TYREN ARENDSE

(PART 1)

First up for Tyren Arendse in a playing career that spanned nearly two decades was Santos, whom he joined in 1999,whence he moved to Orlando Pirates some five years later. Then followed a Mamelodi Sundowns stint,before he trekked back to the People’s Team,with whom he experienced the heartache of relegation in 2011/12. In 2018,while player-coach at the ABC Motsepe League outfit, he called it quits,as he explains: “It happened so quickly. Iwas still going to come back the following season. Inever used to take my boys to football on a Saturday morning or spend time with them because Ialways used to be busy with playing and travelling and training in the mornings,but that off-season Ispent some time with them on a Saturday morning and I realised Inever got proper time to spend with them on aSaturday morning. At the time,my youngest one was about four and the other one was about seven, eight. Ihad achieved a lot in football and there was nothing more I wanted to achieve.”

Good to be ‘Still In Touch’ with you, Tyren. We all know you as a Santos legend, but from where did they actually get you?

I think it was my last year at school (when I joined them) and in those days we used to have the inter-provincial schools tournaments and I made the Western Province team. The guy that used to be the convenor of the Western Province, Gavin Manuel, was at Santos as well, coaching there. Then I made the team. I think Nasief Morris was also in that team. So, he (Manuel) came to a provincial tournament in Durban, which we eventually won, and after the tournament asked me to come down the following year and join Santos. I didn’t actually immediately sign with the senior team. They had a Vodacom (League) team and I played a few games in the Vodacom team, and after that I left football for about six, seven months to go and study. Then, later, I met the guy who used to be the manager when I was playing for the Vodacom team, and he said that Santos were looking for strikers. So, I went down for one training session, I played a friendly and then they offered me a contract. Because I was still at varsity, I had to now make a decision between studying and playing professional football because the varsity was quite far from where we were training. It was a difficult decision, but it was a nobrainer because I always wanted to play professional football.

Great. And how did you find things when you got there?

You know, I didn’t know much about professional football at the time, I only used to watch it on TV and that, but because I think at the time Santos had a lot of experienced players, like Edries Burton, Musa Otieno, John Mbidzo, all those guys… they actually made it easier for me as a youngster to come into the team. Obviously I had to learn a lot, but those experienced players helped me a lot in terms of settling down and to show me the ropes, just to learn from them.

Well, we’re told that a youngster was made to feel like a youngster back then…

Ja, I think those days you had to, sort of, earn the respect of the senior players. I know there were other youngsters that had to polish the senior guys’ boots. You know, when we used to travel, some of the senior players never used to carry their bags. They would just leave the bags, we knew that we were the ones that had to take the bags. At times, you would sit together, and then they would just walk. They would just leave the bags, and then you must carry their bags and you still had your own bag that you had to carry. But I think, for me, it was all part of you earning the right to be part of the team. When I was there, when senior players were talking and having a conversation, you couldn’t just talk and be in the conversation. You had to keep quiet until one of them asked you a question. And I mean, that’s the way I grew up, you know. When my mother and my aunts used to talk, I couldn’t be part of that conversation, or I couldn’t be in the room and listen while they were talking. So, it was basically the same when I joined Santos with all the experienced players. I knew my place as a youngster and I waited for my time to… only when they asked me something, then I would answer them. It was a lot different when I got older and the younger players came into the team. I wouldn’t say they weren’t respectful, but in our time you had to earn your right to, sort of, do things and speak. It was a lot different from nowadays.

Who were you friends with in the team?

Nasief Morris was also the youngster because I think he’s a year younger than me and I think between the two of us, we were, for the first few years, the youngest in the team, so I made friends with him. I think we were together for a year or two before he left. When he left, I was basically the only youngster in the team. It was difficult because most of the other guys were four, five years older than me as I started as an 18-year-old and they were already close to 30 years old. But after Nasief left, I, sort of, built up a good friendship with Jonathan Solomons. I don’t know if you still remember him, he used to play for Santos and after that he went to SuperSport (United). The two of us became really close. But I think once I started playing regularly and featured more in the team and, sort of, earned my right to play, it became a little bit easier because most of the guys I knew for a couple of years now. It became a nice family environment the older I got and the more games I played.

Did you guys camp in preparation for games?

Those years, I think right in the beginning, during my first year, most times we used to camp. But I know there were a few times, especially when we used to play away, maybe a night game in Johannesburg, then we would travel on the same day. Obviously I think teams were still trying to cut costs, as there was no money at the time, but I think afterwards, they realised it was not working. If you travel on the day of the game, the guys are tired because now you have to wake up early in the morning, you do travelling and you must still play at night. So, after that, we started camping, maybe a day before, and then (we would) travel.

Tyren, it’s not lost on us that you played football at the highest level for more than a decade, so we can’t let all those precious memories and funny stories go to waste, so we will be tackling them next week. For sure.