Let's do it one last time this week. We had a good laugh over the last two weeks with your stories from Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila and Bloemfontein Celtic, where you had the outspoken Patrick Tignyemb shouting at players and management, ha, ha, ha.
I'm telling you, Patrick was a funny guy. That guy would come to training or the games with three iPads, laptops, PlayStation… all these gadgets… and you would wonder why he had so many things. Imagine, ha, ha, ha! I used to wonder how he would be able to pay attention to all those things. If he was not on a video call, he would be on the other phone, ha, ha, ha.
It's called multitasking…
And then on the other side, he had his iPads and his laptop. You would swear he was a youngster, but he would buy all those things. He used to like saying he is a businessman from Cameroon, ha, ha, ha. It's been a long time since I spoke to him. I think it's been about three years because he moved back to Cameroon.
Well, it would certainly be easy to get hold of him with all his iPads and laptops, ha, ha, ha. But, let's move on.
When I was at Maritzburg (United), (Brandon) Theron and I used to argue about so many things. If we were not arguing about who was better between Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, we would argue about which club was better between Manchester United and Liverpool. Sometimes we would even bet. He is the biggest Liverpool supporter and I support Man United. Because we used to stay together, we would bet on who would win and the loser would have to wash the dishes or buy the bread on our way back from training or buy lunch, ha, ha, ha.
Those are interesting bets. We thought you would bet money.
Remember last season Man United lost 7-0 to Liverpool? Imagine the trauma I was going through that time. He did not stop talking about it. I had to wait for Man United to play Liverpool again for me to start talking about football. Whenever I would open my mouth to talk about football, he would just say, "Seven! Seven!" Anything I said, he would say, "Seven!" I was defeated even before starting any conversation about football, ha, ha, ha. He was always on my case.
Ha, ha, ha. We can imagine the difficulty you went through after that heavy defeat for Man United. With the Ronaldo and Messi argument, who would win?
So, I am Ronaldo, he was Messi. You know how those debates go. But when Messi won the World Cup, it was difficult. Whatever I would say, he would bring up the World Cup, so I knew that I would not win the argument. I was just defeated when I had the argument with him. There was nothing I could do or say. But I am still a Ronaldo fan. Brandon is such a character. We used to just tease each other a lot, ha, ha, ha. Whenever he was not around, you could feel it because of his character. I called him "Tander" because he has no teeth in front and then he would call me "Kopano" because he says I have a big head, ha, ha. I have so many videos of Brandon on my TikTok because he would just start dancing when you didn't expect it. And he is so loud! He is that kind of guy.
It seems you two had such a good time together. What else do you want to share with us?
Another character I know is Zola (Luthuli, Maritzburg United kit manager). He is a funny guy, and he loves clothing brands, ha, ha, ha. One thing about him is that he loves wearing Puma. You would swear he is one of the ambassadors of Puma because whenever there is something new from Puma, he would get it and you would wonder if he has a contract with Puma, ha, ha, ha. We used to think he was the first kit manager to be the ambassador of Puma, ha, ha, ha. But he would also act like he was an ambassador, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha. We actually had him on In Touch quite recently and he had so many stories to share with us. Definitely a character that one, he's seen it all.
And he does not wear fake brands. Maybe people would think that he was wearing fake brands. I remember this one time I went with him to Gateway Mall. He went into the store. Maybe it was to show me that he does not buy fake things, ha, ha, ha. He is such a character. He has so many stories about his times with Manning Rangers and when he went to the World Cup (with Bafana Bafana) in 2002. There are so many of them!
Yes, that's true. ha, ha, ha. He shared so many of those stories with the Soccer Laduma readers and we had such a ball with him. Thank you so much for your time, Alfred. It's been good having you with us for three weeks. Good luck with your search for a club.
Thank you so much, my brother. It was great being with you and the Soccer Laduma readers.
By Tshepang Mailwane
IN TOUCH FUN FACTS
Nickname: Ali
Marital status: Married
Car: VW Golf GTi
Boots: Puma Future
Favourite teammate: Bongani Sam
Favourite Roommate: Brandon Theron
Favourite food: Umphokoqo (crumbly pap and amasi)
Favourite footballer: Thiago Silva
Best friend in football: I have friendships
