KATLEHO LOKE (PART 5)

Last week, you told us about some of the troubles you encountered in career, including getting ‘paid’ a measly R450 a month at Orlando Pirates and not receiving your signing-on fee of R600 000 in full at Jomo Cosmos, only pocketing R150 000. You really have seen it all in the game. What else can you share about your stint at Ezenkosi? Well, when it comes to playing, I played, I enjoyed my football there. Bra J (Jomo Sono) used to talk to me like I was his son, he used to advise me and he was paying me well. The only… you know, everywhere there’s problems. There would be those players coming from Cosmos that were not taken care of and would come out guns blazing and say, ‘Cosmos never paid me for six months or three months’, but nna I never got those kind of challenges when I was there, except the outstanding money that I never got. All in all, me playing at Cosmos was like going back to… how can I put it? I can never compare it to Benoni Premier United because at Benoni I was playing, I was happy and I was young, and coming from Thanda Royal Zulu, where there’s money, where there’s professionalism, where you have four pairs of soccer boots, and then you come to join Cosmos where you have only one pair of soccer boots, ha, ha, ha. So, it was like I downgraded. It was like, ‘He banna, kwenzakalani kanti kule career ka Loke manje (Goodness me, what exactly is happening in Loke’s career now)?’ From up top there, where he was paid well, staying in a beautiful flat, getting a bonus every week, and now he’s back to… Ey, it was like hey madoda, yho, yho, yho! We used to get weekends off there (at Thanda). We would go to training on Thursday and then go back again on Tuesday whenever it was FIFA calendar week.

Right.

Then at Cosmos, there was no off (day)… he banna! Okay, the salary was better than the one I was getting at Thanda, but there was no off-day, and on top of that, we were using muti like nobody’s business, whereas at Thanda we were playing football and we didn’t have all of those muti things. Then when my contract was nearing its expiry, I said angeke (no more)! When I was about to leave, I was told that the club had exercised the option they had on my contract and the option favoured the club. I then told myself that I would stay home and not play football. I was no longer happy about stuff that was happening at Cosmos, plus I was getting old and I have kids. I had to be honest to my kids, I had to be fair to myself, I had to be honest to my wife. Every day, you would go to training, but you wouldn’t play. You would get those kinds of questions from home and now it looked like I was lying, plus I was not happy because I didn’t have time to spend with my kids as I was always away from home. Even when the team was not playing on the weekend, I was always away, busy with football. That’s when I told myself, ‘You know what, I’m going to choose my family over this soccer and then we’ll see what’s going to happen afterwards because at the end of the day, there was life before this soccer thing, there will still be life after soccer.’

Okay. But you didn’t retire though… I received a call from the owner of FC AK/Atlie because he was staying in Tembisa and I’m also in the side of Tembisa, Clayville side. So, he requested a meeting and I met with them. I was promised heaven and earth there. They told me, “Loke mfanakithi (my boy), we see you’re no longer playing football, but we ask that you retire properly in Ekurhuleni because you stay this side. Come and play football here at FC AK.” I got my clearance from Bra J, only to find out that the team was bankrupt. There was no money. Remember these guys had previously signed the likes of Lebogang Mothibantwa, those big names, and I thought to myself, ‘No, maan, this man will give me money. Let me go there and play. Even though it won’t be the same as what I was getting at Cosmos, but let me go and play and enjoy myself because I’m almost at the age of retiring.’ Ha! When I got there,

hayi, hayi, hayi (no, no, no). I played first game, second game, third game and then month-end, half salary. Okay, sharp. The next month, no salary.

He banna! That’s when I said, ‘Instead of this thing of always having to fight people, let me stop playing football. I don’t want to go to camps and all those things.’ I remember the next game we were going to play in Nelspruit and I refused to go. I told the coach, “Coach, nna (me), I’m not going because I haven’t got paid. My kids are hungry. I can’t just go and play soccer and leave my kids and wife starving at home. I can’t travel in a bus and go to sleep in a hotel and eat hotel food whereas I’m leaving my kids without food. I’m sorry, I’m not going with the team.” And then the whole team went on strike! The whole team didn’t want to play, wabona (you see). Then Kick Off… Loke is a bad influence, he influenced players to not go and play! How did I influence them when I never spoke to any player? I just told myself that angiyi lapho (I’m not going there). That’s when my name got tarnished and no one wanted to work with Loke. I remember I had registered an academy, so which team was I going to take those boys to when no one wanted to work with me?

Earlier, you said “we were using muti like nobody’s business”, of course in reference to Cosmos. We aren’t letting you escape without telling us more on that…

It was hectic! You know when they say

umuti uyadliwa (muti is being eaten)? It was hectic, ha, ha, ha. Besigeza lapho (We were bathing there). Had they given us the money they were giving the muti men, Cosmos probably wouldn’t have become the yo-yo team they were back then. Remember the team was called a yo-yo team because

siyangena, siyaphuma, siyangena, siyaphuma (we’re in, we’re out, we’re in, we’re out) as all the money went to the inyanga. These inyangas would come and deceive Bra J and because he also believed in muti, he would fall for it. Since I started playing football,

hayi, no, Cosmos takes the trophy when it comes to muti. There were times where they would wake us up around 01h00 in camp so we could go and take a bath. You would be asleep, focused, because you were playing the next day, and then Andrew Rabutla would be like, “Gents! Gents! Gents!” They would phone us in our rooms and say, “Guys, it’s time.” Then you knew it was time to go and have a bath.

Next week is the last instalment of your ‘Still In Touch With…’ series and we can’t wait for it because we know you are going to go out with a bang. We’ll talk about some of the funny guys you played with, including one from Alexandra who had stories for days, as well as the one who went on a hunger strike because his favourite rapper from the US had been jailed… and much more. Ha, ha, ha, eish…