Legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly OBE once observed, “Somebody said, ‘Football is a matter of life and death to you.’ I said, ‘Listen, it’s more important than that.’”
One does not need to have attended a home game at Anfield to appreciate the source of Shankly’s belief. One gets goosebumps just hearing Liverpool fans giving a rousing rendition of _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ on TV.
These thoughts were swirling around my head after last Sunday’s Soweto derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. I witnessed several intense, ill-tempered spats between supporters of the two clubs that spilled over well into the middle of last week.
About 20 years ago, I had a colleague whose eyes would glaze over any time a football debate erupted during one of our regular pub sessions. And at the end of the 2014/15 Premier Soccer League, I too decided to walk away from club football support. It wasn’t an easy decision, but from a medical point of view, it was one of the best of my life. Caring about football was not only ruining my cardiac health but also my social life.
Bill Shankly was spot on when he proclaimed the importance of football in people’s lives. In a WhatsApp group I’m a member of, I have watched as 20-year-long friendships have been jeopardised when friends tear into each other, debating match incidents as if their lives depended on it.
In the past, I have got myself into all kinds of trouble for saying I do not believe South Africans are passionate about the Beautiful Game. My theory is that South Africans are obsessed specifically with Chiefs and Pirates. I doubt anyone could accuse me of exaggerating when I assert that probably 90% of the folks who support PSL football back one of these two clubs.
> When I was younger, whether a guy supported Kaizer Chiefs seems to have been one of my major friendship selection criteria
Until about 11 years ago, I too would always be found at the centre of shouting matches about Chiefs and Pirates. After the 2004/05 season — which Pirates relinquished to Chiefs on the very last day, after being on top for 29 straight rounds — I was so insufferable towards my Pirates-supporting friends that I lost one of them permanently.
My firstborn, Ntobeko, is only a mild Chiefs supporter. All his passions are reserved for Chelsea FC in the English Premier League. While he watches Chelsea matches, I sit there watching _him_, and I’m overcome by déjà vu — it’s like a walk down an angst-ridden memory lane littered with pain, frustration, and moments of elation.
In the early to mid-1990s, in the run-up to the 1994 elections, a close friend, Gaddafi, was a passionate Azapo member. One of his pet peeves was what he perceived as a depressing level of political apathy among “the working class”. Most of his venom was directed at football clubs and the fact that, instead of workers getting involved in worker struggles and politics, every conversation in taxi ranks, bus terminals and train stations was about football.
This Thursday, I flew down to my hometown of Durban. While filling up at the Botha’s Hill Total just beyond Kearsney, I witnessed a loud, spirited debate among the petrol attendants about the Soweto derby — a good four days after the fact. I imagined my friend Gaddafi turning in his grave.
While driving away from the filling station, I took stock of the close friends I’ve had throughout my life. I was shocked to realise that, when I was younger, whether a guy supported Kaizer Chiefs seems to have been one of my major friendship selection criteria.
In this regard, I have to thank my missus, who was an ardent Buccaneer when we met. She decided about five years into our marriage that, for the sake of our union, she would alight from the football supporter bus. Who knows? If she hadn’t done so, we might be part of the statistics by now.
The urban legend about a passionate Pirates fan who left home for Orlando Stadium on match day but rushed back home because he had forgotten his vuvuzela is likely to be true. Apparently, he burst into his own bedroom, only to find his wife in a compromising position with a top club official. He is alleged to have looked at the bloke in his bed and simply remarked, “What are you doing here, Bhakaniya? Come — let’s go now. The game is starting in 15 minutes!”