WE NEED TO SEE MORE OF OUR HISTORY, HEROES
THE coronavirus struck unexpectedly. No-one ever anticipated this tragedy. The world has been ravaged by this pandemic and society will never be the same again.
We are all affected in different spheres of life. Young and old, we are affected. Black or white, we are affected. Poor or wealthy, we’ve all been ravaged. That’s the reality of this deadly virus – it doesn’t discriminate.
But as much as we’ve been affected, we’ve also been offered numerous life lessons. This pandemic has offered us an opportunity to reflect on a number of things.
Over the past four months, I’ve found myself glued to my screen and reading a lot of books (Power of Habit, The Magic of Thinking Big, Zinedine Zidane’s autobiography, Mzansi Magic and currently, Lucas Radebe’s autobiography).
I’ve watched a number of documentaries and influential interviews that were conducted in the past.
As a football scribe, I discovered that we don’t have enough content which details the story of our football heroes.
Cricket and rugby have done well in terms of banking serious content for their heroes. I don’t know how many Graeme Smith and Makhaya Ntini interviews I’ve watched during this lockdown.
I was dejected that legends like Mike Mokoena and Cedric ‘Sugar
Ray’ Xulu have passed away, and we didn’t have enough content on our screens detailing the impact that they had on the beautiful game.
There also wasn’t much on our bookshelves.
Mokoena was a quality human being, judging by the tribute from the enigmatic and poetic Steve Komphela.
Free State Stars is more like a university. It hasn’t only produced footballers but also academics. We need more of those stories to inspire the younger generations.
Mokoena was an astute leader but his story was not conveyed in a manner in which it deserves.
His story would have made an inspirational documentary. Even if it was not a documentary, I believe we would have done better in terms of telling his story on a digital platform.
Sugar Ray is another icon whose legacy in football hasn’t been told like it was supposed to.
Our shelves are also short of football stories. The legendary Joe Latakgomo produced a beautiful book called Mzansi Magic.
It was obviously meant for the 2010 Fifa World Cup but it is an informative read penned by Bra Joe.
We need documentaries of legends such as Jomo Sono, Kaizer Motaung, Irvin Khoza, Ria Ledwaba and many more of our iconic football figures.
A book about Sono would make for an interesting read, and so would a documentary on his life. The
Jomo Cosmos stalwart and former Bafana Bafana boss has done a lot for this country as a player, coach and football administrator.
One day such people will leave us and we should be able to tell the next generation about their history and contributions in football.
The best way to do that is to preserve that history through books and documentaries.
I think this lockdown has exposed us. I don’t mean to be critical but this lockdown has offered us an opportunity to reflect.
No one has failed. In life, you don’t fail but rather learn and we will be able to turn these negatives into positives.