O vaye grand Professor Mnandi!

SOMETIME tomorrow morning, masses will descend upon the town hall in Kwa-Thema, the township just a stone’s throw away from Springs in Ekurhuleni, for the three-hour long funeral service of former Kaizer Chiefs defender Siphiwe Mkhonza.

This after what should be a packed crowd at the FNB Stadium, for today’s Soweto derby would have – along with the Amakhosi and Orlando Pirates squads and match officials – held a moment’s silence before kick-off in honour of the dearly departed Mkhonza.

As they did yesterday at the memorial service hosted at the SABC’s Radio Park, the mourners at tomorrow’s funeral will take to the podium and speak fondly of the man who was popularly known as Dr Mnandi, although he told me he had been elevated to being Professor Mnandi.

What the majority of those speakers would not be aware of is that the man whose life they celebrated (at the memorial service) and will be celebrating (at the funeral service) could have and should have died a while ago – on three separate occasions at least.

Such are the untold pressures of playing for a club as big as Chiefs that Mkhonza attempted suicide, not once, not twice but an incredible three times.

It was a shocking revelation made during a candid interview we had a while ago.

Siphiwe Mkhonza tried to take his own life more than once while he was playing for the country’s most supported club. Let that sink in South Africa. As you look in awe at these players that you so admire yet you often put such pressure on with your expectations – spare a thought for them given the mental challenges they go through in their efforts to please you and their sometimes thankless employers.

“When I got to Chiefs – iyoo groot man – I was excited. Siphiwe signed with Chiefs. Now, you are famous, all of a sudden. I want to believe that my dad (Joseph Mkhonza, a former Chiefs star from the eighties) was proud. But for about four, five even six years we never spoke. I did not feel sad (about the lack of father/son relationship) but I missed out on the guidance. I missed out on that remote which would have said to me ‘Chiefs is not (Golden) Arrows. It is not (Bloemfontein) Celtic.”

And so it was that when pressure came to bear on him, Mkhonza had no clue how to deal with it.

“I am one of those who did not do anything at Chiefs,” he strangely admitted. “Adaptation was hard. My mind was fragile. The stress, the demands, the responsibility of playing for Chiefs – I got caught up in it and did not cope. After games (matches) I was generally injured, so I was always at hospital. I was fragile and my fragility came from my background. I essentially raised myself – I had no one to correct me or criticise me as a youngster.”

Mkhonza said his parents were divorced when he was young and having initially lived with his mother, he later on went to stay with his father who ‘did not have time for me’ – so much so that ‘I became a street-kid and was helped by Jazzman (Matlhakgane) who took me in as he was my coach at Katlehong City’.

Fast forward to his time at Chiefs – this after he’d captained just about every club (Celtic, Ria Stars, Arrows) he played for – and that lack of correction from early on told.

“Then you get to Chiefs where you are heavily criticized – by the fans, the coach and the management sometimes. That’s when I realised I was not strong enough. When they criticised me, I went into a shell. Every Monday when the team lost at the weekend, I’d be blamed by the media. ‘Why did Chiefs sign Mkhonza’ (the headlines would say) and then the fans are instigated by what they read, and they make you aware that ‘u ya s’dlisa’. I come from a background (playing for small clubs) where I was the leader, and no one really criticised.”

It made sense then that the criticism at Chiefs got to him.

“I wanted to play, but when I was on the pitch I didn’t want to play. I didn’t want the ball because I didn’t want to make a mistake. I had a chat with the chairman (Kaizer Motaung) and he told me not to worry about the criticism. He was very supportive.”

But then Ted Dumitru (the late Chiefs coach) left and things fell apart for Mkhonza.

“(Ernst) Middendorp came in and that one he does not care about man-management. He does not call you aside and hug you (like Ted did). He was very aggressive. I wanted out. I wanted to leave.”

Things got worse before he could leave though.

“The first time I tried to commit suicide was after I made a mistake against (Jomo) Cosmos and Calvin Kadi went on to score. We still won that match, but afterwards the coach (Middendorp) told me I was not a Chiefs player. I thought I was okay, but when I got home – I was staying alone at the time – I felt like I was the black sheep of the defence because we conceded goals every time I played. I had no support. So, I got home from Orkney (where the match against Cosmos was played) and I locked the house up, switched the phone off and took so many pills. I fainted. But I woke up in the morning and I was like ‘I am alive, this did not happen’. I did not try to get help, and I did not tell anyone (about the attempted suicide).”

Months later, Mkhonza scored an own goal against Platinum Stars.

“I scored an own goal in that match. It was very tough. Everybody was on top of me, the players were like ‘ndoda you made a blunder. U ya s’dlisa’. The media hammered me; the analysts that I now work with at the SABC hammered me. But it (the own goal) was a deflection. Yet, because it was me it became a high-profile own goal and the aftermath of making a big mistake at Chiefs – it’s either deliver ndoda or phuma. Fortunately Shoes (the late John Moshoeu) stood up for me.”

With no psychological help that the current players enjoy, albeit not as much here at home as in Europe, Mkhonza again found himself alone and under pressure, stressed out, feeling the best way out was to end it all.

“But I am scarred and bruised. This was too much and so with the stress I have; I tried the second time. This time I cut my veins here on my arms – with a sharp knife. Remember those knives called Rambo, I had it and I used it.”

I could not help but laugh a little as Mkhonza said this and I responded: “I thought it was white people who slit their wrists, black people hang themselves my bra.”

He chuckled before explaining further.

“It was very painful (physically) but my heart and emotional dynamics are (were) in a different space. I wanted to end it all. I fainted. I was staying alone then too. There was so much blood in the sitting room. And then ‘I am alive again’. Must I go to the hospital? No, they will tell Chiefs. So I decided to put the bandage over the cuts.”

Again he does not tell anyone, but physio Dave Milner realises that his bandages and plasters are bloodied and gets the club doctor (the late Phil Maepa) to have a chat with Mkhonza.

“Dr Maepa said to me, ‘Boy, talk to me, what’s happening? You are not yourself.’ I just told him it was tough and from there on he took on some kind of father figure role for me.”

But it was only so much Maepa could do. Mkhonza went on to try and take his life a third time.

“The third one was the strangest. I (deliberately) knocked a tree,” Mkhonza recalls. “Back then I was driving a Golf five GTI (the new ones then).”

The lead up to the third suicide attempt was typical local football story. A player reads in the papers that he is being sent to train with the junior teams but the club denies it, only for them to later instruct him to do exactly that.

“I remember Bobby Motaung called me aside and said, ‘Your contract is up for renewal so go train with the juniors.’ Me, Scara Ngobese, Gert Schalkwyk, David Mathebula and Gerald Sibeko were meant to go train with the juniors.”

But Mkhonza would have none of it: “I said no, I am a national team player. Why should I go to train with the kids? I said there’s no way I am going there, if that’s the case I might as well close the curtain (on my Chiefs career).”

Muhsin Ertugral was the coach then and in one pre-season session he formed two sides – the one that was clearly going to be his regular starting eleven and the reserves. Mkhonza was with the reserves and captained them.

“We were hammering that senior team and during the match, Muhsin – using a loudspeaker– tells me to swop with Cyril (Nzama). While we were swopping my team scores and Muhsin started swearing at me. He says to me, ‘You think you are a big star.’ I had to respond. He was sitting in the stand, and I went towards him, pointed at him and said, ‘I am not a f#$&@n youngster’. Bobby told me that’s not how a Chiefs player must behave, and I knew that day was my last day at Kaizer Chiefs. (Sure) the chairman wanted me in there, but the coach wanted me out. I did not want to leave Chiefs like that because I felt I had not done anything at Chiefs to validate me. We trained twice that day, but in the afternoon session I did not.”

Reflecting on the day’s events on the way home, Mkhonza again felt it was better to take a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

“As I was driving home, negativity came in, and when I got to Ruimsig I went straight into the tree. I was driving about 80 or 90km per hour and the airbag hit me so hard I fainted. I thought I was dead but then I heard people shouting, some saying who I was. Can you imagine what it would have been if it was during this time of social media? I heard the sirens of the ambulance and they took me to hospital where I recovered.”

He left Chiefs thereafter and his career took on a journeyman route as he had yearly stints at all of SuperSport United, Maritzburg United, AmaZulu and Black Leopards.

He became more popular after he hung up his boots and joined the SABC as a football analyst, his township speak a hit with the viewers. He was in that position until he breathed his last on Tuesday at he age of 45.

O vaye grand Professor Mnandi!