Still InTouch With..

"Gusheshe," it’s great talking to you again. We really appreciate your time. You played professional football for a long time starting from your days at Free State Stars, then Orlando Pirates, Jomo Cosmos and Bay United. Who would you say was your closest friend in football?

- Zola Doda

I would say Steve Lekoelea was my closest friend. When I joined Orlando Pirates, he was the first guy to welcome me to the team. And when I was selected for the national team, we were always roommates. Let me tell you something, Steve is very funny. Now, all the national team players used to receive a daily allowance for the duration of the camp. And sometimes that could amount to R10 000. After every supper, Steve, Mbulelo Mabizela, Thabo Mngomeni and other guys used to play dice games. Steve used to win a lot. He would clean up all the other guys’ daily allowances, ha, ha, ha. Sometimes he would win as much as R50 000.

Ha, ha, ha, they used to bet seriously...

Bra, I'm telling you. And the worst thing is, whenever Steve lost, he would come to my room asking for money because they cleaned him out, ha, ha, ha. Since I didn't know anything about the dice game, sometimes I would give him some of my daily allowance and he would still lose it, ha, ha, ha. He was very good at it, but there were days when things wouldn't go his way. But he would always manage to win it back and pay me back. Sometimes they used to play from 22h00 to 23h00 in the evening. But the national team camps were always fun back then because all the guys were very close. We were a tight group of friends.