KATLEHO LOKE 4)

Without wasting any time, let’s talk characters at Thanda Royal Zulu!

There was Japie Motale, Tonic Chabalala, Serge Djiehoua, the late Scara Ngobese. Those people were characters… yho, yho, yho! Japie is one of the craziest guys I’ve ever met in my football career. That guy, he’s got jokes like his brother Eddie (Edward Motale), but Japie is something else, my brother. He’s got jokes like nobody’s business. Scara was a reserved guy, but very, very crazy and on a day where he felt like he wanted to talk, he would tell us stories from Kaizer Chiefs when he was still playing together with Djiehoua. He would say, “Hayi wena (Hey you), Serge, uyinkomo (you are a cow).” You know, Serge and Scara were always fighting. Scara would tell us, “Lo, lo wamathanga amakhulu lo, yinkomo lo. Uyazi nalapha kwi Chiefs, bekuyinkomo (This one, this one of big thighs, he’s a cow man. He knows even there at Chiefs he was a cow).” Ha, ha, ha. Serge would respond, “Hey Scara, speak English so that I can hear whatever you are saying. Why are you talking Zulu?” So, Scara would tease him, saying, “Ah, this one with big thighs, he can’t trap. He can’t even score goals,” but he would say it in IsiZulu.

Explain…

He would say, “Scooter, hayi akekho mnandi lo (this one is not a good player).” Japie liked to say, “Mina mfana (boy), I will hit you with a tackle that will send you straight to hospital, where you will forget about football.” You also had your Patrick Mayo, Clement Mazibuko, who was a very reserved guy, but would crack a few jokes on his day, telling us about his time playing in Greece. But later on the team developed groups. You had big guys, the experienced guys, and there is this group that comes from Jo’burg and then there is this group that comes from Durban. So, that’s how Thanda died. It was a sad part because we were moneyed then. We were given money, MaLungas. That’s where you will hear former players saying this chairman robbed us, because you spent seven years at Benoni and you come out there with debts, and then you get into that team (Thanda), spend three years and then come out with a lot of money in your bank account. So, that’s when you’d say you were robbed at Benoni, and then when you phone me, because ngisakwatile (I’m still angry), I will tell you that those people at Benoni Premier United were robbing us, they did not give us money, one, two three, four, five. You understand?

Loud and clear, brotherman! Again, I’ll go back to (Orlando) Pirates. I thought Dr Irvin Khoza knew that we were not getting paid and were just given R450 (a month), whereas he didn’t know about all of that. Bezingafiki iindaba kuye (Such news did not reach his ears). You must remember that Pirates is a big team and there are so many people that are working there. The only time Dr Khoza would get involved in an issue is when they were maybe failing to resolve it. So, if ever it got solved there, it didn’t get to Dr Irvin, it ended there because it had been solved. Then we would complain and say Dr Khoza was not giving us money, whereas that was not the case. Bekangazi lomuntu lo (This man didn’t know) … he only knew that this boy is being given R10 000, whereas they give him R450 for three years. But it’s different to the small teams. At the small teams, the chairmen are the ones who are paying players. They know exactly what they are doing, uyayibona lento ngiyishoyo (you get what I’m talking about)? Because the small teams don’t have the admin like that at (Kaizer) Chiefs, Pirates, SuperSport (United) and (Mamelodi) Sundowns.

That’s true.

That’s why I’m saying I could talk to Mr (Dumisani) Ndlovu, the chairman of the team, and say to him, “Mr Ndlovu, can you please give me R2 000?” He would give me R2 000 and I would go home. But at Pirates, I would never go to Dr Khoza and ask for R2 000. Do you get what I’m saying? Uzoqala la phantsi kubo (You’ll start at the bottom with the likes of) Floyd Mbele, those you’re always with, and ask for R2 000. When you fail there, you would jump to a higher level, like (Augusto) Palacios, and when you find no joy there, you go to so-and-so and only when you are not winning with so-and-so does it get to Dr Khoza. Can you see what a long process it is? Then we come out and say Ndlovu robbed us, whereas we were just playing football not caring about money, wanting to make a name for ourselves. Now you are a grown man, you see money in a different team and say you were robbed. That’s how it is. Give us money. Give me what we agreed on. You said you’ll give me R3 00 0amonth, give me my R3 000 a month. If you don’t give me my R3 000, then you’re robbing me, then you’re cheating me. Then I’ll talk bad in the papers about you.

This is all very interesting stuff and incredible insight into what goes on, or rather went on, according to you, behind the scenes at a big club like Pirates. Now, you moved to Jomo Cosmos after your time at Thanda. How was it? Now I’m going to be honest with you, my bro. When I joined Cosmos, Bra J (Jomo Sono) came to Durban, to Thanda Royal Zulu and he spoke to me and said, “Loke mfanakithi, mina ngiyakufuna (my boy, I want you).” He had always been following my game and been impressed with me from my time with the national U20 side. Bra J came at a time when I had offers. Five or six teams wanted to sign me… the likes of Free State Stars, Ajax Cape, Bloemfontein Celtic, Maritzburg United, Mpumalanga Black Aces… but Bra J beat their offers. That time, I was already under Mike Makaab. That was the first time I had an agent in my career. Makaab wanted me to go to Maritzburg, who were offering me R18 000, and Bra J was offering me R40 000. I then told Makaab, “Mike, Mr Jomo Sono is giving me R40 000. Speak to Mr Jomo because he’s the one who’s giving me more money.” But I don’t know why agents didn’t want to work with Jomo back then, so he refused to do that. I had already packed my things from Durban to Jozi, and I stayed three months without a job, and in those three months, who was giving me money to survive? It was Bra J. Makaab went quiet, whereas he was my agent. I didn’t get paid for three months, yet I had an agent who said he was looking for employment for me. So, what would you do? I had a family, kids that

I had to support, and on the other side, there were car instalments that needed to be paid off, there was a house bond to pay off. Then I said to myself, ‘No, no, no, I’m signing with Bra J.’

Well, that’s understandable if that were the

case.

It’s not that I hid anything from Makaab, I told him that Mr Sono wanted to sign me and he was giving me R40 000, but he was telling me to go to Maritzburg. To me, that meant he wanted me to go where he was going to benefit. That’s when I signed with Cosmos, and then he came out guns blazing, saying I owed him for breach of contract, all those things. But at Cosmos, to be quite honest, when I got there in 2009, everything was fine. I was injured for the whole first round of the season and never played. I had a shin fracture, and he signed me while I had that injury. You know, all homes have their own problems, and there were so many problems at Cosmos, but for the fact that this man gave me a job, he was paying me every month, that was the most important thing in my career because remember I was already going into my 35th birthday. I had to make sure that my kids were okay. So, I joined Cosmos with a signing-on fee of R600 000, although out of that money I got R150 000… the rest of the money I didn’t get and I don’t care about it. The fact that Mr Sono never skipped even a single payment of my salary is something I appreciated. So, the signing-on fee, I thought about it as something that’s gonna come if it’s gonna come because at the end of the day, there are still players who are owed signing-on fees by the big teams, so what do you expect from a smaller team like… okay, Cosmos is a big team, but financially it’s not big like other teams. The only thing that made me not want to continue with Cosmos was not getting enough time to rest. For me, it was personal because I cannot work without getting (time) off. Besingatholi off laphaya

(We were not getting time off there)! Yho, hayi, hayi, hayi, bekufiwa lapha (no, no, no, it was hectic).

By Lunga Adam