Still In Touch With...Collen Tlemo Part 2

Oct 1, 2024 - 03:29 pm

By Lunga Adam

Still In Touch With...Collen Tlemo Part 2

Hectic stuff you shared about your time in Ireland, where you were basically on your own at that young age, in last week's edition.

Yeah, I mean, you play in a muddy field sometimes, where it's raining for 90 minutes. And you are alone. But you know what? You have to acclimatize to all those conditions, even if it means you have to get a girlfriend there to keep you going. The team gives you an apartment and you have to see how to handle things on your own. You buy groceries, you cook… and I was used to eating food cooked by my mom, ha, ha, ha. But what affected me most was that I got a groin injury. When I was playing for Portadown, Alex Ferguson was following me. I think Manchester United had a bit of interest in me. But these groin injuries used to disturb me. I wish I can send you my… I cut out the one article where (it was confirmed that) Alex was talking to my boss. He was asking what was happening with me, and then the groin injury, sort of, scuppered the deal. Because those pitches are wet, wet, wet. Even when you are training, it's always raining, it's cold. So unbelievable! When I stayed there, eish, I was frustrated. You know, awudlali (you are not playing), you go and watch games, you play in the reserve team and when you feel that you've completely healed from your injury, they then reinstate you to the first team. First half (back into the first team), you break down. Jomo (Sono) then asked me, "Hey maan Collen, what do you think? Don't you think it's better to come back?" So, we agreed after two years that I should come back to (Jomo) Cosmos.

You must have been the happiest man with the move back to familiar surroundings. Who were you close to at Ezenkosi?

The late Zinto Dube was also from the East (Rand) and we were both coming from Boksburg United, so I was very close to him when I got to Cosmos. Whenever we went to camp, you were required to share a room with a person you were close to so that you could discuss things and not just watch TV the whole time, so he was my roommate. In 1996, Tico-Tico (Bucuane) and Nuro Tualibudine came to join us. I then started sharing a room with Tico-Tico, but was still very close to Dube. He was a very funny guy. He was this guy who was never in short supply of jokes. Like I told you last week, the Soweto guys had this thing of thinking they were cleverer than the rest, but he used to tell them where to get off, ha, ha, ha. Very, very funny guy. There was this thing of teasing each other as players, and he was a master at that. But he was also a very nice guy and a very good left-footed player. I think one thing that perhaps drew us closer together was that I'm also left-footed. In fact, I was playing as a left back and he was playing in front of me on the field. That was until Jomo shifted me to central defence.

Tell us about the other characters that you had in the team.

Make no mistake, we were never in short supply of characters in the team. But before we talk about the other characters, you had Khwezi Masondo, whom we used to call "Meneer". I'm sure you remember him, he was the team manager there. He was right in the thick of things when it came to the banter in camp. He was a teacher by profession and teachers are known to be very naughty sometimes and he was no exception, ha, ha, ha. He always had a joke or two in his locker and would always leave us in stitches. Whenever we were sitting and enjoying our pre-match meal, or had just reported for camp and were settling down, he would find time to crack all those jokes, much to our amusement. There was also Lebogang Morula. He used to go to ZCC, you know. He once turned Jomo Cosmos into ZCC Football Club because before we went out for the warm-up, we would be singing songs from ZCC, all due to Morula's influence, ha,ha, ha. Not forgetting Arthur Zwane. I'm cautious about saying this in a newspaper, but I don't know whether he was smoking or what was happening with him – he would laugh and laugh and laugh, non-stop. I don't wanna lie to you, he would laugh non-stop! Jomo used to call him "Nzobo", so there was one time he called him aside and asked him, "Nzobo, yini mfanakithi? Kwenzakalani (what's the matter, my boy? What's happening)?" Ha, ha, ha. Then there was another character, Godfrey Sapula.

Godfather! What a great player and great man.

He started playing as a right back in the team, but sometimes he wasn't playing. I remember we went to Durban to play against AmaZulu FC. Sapula didn't think he was going to be in the starting line-up, so in the pre-match meal, he packed his plate with every food item you can think of. He always used to have an Eno with him. Don't let his small frame of back then fool you, he used to eat a lot. So, he would take that Eno and ingest it. When we got to the dressing room, Jomo announced the starting line-up and guess what? Sapula is starting, ha, ha, ha! To make matters worse, Jomo said, "Godfrey, I want to you see going forward a lot in this game." I don't think he finished the game that day. He was so full to the extent that he couldn't even run.

Ha, ha, ha, maybe Bra J was watching him having the time of his life during the pre-match meal and decided to slot him into the team for good measure.

Ha, ha, ha! Avril Phali was another gem of a fellow. I think he used to watch soapies a lot, and his favourite one was Isidingo. He liked those type of characters like Papa G and jazz musicians. He was also like Sapula in that he knew how to take good care of his stomach. He would come to morning training sessions with Mageu in his possession. But very, very funny guy. He used to tell us that, "Gents, I'm not Ugly, it's just the bones in my face that have shifted from their normal position." Ha, ha, ha, I think he accepted that he wasn't the most beautiful man on the planet, let's put it that way. Talking of Phali, I'm reminded of something, you know. If I remember very well, for his first game, Jomo was not part of the team, but I'm not sure why that was the case. The team was handled by Morula and I, and we were going to play Manning Rangers in Durban. Remember Rangers used to play long balls and crosses for George Koumantarakis and another guy from the DRC, whose name I've now forgotten, to get to the end of. We didn't have any other goalkeeper, it was only Phali, and we were so scared that day! Rangers used to give us a hard time in those days, and looking at the height of our new keeper, we thought the result was a foregone conclusion. But you know what, Phali took all the crosses that they were putting in. Koumantarakis didn't even score, and I think we beat them 2-1 or 3-1. That's when I said, "This is a good goalkeeper and he's going to go places." Because when Jomo brought him in for the first time, I said, "U (A) goalkeeper omfishane kangaka, uzovimba phi la (that is this short, how's he going to play here)?"

He went on to play for Orlando Pirates, so you were right about him.

Ja, he was a good goalkeeper. Kahlekahle (Actually), he was a Cosmos goalkeeper because at Pirates he didn't play too many games, ha, ha, ha. At Cosmos, he was the best! But a very funny guy, like I said. Even now, when I check his WhatsApp status, he's playing jazz music and is still into those Papa G characters. His Afrikaans tsotsitaal is the best. He's still the same old, he'll never change. Actually, we have a group as former Cosmos players, where we chat and reconnect and check up on each other. Even the likes of Samkelo Jam-jam and Brian Sebapole are in that group…