In Touch With...

Heita, Lefa, and we are now on to the fourth and final week. It’s been great up to now, so don’t drop the ball. Rather, let’s finish with a bang! Yeah, my brother, it’s been good. Let’s get started. I’ve thought of a few stories… Music to our ears. There’s a story I remember, which happened when I was at Jomo Cosmos. We had already qualified for the play-offs going into our final game of the season against Black Leopards in Thohoyandou, which was on a Sunday. So, on the Thursday, as I was taking my money out of my wallet at Noord taxi rank in Joburg, I got mugged. It was about 14 guys. Those guys did not show any mercy. I had just come from Tebogo Makobela’s place in Joburg, where we were playing PlayStation. They hit me both left and right. The good thing is that I managed to get home. I was staying in Tembisa at that time. Eish, that’s Joburg for you. It’s a jungle out there. That’s what they’re referring to when they speak of the “hustle and bustle” of Jozi’s city centre. So, the following morning, on Friday, I sent a message in our (WhatsApp) group and I told the guys I had been mugged. Guess what? The guys laughed at me, ha, ha. So, we were supposed to leave for Thohoyandou on the Saturday for our game on Sunday. Bra J (Jomo Sono) asked me if I would be able to play and I said, “Yes.” My legs were fine and the only injuries I had were on my face, so I felt that I could play. I had never been laughed at like that prior to that, ha, ha, ha. So, they put these colourful kinesiology tapes, which you see on players’ thighs or hamstrings, under my eyes, ha, ha, ha. Bra J laughed at me that day. I will never forget that day. Ha, ha, ha. Clearly Bra J was not feeling sorry for you. I had blue eyes on both sides, left and right. We had these sessions on a Saturday, where we’d train and then head off to camp afterwards. So, as we were training, I headed the ball and I could feel that I was not fine. The assistant coach, Gerald Mtshali, instructed me to sit down. He was like, “You want to be on TV looking like this?” I wanted to play that game because we wanted to beat Black Leopards so that they would not qualify for the play-offs. I ended up watching the game on TV, ha, ha, ha. We ended up losing that game and Leopards qualified for the play-offs. Little did we all know that the loss may have been orchestrated, inadvertently, by the slick Egoli tsotsis. Perhaps they knew you were the dangerman, the fast-paced dribbling wizard in the middle of the park, so they figured if they could ‘tackle’ you prior to that game, all 14 of them at the same time, then it would be half the job done for Lidoda Duvha. Ha, ha, ha. I have a story about our defender here at Leopards, Khomotso Masia, ha, ha, ha. We call him ‘Fish’. Eish… so this guy bought a car, but the interesting thing is that he did not know how to drive, you see. I think he drove his new car around for a week and then he started thinking he was the top dog, ha, ha, ha. It was an automatic car, so now he thought ke yena star nou (he was a big star). He thought he could drive. So next thing this guy drives all the way to Pretoria to go fetch his brother, with the plan being to drive back together. So, as he was driving, he went into that left lane where the trucks drive and then, next thing, the car is in an accident! The car was gone, beyond repair. Sorry, Khomotso, there’s only one Michael Schumacher! But he was safe – he didn’t get hurt in the accident or anything like that. When he got back to training, we asked him where the car was. He responded, “My car rolled.” So, after about a month or two, he got another car. Ah, ah, ah, after just three days, he got into another accident, just there at the traffic lights in Ladana, just close to where we train. We came to the conclusion: “No ways, this guy just does not know how to drive.” Ha, ha, ha. I was a passenger in his car this other time, after they fixed his car. We were driving to watch a tournament in Moletjie. So, he still had that fear that he’d bumped his car. Okay, so we are driving and obviously we are driving one way and there are cars in the other lane, going in the opposite direction, right? So, this guy hits the brakes when he sees lights and he is like, “Morena, this car is going to bump us!” Then I am like, “How can he hit us when he is in his own lane and he is going in the other direction? Do you think he can just jump into our lane and hit us?” Ha, ha, ha. Bravo to you for the bravery to get into a jalopy driven by him, even after all the accidents he’d caused. Obviously, I was scared, ha, ha, ha. This one time he was driving King Ndlovu’s car. So, King’s car is a manual car, not an automatic. He had told King that he knew how to drive, so I was with him in the passenger seat. When we got to the traffic lights, I got surprised when the car started going backwards. Well, this one happened before he bought a car, but still, it was funny because he had said he knew how to drive. So how is his driving now? Ha, ha, ha. Now he is much better- nyana. Nou o monate (He’s all good now), ha, ha. Good. At least he’s lived to tell the story. And you’ve also lived to tell the story of how you were made a mincemeat of by a group of 14 criminals in a notorious Johannesburg taxi rank. Ha, ha, ha, thanks for your time and please stay safe during this Level 3 of the lockdown. Hopefully football will be back soon so you can get back to doing what you love most. Thanks for the opportunity. Keep well, my outhie (friend).