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A year after Africa's historic World Cup Empower-Sport Magazine details the innovative thoughts of Dancing Shoes, Bernard Hartze, on South Africa's failures and the need for a drastic solution to encourage all races to play the beautiful game. His spell in charge of the Western Cape Sports School's Vodacom League team was unsuccessful - the team was relegated. Hartze is currently out of football.
Editor.
Satish Sekar: When did you first start playing football? Bernard Hartze: I started very late – maybe at the age of 12. SCS: But you came through very,very quickly. Within three years you'd made your début? BH: That's correct yes. We played what was termed occasional football in our early days, you know at school level. My first football club was at the age of 12. SCS: But at 15 you were playing first team football at the top level in South Africa. How did that come about? BH: Well I suppose I was an exception to other players. I filtered though very fast. I don't know. I had speed I suppose on my side and a lot of ball skills. SCS: Some people [Boebie Williams Yazeed Lawrence, among others] say you were the best South African player they've ever seen. How do you feel about that and who are your best South African players? BH: Well to be honest, it's truly an honour to think that you featured so high in this huge arena, but one of my best players was Albert Johanneson. He was truly one of our best footballers here and then there was quite a number of players here. In the Indian community they had Links Parriachi – brilliant footballer. We had Lichya Modli. There was quite a number of players if I can go back and these are players that didn't come to the fore like the others, but having said that, there was quite a number of good players in my day that I cannot tell you exactly who they are, but I know that these are some of them. Players that were also good was Kaiser N'tayunke the Kaiser Chiefs boss and Chipper Molloy. These were brilliant players. SCS: How did you actually break through, given the constraints of apartheid in those days? BH: It wasn't easy, because we so much wanted to be part of the international arena, which we never had that opportunity. In my day, before my time and became a matured player, they divided South Africa up into race groups and in soccer as well – competition. Like we have here the black group, the white group, the coloured group and the Asian group, so you can represent South Africa in that group and in my time when I was a matured player that fell away. We're not going to go with this, supporting apartheid, so I couldn't represent even the coloured community, which I was identified as, so then I went to Leeds United. I started at Sundowns and then I went to Leeds. While I was at Leeds I was told I had to have seven caps for my country for them to take me on; otherwise I had to serve more than a year of apprenticeship, which I though at the time I was too young to do that and I was 16 years old and homesick and for that I was to go home. Unlike Albert Johanneson he could represent South Africa on numerous occasions he did that for the coloured group only and I suppose that was accepted that he could play for Leeds. SCS: You were also coloured. Why couldn't you play for the South African coloured team? BH: By then it was abolished. When I was a matured player they no longer had that, so I couldn't represent my country even as a coloured player, so that fell away. So then they said to me at Leeds that I had to have seven caps in order for me to stay in England. SCS: You then came back to South Africa and became involved I believe with the Orlando Pirates, then a ground-breaking non-racist team... BH: Correct. I played for Orlando Pirates and we were quite a nice mixture of players and then after two years with them the government stepped in and said, 'No, if you are going to persist playing mixed football, then we will no longer give you the municipality stadiums,' and on those basis Pirates said to us: 'Look where are we going to play? We have to offload you guys.' At that time we were 5 or 6 coloured players in the squad of Orlando Pirates. SCS: Before that you were actually risking arrest. Players were risking arrest to even play, but fans protected you. How did that come about? How long did that last? BH: Well it lasted for a while, but then they started having road-blocks before a match and we thought it's not healthy any more, but when the threat came, if any coloured player should be playing for Orlando Pirates, they will ban them from using Municipality Stadium and that's when Orlando Pirates decided on their own to ask us to leave. SCS: Eventually you went to the USA. Did you fight against the racism that you found there as well as here [South Africa]? BH: Well at the time I didn't experience the same kind of racism in the United States as we had here, so it wasn't visible like you can clearly see in South Africa, because you were just banned from using the same restaurants for example. SCS: Eventually, your playing career ended. What did you do then ? BH: Well I went into coaching. I did just about every football course that was presented by SAFA [South African Football Association], and I started coaching. I coached school levels, club level, street level, but at the time I was funding myself for three years and I couldn't sustain myself any more and I had to move away from that. I coached clubs here and there. The one club I coached was a PSL team called Maga City, who was a brand new franchise. I stayed for something like 12 games. I left the club on 11 points; there was another long stretch to go before the end of the season, but there was just a bunch of businessmen who bought the franchise, but not wanting to spend on players and I on my own got players from other clubs who wanted to off-load players and I put the team together. They didn't want to give me players and they had five coaches after me as I had agreement that I would terminate my contract. They had five coaches after me and collectively they picked up one point with the same team and I by myself collected eleven points which was called a bad team. Having said that I went on to coach at PSL clubs in a junior capacity just to sustain me, so that's how I became a coach. SCS: What was the contribution of Indian footballers both to football in South Africa and the struggle against apartheid and non-racial football? BH: Well in my day Indian football was as normal as any other football, but it's a clear situation that the change of government made football look like it's become predominantly one-sided. The other race-groups just disappeared and this is the gripe we have right now in this country that people feel that it's another form of apartheid, because the other race groups are not completely included into the soccer arena, so this is something that needs to be ironed out. SCS: What do you think needs to be done to help bring Indian, Asian and even disadvantaged players through? BH: Well I do believe that the various groups, Asians – when I say Asian I talk about Chinese, Indians – basically them. They need to be embraced. They need to be encouraged to come back by forming coaching structures in their rural areas, get support from businesses, get support from some other body which is SAFA, which is something I will highlight when I go to the next SAFA meeting. I want to talk seriously about that, because in my day we had brilliant Asian players – brilliant. SCS: My organisation Empower-Sport has a programme called Empowering Football and Disadvantaged Communities and you were approached about it and liked the idea. What attracted you to that particular idea. BH: It's a novel idea. I think it's exactly what we need right now. It's something that we need. Like I said it's something that we need to address on a higher level on a big scale, so that we have holistic participation – everybody to be part of this system. That's what I feel your organisation plays a critical role in the way forward to change the mindsets. Otherwise we lose great talent that's never been used and they are out there. SCS: Regarding the World Cup, what are your perceptions on why South Africa didn't do as well as you would have hoped. BH: Well, regarding the World Cup, I think South Africa needs right now to be serious about their development – their development structure. They need to pump money into that and then they will see the benefit in later years. Work on our shortcomings right now. They can have the best coaches in the world right now, it won't make a difference. It's about having the right players. A coach cannot work if he hasn't got the right tools, so I feel more so in the striking area. We are not scoring goals. We are always lacking in strikers and we are still looking at players like Benni McCarthy and Benni clearly has made enough money I would say and is not that keen in getting himself into top shape again or rather lose weight to be part of that arena and he is comfortable, so we have to look. Also Benni is going into his 30s so we need to look at youth development and this is where South Africa should be looking to. They should be looking serious and deep into developing our youth and I think even with your input with the different groups Asians and the other groups we will be able to put strikers in place in the next three to five years definitely in the big arena, but we need serious help in that area – that is funding etc. SCS: There was a coloured Federation. Were you actually part of that? BH: No there wasn't a Coloured Federation. There was a Professional Soccer League at the time and this was a multi-racial league, but if you talk about the Coloured Federation that was probably in the apartheid days and I was maybe too young for that, so in my time we had a Mixed League, which was called the Professional Soccer League and they stood for anti-Apartheid and basically that was the situation. SCS: You currently work I the VodaCom League for the WCSS [Western Cape Sport School]. Why there and what was your motivation? BH: Well this also fits in with our future plan. They have a structure. They have facilities. They have a team that can play in the higher arena, not just at school level and I feel that with that structure we can put in place what we envisage and that is starting now, so that could be a good vehicle for us. SCS: Have you seen any young players that you believe will make it in top football – in Europe or anywhere they want to play. BH: Yes I've seen quite a number of them and I believe that with a bit more help, a bit more coaching, we can definitely place them in the future in those structures. They are in the age-group of 16-17 years old and that makes a huge difference for them to develop even further, so the potential is there. I think we've got a good chance of sending them to various clubs. SCS: Which players in particular? BH: I would say there is Shane Petersen; there is a boy by the name of Bantshi, there is Marco Swain; we have got two good goalkeepers – they are your younger players – and there are boys over twenty already and they are brilliant as well and they can I believe, given the opportunity, go overseas and play anywhere. SCS: Of the current generation of players which ones attract our admiration or appreciation? BH: The current generation of players I would say between 17 and 20 we have some great potential. They are fortunate in that age group that the world arena of soccer has changed so much that there is everything available including finance for them to do well, so that in itself is motivation for them to do well. I just read an article in a British paper that one of the legends of England [Nobby Stiles] wants to sell all his memorabilia in order to leave something for his family. They were earning in the World Cup £1000 and of which after tax they got £650 compared to what the players are earning today, so the boys have got everything to play for today. There is no lack of finance at international level as well as club level. SCS: In 1994 there was the first democratic election in South Africa. Two years later South Africa hosted and won the ACN. Has football finally opened up to people of all races or is there still a distance to go? BH: There's still a huge distance to go. I believe if we can be honest with ourselves and we talk of other sports codes we say we must have a quota system to allow black players into their quota system. I think currently we should do that with soccer too. Where's the Asians players? Where's the coloured players? One or two here and there; and where's the white players? So I believe that if we can be fair and honest, South Africa can have the same team if not better than the one that won the African Cup of Nations the first time out, because it was a nice mixture of players. SCS: You mentioned the quota system. South Africa's been down that road in cricket. How successful was it in cricket and is that why you think it can work in football? BH: It worked in cricket. It worked in rugby and I believe it can work in football as well. SCS: Thank you. |
