Still In Touch With... JUSTICE SITHOLE (PART 2)

Besides enjoying a decent career at club level where he got to call a couple of teams in the topflight home, Justice Sithole also represented South Africa at different junior levels (U17, U20 and U23), where he made many memories and played alongside a bunch of equally talented stars, who came to truly epitomize how South African football should be played and earned Mzansi a lot of respect around the continent. It, therefore, remains a mystery why this group of players, which comprised the likes of Steven Pienaar, Andile Cele, Dominic Isaacs et al, never really qualified for global youth tournaments like the World Cup and the Olympic Games. But what they lacked in achievement as a team, they made up for with the familial atmosphere that prevailed whenever they converged in camp, as Sithole shares in this second part of his ‘Still In Touch With…’ interview. We’re sure you read Shaun Potgieter’s recent interview with Soccer Laduma, where he was sharing memories from his junior national team days. You played with him at that level. What memories of your own do you have about that time?

(Takes a deep breath) Eish, mf’ethu (my brother), there was a camp we had in preparation for the African Youth Championships that were held in Ethiopia. You see that camp, I don’t even know where to start. The camp started in Kenya and it took about three-and-a-half weeks. It was more of a training camp. It was the first time that we were spending time together as a team for a long period of time at a place where we didn’t know anyone. The only people we knew there were ourselves! Everything was just strange. It was difficult. There were TVs in our rooms, but the stuff that was on TV wasn’t stuff you could actually watch and understand. I’m talking about a hotel here. There were no movie channels or anything of the sort… it was just local shows and even the language was difficult to understand, with no subtitles. We were training three times a day. We’d wake up at 04h00, prepare ourselves and then, at 05h00, go out for a jog. And it was not just a normal jog, you were jogging to the gym! After gym, the transport would take you back to the hotel. At noon, after breakfast, you had to go out to the gym again. You’d be in the gym for maybe an hour and then come back. At 15h00, you had to go for a training session. That was our everyday routine and it was difficult in the first week, but as time went on, everything got easier. To tell the truth, we were so physically fit in that month, that I doubt our fitness levels ever decreased again, up until we retired. We were super fit. That’s why they took us to Kenya because, as you can see, Kenyan athletes always dominate in athletics due to of their endurance levels. We needed to acclimatize to the heat as well because in Ethiopia, it was hot.

Then it was on to Ethiopia after those three-and-a-half weeks, right?

Ja. I think even there we stayed three weeks, so I can say we were away from

South Africa for over two months. In terms of the training, Ethiopia was not the same as Kenya. In terms of the atmosphere, totally different. When I say atmosphere, I’m referring to the surroundings and where we were based. Even the food was much better in Ethiopia. I think in Ethiopia that’s where life began to be a bit easier for us. I don’t want to say Ethiopia was the same as South Africa because the two countries are not the same, even now, but at least there was some life there. I think a South African person can manage to live easier in Ethiopia than in Kenya. Everything was totally different to what we were used to where we were coming from. Even the faces, you could see that they were not the same. In Kenya, there were those faces that were aggressive, while in Ethiopia, there were those faces that were friendly. That’s why I’m saying besowubona ukuthi sesingakwazi ukuthi siphile la (you could see that we could live a little here).

Whatever that means. Well, in Ethiopia, they also have beautiful faces.

Ha, ha, ha! Kahle kahle (Actually), when I’m talking about aggressive faces and friendly faces, I’m talking about that (the women)! Even with the coaches, you could see that they were becoming a little bit relaxed because of these friendly faces. Sometimes they’d want to make us run like hell, but when a friendly face passed by, they’d be sidetracked, allowing us to catch a breather. Unfortunately, though, as soon as the friendly face was out of sight, it was back to the serious business, ha, ha, ha.

Ha, ha, ha. So, what funny stories come to mind?

Ha, ha, ha, eish, mf’ethu. Mina I think I was one of the quiet guys in the team. Maybe someone else will talk about discipline issues, but I’m not talking about discipline. I’m talking about being quiet, being reserved. A lot of guys enjoyed sharing a room with me, yet the funny part is that my roommate and I would hardly be in our room. We spent more time in other guys’ rooms… Ninja (Mofokeng) and (Benedict) ‘Tso’ Vilakazi’s rooms – that’s where fun was had. In our room, we’d play PlayStation or watch TV, and sometimes things would get boring and you needed to do something else. Remember we sometimes stayed two weeks at a time in these camps, so having a change of routine was often needed. We’d sit and play games, all kinds of games or entertainment you can think of, from playing cards to PlayStation, to listening to music, to talking nonsense. Even making jokes out of things happening in camp, like when someone had received a tongue-lashing from the coach at training earlier. All those things made us a tight-knit bunch. We were not too worried about things happening outside, but the jokes were about stuff happening inside (camp). I used to share a room with Lawrence Masegela a lot of the time. That guy was crazy! He’s one of the craziest guys I’ve played with. He didn’t mind going out into another room at 09h00 after breakfast and then coming back at 11h00 to catch a nap. Sometimes you’d ask yourself why he was doing things that way, but that was just his character. He was an entertainer. If you wanted a laugh, he was your man. He had this ability to make you laugh and turn any situation into a joke. If he was not talking nonsense, then he’d be making those crazy dance moves of his, much to our entertainment. We’d ask him, “When do you eat? When do you bath? All we ever see you doing is going from room to room cracking jokes the whole day,” but he’d just shrug our comments off.

So, besides playing PlayStation or watching TV, how did you kill time?

When we had an off day, they’d get us into the bus and take us out to the shopping mall. That’s where we’d realise that lapho sibuya khona besivalelekile (where we were coming from there was no freedom), but sesiyakhona ukuthi sibone abantu manje (we’re able to see people now), you understand? We could now mingle with other people, and that’s when you’d see amajita ngamajita (boys being boys). We were not called Amajita for nothing, ha, ha, ha.

What do you mean?

Ha, ha, ha. No, I’m just saying, mf’ethu, ukuthi phela (that)… you know, when you’ve been in camp for two weeks, seeing the same faces every day, it becomes challenging emotionally. So, as soon as you step outside and see other guys, girls and people in general, you start to realise there is life out there. Then you tell yourself that you need to use the opportunity to good effect. When you saw a beautiful lady, you then needed no second invitation to ‘attack’, ha, ha, ha. Ekugcineni, mf’ethu, besibancane (At the end of the day, we were young), and everything was there in front of us.