Former Moroka Swallows star Aubrey Lekwane says even today he doesn’t make the mistake of going anywhere near Stanley ‘Screamer’ Tshabalala due to what he did to the former Mamelodi Sundowns coach 26 years ago.
In 1997, after the initial encounter between Sundowns and Moroka Swallows had been abandoned due to bad weather, with the Dube Birds leading 2-0, a replay took place midweek.
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This time, the teams were tied at 1-1, after goals from Jokhonia Cibi and Isaac Shai, when “Sense Of Knowledge” released an absolute cracker from long range to give Swallows a lead in the dying seconds.
“There were two minutes left on the clock, I said to myself, I’m not going to pass this ball to anyone, I’m going direct,” Lekwane tells KickOff.
“It’s not something that originated from training, those days teams didn’t own 50 balls like today, so we couldn’t practice shooting. If we did, we did it as the whole team including the defenders.
“To be honest, on that night I was just trying my luck. And by luck, the ball went straight into the net. Sundowns had Nelson Bandura in goals.
“Before the match, I had a big fight with our coach Mike Mangena. Remember it was raining hard and I was refusing to use six-stud boots.
“I was sponsored by Nike, and they gave me both the multi-studs and the six-studs. And Mangena was saying to me, hey boss, you can’t play in this weather with multi-studs, you should use six-stud.
“We argued for the whole of 15 minutes in the change room. He was shouting, hey, me at Wits University I used to play with six studs in such conditions! I said to him, no coach me and you are two different people. I have never used six studs before, so I won’t be able to play well in them.
“He said to me, if you are not using six studs then I’m taking you out of the team.
“I struggled with the six studs in the first half, six studs are not good for skilful players like me. The ball kept slipping away from me.
“During half-time, I took them off and wore my multi-studs soccer boots. I said to him, coach you should take me out if you are not going to allow me to play in my multi studs. His response was, okay go and play. But you must know that if you slip even once I will fine you R500.
“After I had scored that goal bra Mike came to me and said, hey boy, ya now I see you play well in those multi studs. From now on you must use them in all our matches.
“After scoring that goal I ran straight to celebrate behind the Sundowns goalposts. After the re-start, we touched the ball only three times and the referee blew the final whistle.
“I didn’t even notice that Screamer had collapsed. Since then, I have never found a chance to speak to him about that incident, I don’t go anywhere near him. I hear people saying he is short-tempered. I make sure I play far from him.”
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