HBUFC’S VIEIRA

Early Days

I remember falling in love with football so clearly. I was 6 years old. My older brother, Zwai, and I would go and watch our uncle, who to this day I still regard as the best player I have ever seen. His name was Nceba, and at the time he played for Red Lions as a central midfielder. We lived in a small town in the Eastern Cape called Elliot, and as children, the highlight of our day was being allowed to carry Nceba’s boots to and from his games and training sessions. I really believe that if he had received better opportunities, he could have played at the highest level. You don’t believe me? You can even go ask people about Nceba Ntozini in IY (lmizamo Yethu) – they will tell you stories of his ability!

The first team I played for was called Mountain Lions, and I played as a right winger. When I turned 12, I moved from the Eastern Cape to Khayelitsha. Zwai had already moved a year before, and now it was my turn to join him to seek better opportunities both in football and for my education. We lived with an aunt of ours, but had quite a lot of other family members there too. It was like home away from home. In Khayelitsha, I began playing for a team called Mighty. My coach, a man called Custa, started playing me as a central midfielder, and soon after that, he made me captain of the team and gave me the nickname “Vieira”. I didn’t know any foreign players at the time, so I had no idea who Patrick Vieira was, but I liked the sound of the nickname and the way other people seemed to respect and regard him as a top player. When I did eventually find out just how good of a player he was, I was honoured to be nicknamed after him, and to this day, people still call me Vieira. Yes, I do support Arsenal.

I lost my parents

The following year was really tough. I was 13 years old, and my mother passed away. She died from breast cancer. It was a very sad time, and honestly, the day she died was the day I lost my father too. After her passing, he was never the same. He wasn’t a drinking man, but all alone and without my mother, alcohol was his only comfort. It destroyed his liver, and he died a slow, heartbroken death that lasted two years. At age 15, I had lost both parents. Zwai and I realised we needed to take care of each other. We needed to begin providing and we needed money. I decided to retire from football; the love was just not there anymore. I was a teenager, sucked into exploring bad habits, and my mind was all over the place. I wanted money, and I began doing anything I could to ensure I was able to help my younger brother and sister, who were now in Khayelitsha too. It started out with betting and playing street football games where Zwai and I would be paid, but it quickly escalated. I began dealing drugs, selling Tik.

Looking back, I really believe there is nowhere worse than a township when you start to walk down the wrong path.

Everything you need to destroy yourself is right in front of you – so easily accessible. Unfortunately, my role models at the time were the guys doing drugs, drinking too much, and robbing people, because they had money, and I did not. I wanted to be like them, to have everything – the nice clothes, food for my family, the attention from women. I wanted it all, so I fell into the trap. One of my friends, who I was at school with, was a runner for one of the drug dealers. I was starving with no money for food, whereas he had money, nice clothes, and everything he needed. I asked him to speak to the dealer to see if I could become a runner too. The way it works is like this: drug dealers have runners, generally young guys, still kids. The runners get given the drugs and have to sell them. They then return the money to the dealer, who gives them a piece of the pie. For two years, this was my life. I was attending school while running.

During this time, I was learning all of the tricks of the trade, the movements and strategies, while also being able to save a lot of money. After two years, I was tired of being a runner. I felt like I was able and confident enough to go straight to the supplier, thus becoming my own boss. Looking back, this was incredibly dangerous as this move created tension between the guy I used to run for and myself – we were now competing for the same customers. Honestly, I didn’t care. I thought I was too smart for anything bad to happen, and besides, I was now able to really start making some decent money to support myself and my family.

Back on Track

I was walking down a very dark path, and I soon realised that despite my efforts to help my family, not all of them saw it that way. When I turned 18, I got a visit from Uncle Nceba, the same uncle that was the reason I fell in love with football. He had moved to Cape Town too, and was staying in lmizamo Yethu, in Hout Bay. It had been great to be closer to him, but this time there was something different in the way he spoke to me. “When you started playing football and doing well; when you got given the nickname ‘Vieira’, how many young children looked up to you and wanted to be just like you?” I thought for a moment, and before I could say anything, he continued: “How many of those kids do you think you have now let down and disappointed?” His words rang in my ears, and they made perfect sense. I was doing something that I knew was wrong. I was killing my own people and profiting from it.

Shortly after that conversation, I stopped selling drugs and I found my love for football again. Zwai and I both needed a change, so we moved from Khayelitsha to lmizamo Yethu and began playing for Mighty Reds, an amateur club that takes its football very seriously. We weren’t getting paid to play, but we worked hard and were competitive – it was all for the love of the game! The day I joined the team, they brought in a new co-coach named Mzambiya. He was a great football man. Two games into my first season with them, he made me captain. I was back to my best, the Vieira of old was back on the pitch!

My HBUFC Journey Begins

In October 2014 came a very important day in my life. I was working as a horse groomer in Hout Bay with my cousin, and one day while at work, he told me that there was a new team in Hout Bay who had just bought a franchise to play in the Castle League (fourth tier of men’s football in South Africa). He said that they were hosting open trials that day at 5 pm and that I should go. At first, I was actually not interested, but after hearing that nearly all of Hout Bay’s players were going, including Zwai, I decided to give it a shot. Truthfully, the trial was a bit of a mess. I arrived at Hangberg’s astro turf that afternoon, and there were way too many players for that small pitch, around 300 in total, who had come from all over Cape Town to try and get into this new team. I wasn’t used to open trials. It is a very high-pressure environment in which you get very little time to impress, especially when so many players attend. I realised if I was going to get in, I had to play smart. I would call for the ball at every opportunity to try and showcase my ability. At the end of day one, they cut the squad down to 60 players. I was one of the 60. On day two, it went from 60 to 40. Again, I was part of the 40. Finally, on day three, the coaches and directors called us in and explained that the final squad would have 25 players. The technical director was a guy called Jan Pruijn (former technical director of Ajax Cape Town and Head Coach of NEC Nijmegen), and the head coach was Ricciardo Phillips, a legend in the Hangberg football community, who I had played against on a few occasions in various tournaments. They must have seen something in me as a player, perhaps my “play smart” approach worked, as I was named as part of the 25 players selected to represent HBUFC in their inaugural season. I was thrilled! It wasn’t about money; it was about being able to play at a higher level. I now had the opportunity that my uncle Nceba never had, and I was going to take it.

In our first season, we were almost relegated, and by the end of the season, we only had 12 players. It was a disaster. The second season was the same. We avoided relegation on goal difference and again ended the season with just 12 players. When it had ended, Jan Pruijn asked Zwai and me to try and bring some more hardworking, committed players to join the team. I immediately thought of my friend Sosa (Sonwabile Mbiko), who was playing for Hout Bay Sundowns. The team managed to bring in a few more signings, including a new head coach, Bradley August. Bradley had played for Bafana Bafana and in Europe. He had vast experience and brought a rigid, simple approach to football which saw our fortunes change very quickly. We won promotion that season, and it was an incredible journey! I honestly think that promotion-winning side was the best team HBUFC has ever had. We were not getting paid like players do in the league now, but we were hungry. There was such a deep love for football in that squad. We absolutely loved it, and we would die for each other on the field!

A move to the sidelines

I started coaching while I was still playing for the first team. We ran a programme called Saturday Rainbow. The idea was that every Saturday morning, we would coach and create a space for young players to come and play football, and that everyone and anyone was welcome to attend. Players from different clubs in Hout Bay could come to play and receive extra coaching that would hopefully improve their development. This proved very successful, and soon afterwards, we began running another programme called Rainbow Football, which involved us working in different primary schools in the different communities of Hout Bay, such as Disa and Moravian from lmizamo Yethu, Kroenendal in the valley, and Sentinel in Hangberg. We would bring the kids from these schools together and mix the teams so that they were forced to play with each other. This enabled these kids to integrate with each other, uniting the youngest generations from the different communities. We would coach them and provide the space for them to play and have fun, but through these programmes, we had immediate access to Hout Bay’s most promising young players, and we began building relationships with them. A few months later, Jeremy approached me and said that we needed to build our own youth teams, from U12 to U18, with players that would be formally registered to play for HBUFC. He said that he’d already ordered kits and that he wanted the first-team players to become coaches for the youth teams, thus acting as role models for the young players. I was tasked with approaching the best players from the programmes we had been running to see if they were interested in formally joining HBUFC. Funnily enough, there are players who still currently play for HBUFC who were part of these initial youth squads, with one of them, former firstteam right-back, Gamat, being the first to make it into our Elite Men’s team, while Gift and Litha still currently play for our U16 and U18 teams respectively. These players are long-term investments!

I didn’t choose to stop playing football, I was retired … stopping is always tough when you are a footballer, but thankfully by this time I had already been coaching for a while and was seeing the game from the other side (the touchline). I had this new perspective on the game, and I was excited to continue on my journey with football and with HBUFC. I was given the opportunity to coach the HBUFC U16 HPL team in 2020. When I took over, there were only 5 players registered with us. I went and found all of the old players I used to coach when they were just 8 years old from the Saturday Rainbow and Rainbow Football programmes. Within a week, I had a squad of 22. Halfway through the season, Ryan Botha joined us, and I became his assistant coach. He had experience playing in Europe and was doing his UEFA B licence, so his understanding of how to interact with players from different backgrounds was good. We worked very well together, and I learnt a lot from him. That season, we were the best HBUFC team in the academy in terms of results, and consequently, Ryan was offered the head coach role for the first team.

During this time, I was working as a front manager for Thrive Gym through the HBUFC Employment Hub in the mornings and coaching the U16s in the evenings. When Ryan was offered the head coach role for the first team, he spoke to the management team and requested that I become his assistant coach. I was happy that this was what he wanted as I had a really great working relationship with him, but Jeremy had another plan. “We want you to come in and shadow Mike (Darby) as the team manager, not a coach,” he said to me. “Mike is going to be moving into the CEO role for FTIFA Cape Town (Fleetwood Town International Football Academy, also based at our HQ, the Dream Factory), and I want someone to be HBUFC first-team manager who has a deep connection to the organisation and has been part of it since the beginning”. I was perfect for this role. I began with my management role, but immediately Ryan got me involved on the pitch as well, so I was able to do what was required of me while being able to do what I love and be with the guys on the grass.

HBUFC Elite Men’s Team Manager

My job entails all of the operational aspects that go towards creating and maintaining a successful football team. I am responsible for making sure players are at training every day, transport has been arranged, equipment is available, food is prepared – I have to think of everything. I have been in this role for three years now, working under two great coaches in Ryan (for two years) and Borja (last season). This season, with Michael Loftman as the new HBUFC head coach, I have seen a change in the level of professionalism that the whole organisation has adopted. My role hasn’t changed, but the standards to which we all work have gotten higher, and the hours have gotten longer! We’re all really motivated and moving towards our goal of winning the league this season. Five years from now, we’ll be in the PSL!

I like to think that right now, I am once again setting a good example for any kids who look up to me, and that through my work in football and the opportunities I have received, I am making my family, and in particular Nceba, proud.

Peace & Love,
HBUFC