Nqabayomzi Kwankwa, deputy president of one of South Africa's well-known political parties, United Democratic Movement, happens to also be a passionate football supporter. In fact, it's been three-and-a-half decades since the Eastern Cape-born politician first fell in love with Kaizer Chiefs. Therefore, it's safe to say he has seen the club in its many forms over the years – excellent, good, average and poor. The current quagmire the Soweto giants find themselves in, with regards to a longstanding trophy drought, understandably tugs at his heartstrings. Kwankwa, who turns 40 on Wednesday, questions the role of Kaizer Motaung in the Glamour Boys' descent into mediocrity in this interview with Soccer Laduma's Masebe Qina. The well-spoken leader also talks passionately about the issue of the identity of South African football. Read on!
Masebe Qina: Mr Kwankwa, where does your love for Kaizer Chiefs come from?
Nqabayomzi Kwankwa: I think I've followed Kaizer Chiefs since the late 1980s … I was still very young. I grew up in a family of Chiefs supporters and I think that was because the club was doing very well at the time. They would leave everything on the pitch and so naturally, people will have love for a club that does well. I think the same thing happened to Manchester United and many other clubs around the world, they were followed by every Tom, Dick and Harry. And I liked their (Chiefs') style of play at the time, they were playing good football and were formidable. I supported the club from 1988-89 to date.
MQ: What are some of the memories you have about those days?
NK: I remember the likes of Ace Ntsoelengoe, who played football with flair, and Marks Maponyane. We had excellent strikers and even had goalkeepers like Gary Bailey, we had the Botende Esheles, the Shane Mc-Gregors and the Fani Madidas, Doctor Khumalo, Donald "Ace" Khuse and the "Shakes" Kungwanes of this world. So, we had great players playing for Kaizer Chiefs at the time. I liked a player like Neil Tovey because he mastered the basics of football and he did not play fancy football – he kept things simple. He mastered the basics and positional play. At the time I started supporting Chiefs, I was also a football player myself and I was very good at it. That's why I nearly turned professional in 1997 with SuperSport United – that's how good I was. But I was probably going to turn professional as a goalkeeper and not as an in-field player. Back to Chiefs… I think they started struggling around 1993, but they were still playing good football. But I think over the past 10 years, it's been a mess. I think the playing philosophy of the club is gone and (they've had) other challenges, like that of 'you buy one and get one for free'.
MQ: What's your main gripe?
NK: I don't know whether someone we respect so much, uTata u "Chincha Guluva" (Kaizer Motaung), doesn't have the same ambition and the desire to turn Chiefs into a formidable team like before. Yes, the club is still run professionally, but I think it's not even a question of them not being able to compete with the likes of (Mamelodi) Sundowns in the market financially, I think it's just a matter of them not choosing the right players for the club. Some of the players are pretty average and some of the players are below average. The style of Chiefs back in the day would involve the team using wing players. We used to have very good wing players who were skilful and had pace. We had players in the middle of the park, like the Doctor Khumalos and others, who were very skilful and able to slow the game down. They would control the tempo of the game. Remember that we also used to play with the target man in front. Those target men used to master the basics. You see, when you have a striker up front, by the time the ball gets to him, he must know where you are and he must know where the goals are. I was a striker once and I was taught those basics. We played one-touch football with pace. As a striker, you are employed to score goals, but we don't have target men and we don't have lethal strikers. I wouldn't say we have skilful midfielders – we have a few players in the middle of the park, but they are not in the same mould as your Ace Khuses and the Doctor Khumalos. You saw last season how we were conceding. Most of the former Chiefs captains were defenders. Lucas Radebe, who was my favourite player as well, was a defender and Neil Tovey was a defender, and so on. Those people were able to lead the team from the back because as a defender, it's like a goalkeeper, you are able to see the whole pitch and the players who are making mistakes. So, we don't have leaders at the back and we do, from time to time, get people who can take a leadership role in the middle of the park, but in front we are not competitive. On the wings, we are also not that great anymore. If we continue like that, we are likely to experience the drought that we've experienced for the past eight years.
MQ: Sounds like you don't have too much confidence in the signings that have been made…
NK: I saw the signings, but I'm not too sure about them. Some of the players have come through the development of Chiefs and are showing a lot of promise, like "Mangethe" (Samkelo) Zwane and many others that came through. It has always been better to blend the experienced players with the youth that came through the ranks in the past. I think what used to happen in the days of the likes of Muhsin Ertugral, they would sometimes over-rely on young players, but there is no substitute for experience. You need to blend them with experience. If you have a big match like against Sundowns, you need the experienced players to keep the team together. Sometimes they don't get beaten by the big teams and it's a pity that we have to call Sundowns a big club now because if you have to compare how things have been from the late 1990s to now, Sundowns is actually bigger than Chiefs when it comes to the teams' success. (Arthur) Zwane tried blending experience and youth last season, but I think he struggled with the formations both in the middle of the park and up front, especially after what happened to (Khama) Billiat and Keagan Dolly. When Billiat had an injury, it seemed like there was no Plan B up front.
MQ: You could be right.
NK: I think another mistake which was made last season was that Chiefs failed to beef up Zwane's technical team. I think he did well in his first season as head coach and he is an… I call them 'interns'. Zwane was an intern and so was Dillon Sheppard last season, and they did not have enough technical support. Their playing philosophy at times was difficult to understand and they were just playing in patches. But if Chiefs had provided Zwane with enough support, I think over time they would have been able to achieve what they intended to achieve.
MQ: With the club boss seemingly taking a back seat and allowing his kids to run the show, shouldn't part of the blame go to them then?
NK: No, no, no, he's doing a good thing by handing over to the younger generation because I do understand that he is old now, but the way the handover is being done, like the ideas and energy, I think they still need broad guidance so that we don't talk about a Kaizer Chiefs that is declining but a club that remains a formidable force in South African football. I think he still needs to be more involved and provide that guidance so that the right decisions can be made. I think that the supporters themselves would like to see Chincha Guluva being more involved to the point that we see the club progressing and then he can step back again.
MQ: Zwane and Sheppard had Molefi Ntseki around them as the Head of Technical and Youth Development Academy. Were you not satisfied with that as he has since been also appointed the club's head coach?
NK: Well, with due respect to… I don't know him apart from the short stint he had with Bafana Bafana. I don't remember him coaching a PSL club in the past, but I know that he has the credentials because people have been talking about him and his coaching credentials. But remember, credentials are one thing and coaching experience is something else, and you need both. Yes, he might be there and providing that needed support, but if you consider that he doesn't have the experience of coaching in the PSL, it means to me that we had three interns. The technical director was an intern, the head coach was an intern and so was the assistant coach. So, they probably needed someone else in addition to Ntseki … not that I doubt his technical abilities, but someone with experience. If we had gotten more support, in my view we would have done better than we did last season.
MQ: What would make you a proud Amakhosi supporter?
NK: The first thing is that they need to rebuild the club. The nucleus of the club has to be made up of big-name players. You have to have a spine, which also includes coaches within the club. You need to have a core of experienced players. You need to have the core of experienced players in the striking department, middle of the park and in defence, and those should be the players that can form that nucleus I'm talking about. Around them, you can then have young players to build the club. The playing philosophy at Chiefs has become bad over the years and I don't know if it's a matter of confidence or what. Back in the day, you knew how we played because we played with flair. This thing of commercialising football… I listen to people when they are mesmerised and fascinated by how Messi is playing and how skilful he is and many other overseas players, but when we African players play with flair, because we have this colonial mindset, then we call it disrespect to the opponent. Because when European clubs come and play friendlies here, once you play with flair they say you disrespect and stuff, but when Messi plays, everyone is mesmerised, yet he does the same thing. South Americans have done well in football, but it's because it's true to their own philosophy and style of play. Here in South Africa, we try to play like robots. For an example, you can't beat Tottenham Hotspur if you are going to play direct football because English football is very direct and African football is different. Now you think South Africa can win the World Cup by trying to play like the Europeans… you won't succeed. I listen to these coaches saying that it's wasting time when we play the South African way, but players like Ace Ntsoelengoe, Doctor Khumalo, Ace Khuse and many others played like that and our league was full of skilful players. "Botsotso" Makhanya from Orlando Pirates and Tebogo Moloi and many others were those kinds of players. They played with flair and were productive and didn't waste possession. They knew how to use their skill to the advantage of their team. That's all that needs to be taught to our players because we get them coming from the township and playing with flair, but when they go to the Premier League, they must play like robots.
MQ: Hmmm, we reckon you could have made a very good football coach!
NK: (Laughs) Hopefully! One of the reasons I nearly turned professional in '97, Tata, was that there were teachers who had SAFA coaching licences and they used to coach us properly. So, when I was a goalkeeper, one of the things they used to focus on was the technical side of the game and that's why I was tactically aware. Take (Bruce) Bvuma for example, he's got the potential, but he loses concentration easily, (when it comes to) positional play he's got a bit of a problem and from a technical point of view he makes quite a number of mistakes, which should have been corrected by the coaches. When I watch football, I tend to be very critical of strikers and extremely critical of goalkeepers because I played in those positions. I tend to disagree on the notion that football has become faster, I think players now are not playing positive football and they play more to the back than to the front. Their build-ups are very slow and the only thing that is faster in our football it's the counter-attacks or transition play. Otherwise, modern football is boring.
MQ: Interesting. Before we wrap up, take us back to your playing days.
NK: There was a club called City Professionals, it was based in Keiskammahoek. Back in those days, football coaching clinics were fashionable and I remember coach Ted Dumitru used to conduct a lot of those, where they would go to rural areas to scout for players. We'd play regional tournaments and the scouts would pick players from those, and that's exactly what happened to me with the SuperSport issue. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be because a Translux bus that I had taken to go to the trials broke down on the road, so I ended up being late. Steve Crowley was a (goalkeeper) coach at SuperSport at the time and he had been a goalkeeper for Chiefs at some point. I tried to explain the situation to him and he said what happened to me was unfortunate but they had already selected a goalkeeper out of the guys that were there for trials.
MQ: Quite unfortunate.
NK: I was born and bred in the Eastern Cape, e (in) Qoboqobo. I grew up in a rural area, like most black South African people. In those days, it was a luxury to go to the township and the city. I grew up playing rugby, soccer and cricket. Soccer was not very popular in the Eastern Cape at the time, but rugby and cricket were. We played rugby in the dusty streets and you were forced by the school to play rugby even if it was against your will.
MQ: UDM President Bantu Holomisa is also a Chiefs supporter. Do you ever get to talk about the club and football?
NK: (Laughs louder) We do, quite a lot, especially if we lose against Orlando Pirates. We get very annoyed and frustrated all the time as Chiefs supporters. I'm usually the one who calls him to vent. I'd be like, "Mgebe (Holomisa's clan name), ukufutshane ku (you are close to) Chincha Guluva, khawumxelele alungise le (please tell him to fix this) team maan." They call each other 'Madala', and he'd be like, "No, maan, ndizoke ndithethe naye (I'll talk to him), but he has retired."
MQ: Mr Kwankwa, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us about a club that's so close to your heart.
NK: Enkosi, mkhuluwa (Thank you, elder brother.
