Welcome back, Sammy. Continuing from last week’s conversation, it seems you considered it a real blessing to play in the same team with the legendary Marks Maponyane, at Wits University.
That’s true, but the only thing that was strange about him is that he was never injured, instead he injured defenders. That’s the only thing that I failed to learn from him, I guess he never gave me a recipe for it, ha, ha, ha. I will never forget that guy. He would come to me and say, “Don’t get frustrated, stay in the box.” Pitso (Mosimane) did the same thing while I was at SuperSport (United). There was a time I was frustrated, I was not playing, and they gave me a chance in one game. Pitso would shout at me, “Stay in the box! Sammy!” Every time he said, “Sammy!”, I knew what he wanted me to do. Eish, ngeso sikhathi badlala kamnandi (that time they were knocking it around nicely), I wanted to touch the ball. That is how I managed to get goals. Like I said last week, I had fun at Wits, but at (Jomo) Cosmos it was a jungle. Yho! Survival of the fittest. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed myself there because I spent most of my time ngikhahlela abantu (kicking people). You don’t enjoy football when you train to be fit to mark someone, not to play. I know somebody would say, “You played a lot at Cosmos”, but it doesn’t make any difference because I was playing to defend, as in spend my time ngigijima nabantu (running with people). I didn’t enjoy because mina I’m a goalscorer by nature. So, Wits and SuperSport I enjoyed. SuperSport management, make no mistake, they would make you feel at home. The problem was inside, from the players who came from Pretoria, as they had this belief that, “This one from Jo’burg has come here to take our position.” They would never come straight to you and talk about it, but you would hear them in the change room. Tommy (the late Thomas Madigage) and Pitso used to try and make me feel welcome, but the important thing was that angidlali no (I’m not playing with) Tommy, angidlali no Pitso, I’m playing with the players who are gossiping about me.
Talking about Cosmos being a jungle, what do you make of this notion that you were a team that went out to intentionally break legs?
