Hola, ‘Gusheshe’! Firstly, how did you get that nickname?
I got that name while playing for Pimville Cameroon during my amateur days. My coach there gave me that name and when I asked him why he called me Gusheshe, he said bengijika kakhulu (I used to make good turns), just like a BMW. The name has stuck since then. I then went to join Nancefield United, where I was playing with older guys… I must have been about 16 years old. These were guys staying in the barracks and they formed a team, and I did really well for them and everyone knew me as Gusheshe.
Sure. Well, we did a four-part ‘Still In Touch With…’ interview with your former Dynamos teammate Tshegofatso Mashego and he shared a funny story about you, adding that we should make it a point that we speak to you for this feature at some point. Maybe you may wanna take this opportunity, first and foremost, to hit back at him!
Ha, ha, ha, that one is crazy. But I must say the story he told you about me, he got it slightly wrong ( Mashego had said: “There was this guy, and I think you need to feature him on Still In Touch one day, Thamsanqa Tibe. He played for Black Leopards and then came to join us at Dynamos. It was me, him and Sandile Ndlovu in the team bus one day. Ndlovu asked him, “Err, Gusheshe, tell me, while you were there at Leopards, how many goals did you score?” The guy replied, “No, I scored one goal at Leopards.” Ha, ha, ha, I thought that was quite funny!) This is what happened… we were in the team bus and I was in a conversation with him and Sandile Ndlovu. Ndlovu then asked me, “What goals do you have in life?” I didn’t hear him correctly, so in answering, I said, “No, I have a goal that I scored there at Black Leopards.” I thought he was asking me how many goals I had scored, ha, ha, ha. As for Mashego, I wish coach Steve Komphela knew how much that guy loves him. Yho, almost every sentence Thabo uttered was punctuated with the mention of “coach Steve”. Every time when we were talking about our former teams or teammates, Thabo would go on and on about coach Steve. “You see, at Free State Stars, Steve would do this and that,” he would say. Another person he was fond of is Sthembiso Ngcobo, so if he was not talking about coach Steve, it would be, “Me and Sthembiso Ngcobo…” Ha, ha, ha. He always used to go out with Ndlovu, as the two of them were quite close. But there were times Ndlovu would leave him behind and instead go out with Godfrey Nobula. That’s when he would join us, and we would have a couple of drinks. When he had had one too many, you would see him literally crying, as he longed for Ndlovu’s company. He would say, “Ngifun’ uSandile! Ngifun’ uSandile (I want Sandile! I want Sandile!).” Vusi Dlamini and I always used to enjoy it when he turned it on, and we would tell him, Hey, akekh’ ubaba wakho la wena (your father isn’t around).” Ha, ha, ha.
Hilarious!
The one funny guy that I played with at Leopards is Christopher Netshidzivhe. Normally they used to give us the club’s merchandise, like tracksuits, to wear to camp. What Netshidzivhe used to do is that he didn’t wait for camp day to arrive, he would immediately put the stuff on and then go to town wearing it! If we were going to play on a Saturday and then they gave us the stuff on a Friday, he would wear it that Friday and make it a point that he went to town.
Ha, ha, why?
I don’t know! He was just something else. ‘Matari’ would buy sneakers for, say, R1 500 and then you would find that he is broke three days after that, so he would sell the sneakers for R500. Every month, I always made sure to put aside R500 because I knew there was something nice he was going to sell. Hlompho Kekana and I would always wait in anticipation for whatever he was going to sell and then we would pounce, as his ‘customers’.
Crazy. What a talent though that guy. Tell us more…
Another character was Mulondo Sikhwivhilu.
I played with him at Leopards and Dynamos. So, this one day, we were sitting around… I was staying in the same house with him, David Twala and Dlamini – this was now at Dynamos. It was at night, around 19h00 or 20h00, and we were knocking back the drinks, but I was not drinking that day. A while later, the guys suggested we go out and buy more drinks, as the glasses seemed half-empty rather than half-full. The only problem was that the place where we could get drinks was quite some distance away, so I asked them, “Guys, at this late hour, do you really have to go out and get drinks?” They said, “What do you mean? We still want to drink. If you don’t want to go, then stay.” I decided to go with them, and we were driving in two cars. Along the way, we heard music blaring to the left of us, and Sikhwivhilu said to the guys driving in front, “Turn left!” However, the more we approached, the more the sound disappeared. We didn’t know what to do… there was no music. Then Sikhwivhilu said, “Eish, maybe the music is actually there on the right.” Come to think of it, we were still some way from our destination! We then drove out of that street looking to locate the main street, and as we were doing so, we saw a guy standing in the corner. He looked like someone waiting for friends. Sikhwivhilu then came out of the car and approached the lad, obviously to cause trouble, but we couldn’t hear what he was saying to the guy because we were in the car in front. He then went back into the car and we then continued on our journey. Ha, ha, ha, guess what? About 10 minutes later, the guy came back with his friends… there must have been eight of them! They blocked our path along the highway and then the guy came out and went straight to Sikhwivhilu.
By the looks of it, this guy wasn’t coming to wish him good luck for the next game…
No ways. To say that he slapped him into next week would be an understatement, for that was a chesa mpamaand- a-half that he gave him! It was at this point that Dlamini drove off, leaving us arguing with these guys. Twala tried running away on foot, but they tripped him and he fell. Sikhwivhilu also found a way to run away, so the last men standing were Twala and I. While they were busy with Twala, I saw this house that was still in construction right in front of me, so I went inside it, picked up a brick and threw it at them to prevent them from hurting Twala, who was still kicking and screaming on the ground. As they checked where the brick was coming from, Twala took the opportunity to get up from the ground and he ran towards me. Like low-budget local movie heroes, we picked up bricks and hurled them one after the other at the gang. We eventually won the battle, one brick at a time, and then ran away. When the storm was over, with our adversaries well out of sight, and as we were walking in the street, Twala started crying. He said, “Cabanga nje mfethu, uma ngizovele ngifele la eTzaneen mfethu; uma ngingatholwa umfazi wam sengifele eTzaneen ngabo 12 (Just think about it, my brother, having to die here in Tzaneen, my brother; my wife having to discover my dead body in Tzaneen at around 12 midnight).” Ha, ha, ha, I was laughing at how terrified he seemed to be! When we got home, we found Sikhwivhilu and Dlamini relaxing, and I asked Dlamini, “Hawu Vusi mfethu, nabaleka nina mfethu kuliwa, yini (you guys ran away in the middle of a fight, why)?” He said, “Were you not going to run kubaleka isgora kuqala? Ngibone le sgora sibaleka kuqala, nami ngabaleka (when a physically imposing guy is the one who runs first? I saw this muscular guy running first, so I also ran). If Mulondo is not fighting, who’s going to fight?” Meanwhile, Twala was still so shaken that he did not say anything for a while.
Shame, man. Sikhwivhilu started it all. Don’t worry, we’ll try and bring him on ‘Still In Touch With…’ soon so he can explain himself. Catch you on the rebound, next week that is.
Alright.