DAVID ISAACSON | Just think about it, gangs could be the gateway grassroots sport

This could be a crazy idea, but what the heck, let me air it anyway. 

I have been reading up on the terrible gang wars that hit Johannesburg suburbs such as Westbury and Newclare in the 1970s and 1980s, and I learnt something interesting. 

The two main gangs of the time, the Spaldings and the Fast Guns, apparently were formed out of supporters’ clubs for local football teams. 

Sport breeds hoodlums. That’s a fact. So I started wondering if it might be possible to reverse the flow and create sports clubs from gangs?

That was a question I had to ask after I interviewed long-jumper Ruswahl Samaai, who grew up in the Paarl neighbourhood of Amstelhof. Samaai, the 2017 world championship bronze medallist, recounted how the gangsters there recognised his talent early on and as a result they didn’t interfere with him as he travelled between home and the track.

The thugs wanted him to thrive.

​So what if, to improve the prospects of youngsters, sports clubs were created and linked to the gangs, at least by name. I’m no sociologist, but I’ve been told one problem facing SA youths is the lack of role models, especially for those who have hours to kill when they get home after school. Their parents are at work, so they head out into the streets.

Gangsters have been filling that void, giving those kids an identity, albeit a socially unacceptable one.

On the Cape Peninsula the two largest gangs are the Americans and the Hard Livings.

So how about government builds sports complexes on the turf of each gang and calls them the Americans sports club, the Hard Livings sports club, and so on.

I have no doubt that developing sport talent and facilities in townships is the only way forward for this country if we are to achieve real transformation.

Government would have to fund the venture and oversee it with the help of police and social workers and so on. Government would pay the gangs a rights fee for use of the name, and in exchange, the gangs must agree to keep gangsterism away from those sports complexes and the kids taking part. Each time the Americans take on the Hard Livings in sporting contests, the gangs would have to ensure that the rules of the game are respected and that peace is maintained. 

Come to think of it, it might not be too dissimilar to policing the over-passionate parents at a regular schools rugby match. 

Gang-related sports clubs could offer healthy outlets for many children who, as I write this, might not have any chance of a normal life.  

This is probably wishful thinking, but perhaps in time an established sports club would help to transform the gangsters. I’m sure they wouldn’t want to give up profitable activities like drug peddling, but maybe they would try to be more circumspect in the way they conduct themselves. Over time names like the Americans and Hard Livings might begin to hold different connotations to what they do now.  

I have no doubt that developing sport talent and facilities in townships is the only way forward for this country if we are to achieve real transformation.

What I’d also like to see are township schools incorporating boxing as a sport. All that is needed at each school are some gloves, a classroom and a coach. 

As a national sport boxing is the proverbial sleeping giant in this country, with the amateur game having nosedived more spectacularly than any other code. Before SA was thrown out of the Olympics, boxing had been the country’s richest source of silverware with 19 medals.

Since readmission in 1992 no SA boxer has won more than one fight. Boxing’s medal total still stands on 19 and it has been overhauled by athletics (28) and swimming (20).

But if functional structures were to be set up in just Soweto and Mdantsane today, the investment would surely start paying dividends by the 2032 Games in Brisbane (assuming boxing is still on the Olympics roster, but that’s a whole other issue).

There’s no getting away from the fact that township sport is immensely undeveloped, and focusing on it will lift more than just sports standards. Lifestyles will rise with it. 

Companies are prepared to mine minerals, metals and stones in the harshest of conditions, but when it comes to unearthing human talent, we become hesitant. 

I shudder to think of the wasted potential; just think of the dreams that too many children have never dared to dream. 

Allow them to dream.