I would rather not share it with your readers. I think I’ve given you enough to get myself into trouble with my boy, already, ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha, he’s definitely going to read this and get you. Zoro, let’s hold it there for this week. Thanks so much, once again, mate. Anytime, man. There are still so many more stories to tell you, but I just need to think them through.

“He lost all the money he had won, ha, ha, ha.”