Doc’s memory bank: That didn’t sit well with him

I will continue to talk about Bro Abe and share my memories about him. This is one man who wouldn’t take everything serious, but he would always do everything seriously. At some stage, we’d be playing a tournament or an important game and this man would take money out of his own pocket to make sure we had everything we needed, even without asking for anything from Chiefs. We would even camp in his garage and he’d get his family to prepare food for us, but you’d never hear him making noise about that, even to this day. At the time, we didn’t really think much of his sacrifices, but now, we look back and realise how selfless he was. This man groomed so many youngsters from poor backgrounds and turned them into professionals. I’m so grateful to him and, as I mentioned in one of the previous columns, we always played against bigger and older teams, but Bro Abe would be so protective of us. I remember a couple of times when he stormed into the field trying to defend us when we were bullied and not protected by the referee, ha, ha, ha. He’d be so angry as he was trying to protect us because teams were not playing fair. They were playing the name (Chiefs), not the game, and that didn’t sit well with him. You could hear even from the opposition supporters that it wasn’t just about football, it was personal. This man wanted nothing bad to happen to us and he would protect us with his own life, if he had to.