Rewind: Breaking the offside rule

Three footie legends recall how the local game dribbled past apartheid - and the day SA whipped Argentina 5-0. By Jeremy Thomas

The parking lot at Rand Stadium in Turffontein is deserted save for a flashy black BMW and two guys in their 60s having a chat. The men are Jomo Sono and Martin Cohen, thrilled at a chance meeting nearly four decades since they played soccer together in South Africa's first mixed-race international match at this very ground.

Sono, the Orlando Pirates whizz, was the team's dazzling star in 1976. Cohen brought the gritty flair that anchored the Highlands Park midfield. Sono scored four of the goals that annihilated a rebel Argentina XI 5-0. "That, I will never forget," says Cohen. "I know a player that was better than Yaya Touré - Jomo. Because I played with him and against him."

Sono chortles. "Martin was my shadow - he used to follow me all over the place."

Cohen: "When he went to the toilet, I went with him. I couldn't even kick him. He was too quick."

Sono and Cohen recall that the interracial team was an anomaly. Apartheid still ruled, and two days after the Argentina demolition job a blacks-only team took on the South American titans.

Again, Sono proved peerless: "It was a dead ball and the referee pushed them back. One step back, then two steps forward. As they stepped back, I hit it, bent it into the top corner. They said no, they were not ready. They chased me - yoh, they chased me. I'm busy celebrating, running towards the fence, but behind me there's Argentinians coming after me calling me hijo de puta negro!"

You black son-of-a-whore. The two old chums grow silent. They would go on to play in the US - Sono with Pelé at New York Cosmos; Cohen with George Best at Los Angeles Aztecs - but some wounds stay raw.

Leaning against Sono's car, the warhorses are joined by 87-year-old Rex Evans - the former SA Air Force fighter pilot who changed the face of South African football.

Highlands Park, which turned professional in 1960, was the glamour club in the whites-only National Football League. It began in a horrid sky-blue strip with blue-and-white striped shorts, but soon adopted its iconic red and white colours - borrowed from Manchester United, though not because anyone was a fan of the English club. They just liked the look.

But by 1977, fresh from winning the championship, club chairman Evans knew it was time for radical change. NFL general manager Vivian Grainger was keen to form a joint league with the then Indian and coloured leagues, but Evans thought otherwise.

"I said, if we're going to take that step, I'm going the whole hog. I'm going to the blacks, in those days the National Professional Soccer League. There was a big problem: the government. I went with my co-directors to see the minister of sport, Piet Koornhof, in Pretoria. He was very courteous but said he could not agree to it. But when we got up to leave, Koornhof pulled me aside, grabbed my arm, and said: 'Rex, do it. I won't stop you.'

"So I went to the black league, told them the story, and we were in."

Jerry Sadike and Kenneth "The Horse" Mokgojoa joined Highlands; Vincent Julius had already been playing for Arcadia Shepherds since 1977; and Rangers had long crept under the apartheid radar by fielding Percy Owen and Archie Christopher.

In 1978, Highlands Park was joined in the new non-racial league by three formerly white clubs: Germiston Callies, Arcadia and Wits. More teams followed.

Sponsors came calling: Teljoy, Wimpy, Mainstay, Beechies, Dion, BP, Blaupunkt - laying the foundation for today's hyper-commercialised and highly lucrative Premier Soccer League.

Those were heady days, but within four years Highlands Park was no more. Evans watched as the city rezoned and sold his beloved Balfour Park ground. He had no option but to sell his franchise. In 1983 Sono bought Highlands Park and renamed it Jomo Cosmos. It was the end of a glorious era.

As a kid, Sono was a fan of Highlands, and remembers sitting in a packed stand segregated for blacks watching his heroes in the 1970s. He grows almost misty-eyed: "Des Backos, Larry de Freitas, George Luke ... Hennie Joubert! He was intimidating. You'd say, as a player, 'Shit, if he catches me I'm dead.'"

Evans bought Joubert from Southern Suburbs in 1973. "I said: 'Hennie, we've bought you because we're tired of playing against you.'"

Cohen immediately renamed him Hymie Joubertski. Highlands Park, despite its worldly aura, was really made up of working-class kids from the badlands of north-eastern Johannesburg: Jewish, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Lebanese - so an Afrikaans boy from the deep south deserved an appropriate nickname.

Cohen says it was hard to cement a place in the first team: "Because, not often, we'd lose two games on a trot and Rex would go overseas and get four new players."

Evans knew the only way to sustain the club's status was by winning leagues and cups. So he salted his side with foreigners earmarked by scouts everywhere from Scotland to Brazil.

Since the club could not afford to pay players a living wage, Evans employed them. In the 1960s he owned the franchise for Lambretta, and the firm grew into a colossal group that sold Citroën, Alfa Romeo, Leyland (Jaguar), Fiat and Datsun. He also ran Gary Player's golf interests.

"I had half the Highlands team selling for my company. Supporters employed the others. Highlands cost me a lot of money but it was my pride and joy. Our board were good people - if we were short one month we'd have a whip-around. Nobody ever made a penny out of it apart from the players.

"The only player who could live on his wages was Chris Chilton - his former team, Hull City, was in the FA Cup Final this year. Then there was Alan Gilzean, who played for Scotland, and England's Barry Bridges. Gordon Igesund played for us for two years. Very nice guy."

Another seminal name in Highlands history is Joe Frickleton, a Glaswegian whose name was given to Evans by a contact in England. "This guy said: 'He's a decent player but he's the dirtiest player in Scotland.' I said, 'Send him.'"

Cohen is particularly fond of Frickleton, who would go on to coach Highlands Park. "I would run through walls for Frick. In fact, he asked me to play on with two broken bones in my leg. He said: 'Son, I need ya. You gonna go through tha fahkin pain barrier. Go gee'it, fahkin 'ell, wid'ye wee man.'

"One Saturday afternoon Highlands lost against Jewish Guild, our hoodoo side. Frick came into the dressing room and all he said in his Scottish accent was, 'Yous I'll see the fahkin morra a' nine o' clock.' And he walked out.

"We were on the field waiting for him at quarter to nine. He arrived with a pad, stopwatch and pen. So we knew what we were going to do. No balls. And Albert McCann was literally 10m away, a bit late, and he told him to bugger off and he fined him a week's wages."

Sono agrees with Cohen and Evans that today's professionals have much to learn from their predecessors. Apart from discipline, the lack of investment in youth leagues or a reserves league sells even the richest clubs short - never mind the national team.

Cohen knows all about grassroots development: He grew up with Highlands Park from the age of 12 in 1964. The club ran cub teams in leagues from under-12, through under-14 and under-16, to colts and reserves.

To this end, Sono bought land adjoining Rand Stadium for a five-a-side pitch for kids and for a youth academy. Sadly, Jomo Cosmos no longer has the stadium as a home ground. After the 2010 World Cup the city council gave the lease to Orlando Pirates - who now only use it for training.

So Sono has given up on Johannesburg; he is moving his team to Parys.

Bitterness aside, the men recall a classic clash between Highlands Park and Pirates in 1979. "Rand Stadium could seat about 35000 and there must have been 50000 in there," says Evans. "They were sitting around the touchlines and hanging from everywhere. Highlands were winning 2-0."

Sono smiles: "I heard about this at my wedding, so I came here with my boots, scored two goals, and Pirates won 4-2." Cohen and Evans can only laugh. LS

.Superfan Julian Turner has compiled boxed sets of eight DVDs containing 10000 archive images and video footage of SA soccer from the 1960s to the 1980s. On sale for R500. Contact him on 0833071526 or at julian.turner@iburst.co.za