A fond farewell to a real football fanatic, Bra Stan

Matshelane Mamabolo

“I AM not afraid to f**k up a journalist!”

Bra Stan was not joking, and I knew it. After all, he had done it before.

I moved closer to him, our thighs touching as we sat on the mini grandstand, in an attempt to make sure he had no room to throw a punch.

Fortunately, there were cameras – Spanish and German media – aplenty at the training ground and, because he had said those menacing words out loud, they all panned away from the pitch towards where the voice came from.

I did not get f****d up, but it was a close shave – and my second such encounter at the man’s hands.

We were in Korea during the 2002 Fifa World Cup, and colleague Carl Peters and I had co-written an article that Safa did not take kindly to. Stanley ‘Screamer’ Tshabalala, who died on Thursday aged 75 after succumbing to injuries he sustained back in March when burglars shot him at his home, was tasked with putting us in our place.

Tshabalala was a part of coach Jomo Sono’s bloated technical team which was referred to as ‘Special Projects’ and he, along with Durban administrator Joe Nkosi and media officer the late Sello Rabothata, told us in no uncertain terms that they would not tolerate “any shit” from us.

Bra Stan was particularly focused on me, believing – as most administrators did back then – that whatever ‘negative articles’ I was writing were because I was ‘being used by the whites at The Star’.

Years later, Bra Stan and I got on well and sometimes looked back on our ‘fights’ with laughter.

The one in Korea was not the first – he had threatened to beat me up during his time as a technical director at Kaizer Chiefs.

Stanley "Screamer" Tshabalala.

Thank you "Bro Stan" for being a great storyteller. We laughed as we learnt about your and other football players' experiences.

You did more than just tell stories; you contributed immensely to South African football as a player, coach,… pic.twitter.com/29xGhMrkPQ

— Monwabisi Kete 🇿🇦 (@MonwabisiKete) July 11, 2024

A coach through and through, Bra Stan just never could stay away from the team and because of that he had run-ins with Paul Dolezar.

The Yugoslav-born Frenchman told me: “Jacob, that man Screamer beat me up” in an argument, and I wrote as much.

Then, in one midweek match against Umtata Bucks at Ellis Park, the two had a clash when Bra Stan went to the dressing room during half-time and coached.

The team was divided, with some players listening to the technical director and others to the coach. Chiefs duly lost that match and I got wind of what had transpired and reported on it.

Bra Stan was apparently counting my ‘misdemeanours’.

As Chiefs’ technical director, he sat on the bench, and in a match against SuperSport United at Rand Stadium, he and Shane MacGregor got into a fight during half-time. The duo’s bad blood apparently dated to way back when Tshabalala was the Bafana Bafana coach and excluded the then top striker from the team.

Someone told me there was a fight and I rushed to the tunnel just before the second half kicked off to investigate. Bra Stan and Louis Tshakoane, then Chiefs’ PRO, had already made their way to the bench, and after hearing from SuperSport, I did the journalistic thing and approached the Chiefs bench to get their side.

Bra Stan gave me a ‘don’t you dare’ look and voiced it out so that there was no misunderstanding between us.

“Wa qala ne Matshelane. O batla ho ngwala masepa a o a ngwalang kanna akere? Ke tlo o shapa!”. (’Matshelane, you are starting now. You want to write the shit you have been writing about me. I am going to beat you up!’)

I naively protested, telling him: “Bra Stan, I just wanted your side of the story.”

He got agitated and Tshakoane warned me to leave before I got beaten up. I heeded the advice and left, but knew to rush down to the tunnel just before the final whistle. And as luck would have it, I saw him and Shane slugging it out, but then got restricted by the two clubs’ personnel.

“I will f**k you up, Shane!” Bra Stan shouted as they were being separated, pointing a threatening finger at his adversary.

Lest you start thinking that’s all he did, you’d be mistaken. While he took ‘no shit’ from anyone and was quick to throw that hook he learnt from his boxing days as a youngster – the great journalist Sy Lerman knows it only too well – Bra Stan was a great coach, a talent scout, a football fanatic, and a fascinating man all round.

Prior to those threats, Bra Stan had given me my second ever scoop as a journalist. A talent scout of note, he was the one who spotted Malawian defender Patrick Mabedi and signed him for Chiefs.

He’d developed a good relationship with my senior Billy Cooper, whom he had wanted to ‘fuck up’ along with Lerman as he felt the two “whities” were against him as Bafana coach. Upon signing Mabedi, he called our office to give Billy the story, but ‘Scoops’ was not around and he invited me to Taung Village in Naturena and told me to “bring a photographer”.

A young me got to write a back page lead for The Star on a major Chiefs signing thanks to Bra Stan and that helped put my name on the soccer journalism map.

I got to know him better when he was national team manager during trips with Bafana, and I have vivid memories of evenings spent in many a hotel lobby listening to Bra Stan regaling us with funny tales from his vast football experiences.

It was somewhat surreal to know Bra Stan personally. After all, this was a man I’d grown up admiring, watching him on TV when he was coach of that great Mamelodi Sundowns side of the late 1980s to early 1990s. I still have vivid memories of Screamer resplendent in the trademark green tracksuit pants and white golf shirt, his beard and hair so unkempt that he would have passed for a mad man, as he cajoled his team to victories.

I can still hear his voice as he called out my name, ‘Matshelane!’ Whether he was threatening to ‘f**k me up’, just greeting me at the stadium or answering my call, there was something endearing about how he did that.

O robale ka kgotso Bra Stan. Lala kahle Mshengu.

Thank you for the beautiful memories. Thank you for your immense contribution to South African football.