The TRUTH: Ajax Cape Town coach ROGER DE SA on Cecil Lolo's funeral: the grief, the pain, the LIES

ROGER THAT: De Sa's tweet on the day of Cecil Lolo's tragic death

ROGER DE SA left home for Cecil Lolo’s funeral at 6am in the morning. He returned home at midnight on Sunday exhausted and depressed. Now he is angry. Fuming.

Cecil Sonwabile Lolo was the “True Warrior” in De Sa’s Urban Warriors, a man who emerged from nowhere, with nothing, to become a professional footballer. His death at the age of 27 in a car accident two weeks ago left Ajax Cape Town, part of one of the world’s largest footballing franchises, shattered.

This morning, when De Sa took the side for their first training session since last Friday, Lolo’s seat in the dressing room was left empty and covered in flowers. De Sa says: “That’s how the players felt about Cecil. He was popular, he was respected by all.”

Which is why De Sa is eager to end the witch-hunt orchestrated by Robert Marawa and ANC MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Pemmy Majodina after the funeral. De Sa rubbishes claims the players were banned from attending, he points out that Majodina was nearly as late for the funeral as he was and asks WHY DIDN’T ROBERT MARAWA ATTEND?

I’ll leave Roger to tell his story:

“Neal, all this “we didn’t care about Lolo” is pure bullshit. Let me start at the beginning. The day he died. Devastating. We did’t know what to do.

“We sit with the family. Three little kids from two moms who live with his mother. The player has no insurance, nothing whatsoever. No funeral plan. NOTHING. So our chairman Ari Efstathiou says we’ll provide an educational trust for kids, least we can do.

“Then let’s look after the family. His mother and other people he looked after. About eight of them. We have to look after them too. Help them recover from Cecil’s death, they all lived off his money.

“But for the kids (a daughter of six months, two boys of 5 and 8), let’s get a proper education. No company would do that, you know that Neal. We are doing everything we can here.

“Then we retire the number 21. His shirt. We’ll never use it again. Nobody’s ever done that, not even for Senzo.

“We name a stand after him. Did Pirates do that? Then there’s the memorial service in Khayalitsha, his base, his place, where he lived with his family.

“That’s followed (last Friday) by a memorial service for all supporters at our base, Ikamva. And yes, all of our players were involved in both memorials, they said their farewells, they cried, they cared.

“We are always in contact with the family, said we’ll help with funeral arrangements. They wanted to go somewhere remote in Eastern Cape. That wasn’t ideal for us but we had to respect it. We paid coffin, funeral, food, in the region of R50,000.

“We do all that. The one thing I don’t like thinking, and Ari is too scared to say, is everyone is saying the club stopped the players from going. That’s bullshit. I went. Last training session was Saturday morning, next one was today. We’d never stop anyone from going.

“They’re trying to say club stopped people from going. That not true. Some Chippa United players went, they were local. But there was nobody from the PSL, SAFA, no other club. For me to get there, I left at 6am got home after 11pm. How do you expect everybody to get there?

“It was a real trip. First we flew from Cape Town to East London, drove to Butterworth 120km. I thought that was it but then there was the drive to the village (Chebe in Centane).

“Neal, you’re English. You've got no idea, a dust road for about 50km, not even a four-by-four can go on that thing, we crossed river, water, rocks. And all of it in an Avis rental car, it must be buggered.

“We managed to get there 12.30, the funeral had started, we already told the mother we’d be late, she respected that.

“We were there. Listened to a couple of speeches. Then the minister started the real thing. Coffin was carried, Cecil was buried. After that we had to leave, needed three hours to get back to airport. We spoke to the father and the mother. We did everything we could.

“I hear stories Ajax stopped players from attending, all this hogwash. This minister arrived 45 minutes before me, having a political go. Using it as a political tool. DA against ANC. Majodina her name was. She looked disappointed when we got there.

“It’s about Lolo, not politics. Nobody stopped anyone from going, the club felt that’s what they were going to do from the beginning. The family chose the burial site, what more do you want?

“I have to ask. Why didn’t Robert Marawa go? I was there. Some close friends of his were there. But some people just can’t get there. That’s life today, you know what I mean.

“Everyone’s climbing on a bandwagon, trying to be all cultural, it’s very disappointing. Ari is trying to protect the players, obviously they didn’t go. No player came and asked to come because they knew where it was.

“Two memorial services, armbands, minute’s silence, we even stopped the match to clap in the 21st minute. All these things were done. Lolo’s seat is empty in the dressing room with flowers on it. We’re going to put a picture up. We respected his culture.

“I saw a picture of Senzo’s grave the other day, he doesn’t even have a grave stone yet. All the people who are having a go, these soccer journalists who never played football, where were they? Did they pay their respects?

Cecil was “The Real Warrior” to me. We had a very good relationship. I was devastated. It only sank in when I got to the parent’s home in the morning. It hit me.

“You go through it, feel every tear, yet here people are lying about players not being allowed to attend the funeral. What kind of story is that?”

Should any media houses/sites wish to use excerpts from this EXCLUSIVE story, feel free, just credit. And stop trying to capitalise on Cecil Lolo's death.

UPDATE: November 11: This story has been used by Kickoff, The Citizen, News24 and The Times.

FOR BALANCE:
1 What Cecil's dad says: http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/lolos-dad-feels-let-down-by-ajax/


2 What Senzo's dad says: http://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/soccer/2015/11/11/Senzo-Meyiwas-dad-furious-at-Khoza-for-going-public-with-insurance-payout

Anaso Jobodwane takes on Usain Bolt tonight: but he nearly missed out on London

Right on track: Jobodwane and Bolt last night

ANASO JOBODWANE finds himself listed among the eight fastest men on the planet over 200m tonight at 21.55 South African time – but he very nearly missed out on the London Olympics altogether.

The 20-year-old from King William’s Town heralded a revolution in South African sprinting last night when he chased double-100m gold medallist Usain Bolt to the line in the 200m semi-final, the only man to give the giant Jamaican a run for his money.
Afterwards he said: "I wasn't thinking about how tough it was racing against Bolt, I just wanted to run my own race. I ran the bend well, I'll have to look at the tape to see how I did. I was gunning for a semi-final, it's a bonus now. It was amazing to be on the tail of Usain Bolt. Beat him in the final? Hahaha! Next few years!"

Few expected that swift feat from Jobodwane after he spent most of 2011 out with injury – and was named as a “late addition” to Team South Africa after meeting SASCOC’s stuper-stringent qualifying standards just two weeks before the deadline.

Nobody doubts the “Ambitious Jay” pedigree. Two years ago, as a student at Selborne College, Jobodwane won the South African schools 200m in a record 20.95secs.

Then he became an All-American track and field champion with an indoor time of 20.66secs.  That was followed by an outdoor time of 20.32 in March while studying biology at Jackson State University in Mississippi – well within the Olympic “A” qualifying time of 20.55.

While that would have been enough for most national Olympic selection panels, SASOC requires TWO of those “A” qualifying times, a dubious policy which saw Africa 100m champion Simon Magakwe fail to make the team for London despite equalling the South Africa record of 10.07secs and running under 10 seconds in training.

With that sort of snub in mind, Jobodwane left his studies in the USA to focus on qualifying for London 2012 – which he finally did with a time of 20.50 to take victory at the obscure 17th Miner’s Day International Athletics Meeting in the remote Slovenian town of Velenje.

On July 4, he was one of the 14 athletes added to South Africa’s original team of125 named on June 6. But with no sprint medal won by South Africa since 1910, when Durban’s Reggie Walker became the world’s youngest Olympic 100m champion in London, few thought Jobodwane would emerge as a finalist.

Before last night’s personal best of 20.27, Jobodwana's best time of 20.32 seconds ranked him 22nd in the world this year. Afterwards, he added: “I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. I didn't expect it... I was just going out there to run a personal best. So I got that and I got to the final - a bonus.”

Having just turned 20, Jobodwane has a lot in common with Chad le Clos, the man who won gold and silver in the pool for South Africa last week. Like Chad, Anaso said before London he would be happy to use 2012 as preparation for Rio in 2016. And like Le Clos, he finds himself up against a legend.

But where Le Clos – who arrived back in Johannesburg this morning to a hero’s welcome - edged out Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly final by 0.05 of a second, Jobodwane surely has no chance of pipping the lightning Bolt to the line – or his Jamaican team-mate Yohan Blake.

After Bridgette Hartley’s bronze – South Africa’s fifth medal – in the K1 500 at Dorney this morning, Jobodwane would do well to finish in the top five (he'd have to run under 20 seconds for the first time in his life to get close to a medal) while Sunette Viljoen, second in qualifying, goes for gold in the javelin tonight and Caster Semenya runs in the 800m semi-finals at 8.30pm.

Still, like Le Clos, Jobodwane appears to have a father who is a bit of a character. Mkhuseli Jobodwana, director of remand administration at the Department of Correctional Services head office in Pretoria, told The New Age: “I am very excited. Do you even need to ask what we’ll do for my boy when he gets back?

“We are going to have a huge traditional celebration at our village in Khwetyana in the Eastern Cape because he didn’t only make us proud, but the entire village and country.

“We will slaughter two or more fat cows as one will not be enough.”