That’s been my story so far
On the victory over Chippa United
A very important win for us because we’ve had a bit of a slow start to the season. We’ve played well but made a few mistakes, which is something we’ve since worked hard to rectify. Defensively, we had to improve… even going forward. Great feeling all round. For me, personally, I’m happy I was able to help the team get its first three points of the season. The coaches are obviously building a new team and those three points were a gift from us to them.
On the KZN Derby tonight
Look, we obviously have a plan in place for Royal AM. We’ve been preparing well for them, but we are more focused on what we want to improve on and how that will help us get what we want from that game, which is positive results. We are well aware it won’t be easy against the good ball-playing team that they are. They keep the ball well and create a lot of chances. Very tough opponent, but we’ve been hard at work and we go into the game with the confidence and drive to win again, nothing else. It’s not about who’s played for that team before or coached where, it’s about the game of football and it is business. We have to win.
On the team’s progress so far
Look, a work in progress and we are trusting our process. In football, it’s simple: every coach wants maximum points and we are given a plan to execute for each game. We clocked in more draws and one or two of those games we should have won. If you look at our opening game against Sekhukhune United, we dominated the match, got a couple of clear-cut chances that we unfortunately failed to convert. Then we got a rude awakening in our next game against Kaizer Chiefs when we lost 3-0. A bad experience it was for me personally because I had a hand in one of the goals Chiefs scored on the night. But I’ll tell you though, even in that game, we didn’t lose the structure that the coach has been trying to give us as a team, the structure that we are going to follow for the entire season. We didn’t. We had some positives in that clash, but obviously our costly mistakes will be what people remember from that night. Like I said earlier, we’ve since worked on those errors, it’s been about the limitations of those mistakes and if you take a closer look at our game against Cape Town City, we were firm and organised. Our structure was in place and we were solid in defence. So solid that one of us the defenders got a
Man of the Match award, which
was me. It was an away game and we didn’t have to be naive and try to win the game even when we saw it wasn’t allowing us to. We could have stolen three points there had we converted some of the chances, but we were happy
with a point.
On new man at the helm, John Maduka
I’m certainly enjoying playing under him. I think firstly, for me to say something about him would be that he’s a very good coach who focuses more on bettering each and every player, with each training session. He wants a player to put on a 1% improvement from the previous session. He’s all about players who are improving, players that want to learn and players who are willing to fight. When I made that mistake against Chiefs, I was reminded that even the very best players in the world make mistakes and that it shouldn’t be something that changes my game. He said I should do better with my executions and those are just some of the things I’ve been working on as far as my game is concerned. He quickly restored my confidence and I believe I performed well after that Chiefs game, against Swallows FC and Cape Town City. We don’t stop learning as players and to have a coach that’s determined to mentor us like coach John has been great.
On the club’s targets for the season
Like any other team in the league, the only objective is to attain the highest possible position on the log come end of the season, and we are no different. We know where we want to be and we know we’ve got our work cut out for us. We know we need to work twice as hard and believe you me, at the end of this marathon, we will achieve our goals. I’m new here and I don’t know about the team spirit they had last season, but I’ll tell you about the spirit in our team right now – totally out of this world! Each and every one leaves the hotel to go step into the pitch with the desire to fight and leave something on the pitch.
On settling in at Pietermaritzburg
Acclimatising to the team has been pretty seamless because everyone has been very welcoming. This is a team where unity is preached day in and day out. It’s a team whereby Mr Maduka wants us to be one, he doesn’t want a team whereby we are divided. We lose together and we win together. But I’ll tell you something I experienced or felt when I came into the team, something I’m assuming a lot of players who join teams from their relegated clubs experience too. Mentally, it’s never easy going to a new environment when you have a relegation history behind your name. It’s difficult because you go into a new team with fear crippling in and you start questioning yourself, but as time goes on, you accept the situation that you come from and you look forward to fixing whatever mistakes you did at your previous club. That’s been my story so far. I’m determined to be a better player than I was at Baroka last season. I’m determined to help my new team do better.
Bonginkosi Makume, Maritzburg United defender
lot later and sleep in the early hours of the morning, meaning going to training in the morning was now an issue because I would be too tired. I would make excuses not to go to training. Now, that affected me in a bad way as it was not part of the contract. You can’t stay away from the team and not train. Because at the time I was also doing well, I got arrogant to say I’ve arrived at the club and the bosses love me, the coach loves me, so I thought I could get away with that. Every now and then, I got away with it because of the love the club had for me, but people can only take your nonsense for so long and if you keep on doing the wrong things and you get away with it, eventually it will catch up with you. It will come to a point where they say, ‘We love you as a player, you are a good person, but we cannot tolerate this type of behaviour any longer.’ At times, instead of going back and asking for forgiveness, you would still be arrogant and those friends of yours would also say, ‘Hey, man, you can always get a team, leave those people. If they want to chase you away, let them, you are star. You can get a team tomorrow.’ And you’d be like, ‘Ag, it’s fine, I will manage.’ I had a lot of friends who were not playing football, so obviously they’d say, ‘Don’t worry, even if you don’t find a team, we’ll take care of you.’ As I had a lot of friends who were hustlers on the street, I decided to quit football and wait for somebody to come and offer me a job and unfortunately that never happened.
“I got arrogant to say I’ve arrived at the club and the bosses love me.”
TM: After quitting football, what did you do next and what did it take for you to go back?
TT:
I had friends who were working, so I hung around these people and I didn’t even see the gap and I was okay financially. I went out and had fun because my friends would sponsor me with drinks whenever I wanted to go out and I was convinced that I could actually live without football. It happened for a while, but eventually, as I’m a married man with kids, such things cause problems at home. You end up fighting with your wife and I reached a point where I sat down myself and realised this was not working out for me and I don’t want to lose my wife and kids over the fact that now ne se ke phela bophela bo tsweleng tseleng (I was living a trashy, worthless life). I had a chat with my wife and she advised me and told me to change my ways. Having a supportive wife is a good thing as well. She’s been there whether things are going my way or not and she’s always been the type of person who’s harsh with the truth. She never shied and she said to me, “My love, you are one of the most talented players that I’ve ever seen. I don’t know much about football, but wherever you played, I’ve only heard good things from people, praise, and I don’t believe you can do anything other than football that will make you happier. You can get a job, work for somebody else, but you’ll never be happier than you are when playing football because this game makes you happy.” I also had people who were influential in my life, like Melusi Ntumber, who’s been with me for 15 years. He motivated me to get back to playing football. He is a businessman and he once said, “You know, Dona, I’m wealthy and I could give you a job tomorrow in my company, but the question is will you be happy there? Will you find joy in working there? I don’t think you will because one thing I know about you, the game excites you. So, Dona, I can only encourage you to go back and play and I will help you in the process where I can just to manage your life.” And he did that. There were times that I actually had financial issues and he was always there to help me out just so that I could focus on football. I’m grateful for having him and my wife in my life. There are a lot of people who contributed to me coming back to football and friends who were positive and said I needed to get back to playing because they felt that I was cheating them as football fans, as they said I still had so much to offer. As I sat alone, I thought, ‘Why is it that I can’t believe in myself the way these people believe in me? Why can’t I change things around and start believing? If they have so much faith in me, why can’t I have the same faith?’ So, I decided to take that challenge, well aware that it was not going to be easy… and it wasn’t and it is still not easy because even today, you still meet people on the street who will criticise you and say, “Ja, wena, you should have done this and that.” Sometimes people don’t even know the reasons behind everything, but they’ll judge you either way, so you have to keep it up. Yes, I know I messed up, I’m in the process of mending and I’m doing all I can to get back where I belong. So, I did just that. It wasn’t a walk in thepark,you can see it took me more than six to seven years. I think the last time I played in the professional set-up was probably in 2016, if I’m not mistaken. It has been a while, so you can just imagine how difficult it has been. Like I said, with the right mindset and the right people by my side, I managed to turn a blind eye on all the negative things that were all happening
around, the critics, the hate.
TM: What a story yours is, Dona. We’re glad you managed to pick up the pieces and can’t wait to see you back in the topflight soon. TT: Ke ya leboha, ngwaneso (Thank you, brother).