GLUE TO GOALPOSTS - How sixteen street kids turned into soccer stars

Years of sniffing glue had so badly affected their bodies that some of the boys looked like rag dolls flapping across the football field. Six months later the same boys were striding it out, blocking and striking with agility, strength and confidence. Such is the power of nurture.

It is little wonder that Mandela asked to see the sixteen street kids who, in under a year, have transformed from hapless, homeless glue-sniffers into fine young players in a fine young football team that will be flying to England on Tuesday for a two-week football tour.

Called the Homestead Team, many of the boys in the side were literally straight off the streets. Others had left the streets some time back and had been living in the Homestead children's home in Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats.

“It's been very hard, very tough and very daunting but we've done it,” says the team's coach, Craig Hepburn, who played for Pirates in the eighties and who has been involved in development football in the townships around Cape Town for the past ten years.

“The reason the boys looked like rag dolls when they first joined the programme is because glue attacks the central nervous system and destroys whatever co-ordination or powers of concentration they might have had.”

Couple this with abandonment, abuse and a life on the streets and you've got a bunch of kids who have had huge trauma in their lives.

“These are the lucky ones, it's incredible to see how they've pulled through,” continues Hepburn. “The boys meeting Mandela and getting on that plane to the UK are unrecognisable from a year ago. Today they are fine, disciplined football players, every bit up to the schools they'll be playing against in England.

“Some of the players are showing such potential if they continue to get the right training and guidance they could one day make the national side. That's our aim: to have a kid from the streets selected to play for South Africa.”

All sixteen children have been off the streets for a minimum of a year and are living at the children's home. This was a prerequisite to them being considered for the team.

“Our whole approach is not just about a football tour, it's about taking the boys to higher ground from where they can build lives for themselves and lead the way for other street kids,” says Gerald ‘Langer' Jacobs who co-ordinates the Homestead's street outreach programme and shelter.

The Homestead is a 23-year-old NGO running seven Cape Town-based projects for street children.
Jacobs is one of the driving forces behind the Homestead football tour, in collaboration with English football coach, Michelle Potter. Potter is part of a UK-based coaching outreach programme called ‘Coaching for Hope' and has been living in Cape Town for over a year, helping to raise sponsorship for the tour and to coach the Homestead players.

The Homestead focuses exclusively on boys (the majority of street children are boys) while a sister shelter called ‘Ons Plek' attends to the girls.

“The reason there are more boys on the streets is because boys are generally more arrogant and stubborn than girls; the boys believe they can survive on the streets, begging or stealing or both. Girls are more inclined to seek a way out for themselves through prostitution,” says Jacobs who is a known and trusted figure on the streets of Cape Town. From the CBD to Woodstock to Camps Bay to Sea Point he has worked with street children for the past four-and-a-half years. During this time he was nicknamed ‘Langer' by the street children because of his height.

“Getting these boys off the streets is not just a matter of ‘Hi, come with me',” he explains. “You have to get to know them for them to vaguely start trusting you. At which point we start encouraging them to drop in at the Homestead's shelter in Woodstock where they can get a meal, a shower, clothing and some care.”

A year ago Jacobs started telling the boys about the football tournament for street children the Homestead was organising and that if they were selected they would be trained to go to the UK on tour.

“Word got out and slowly, slowly they came to us, until we had 100 kids participating in the tournament, including several of the 65 kids who were already living at our home in Khayelitsha.”

Fresh off the streets was 14-year-old Samson who had been living on the streets since the age of seven. (The Child Care Act prohibits the publication of any of the children's surnames)

When Samson first arrived at the shelter he was filthy and draped in layers of ragged clothing to fend off the cold. “He'd been in and out of reformatories and was extremely aggressive and strong-willed. Street kids have to be like this to survive and defend themselves,” adds Jacobs.

“He was one of the hardest kids we've had to handle. If he didn't get his way it would be a stone or a brick and he would not submit to authority at all.”

Samson has transformed into one of the best players in the side, a striker with a natural eye for the game.
“He's still one of the most difficult boys and he's still angry but he's shown huge improvement. For him to have stayed with us for a year is a major success. It's given him time to work through some of his issues and to learn to deal with situations in a variety of ways other than with aggression and anger.”

Handling a complex group of teenagers, Coach Hepburn is strict on the field.

“What we've tried to do is create a team where discipline and respect is key. We've had to teach the boys they have no right to verbally or physically abuse anyone. If they misbehave on the field they go straight to the bench and cannot return until they sort themselves out.

“It's about teaching them what it is to be part of a team; that it requires contributing to team spirit and supporting each other. It's about understanding that no matter how good a footballer you are, you will make mistakes and you need your fellow players to encourage you, not abuse you.”

The boys practise for two hours twice a week and play matches on Wednesdays against various school sides – from private schools to reformatories.

Every Saturday they attend workshops at the Homestead where they develop their communication skills and explore their self-worth.

“We speak about negative and positive communication and we talk about the language of communication on the field – whether it is better to use English or Xhosa. For the tour the boys decided on a mix so that the English players cannot understand their game plan,” smiles Hepburn.

“We also speak what it means to be a street child and how people regarded them when they lived on the streets,” adds Jacobs. “It takes a long time for the boys to stop feeling people see them as dirty and worthless.”
The turnaround hasn't been smooth and seamless. At the beginning of the year a couple of the boys were caught sniffing glue. “We didn't expel them but we taught them there are consequences for poor behaviour,” Jacobs explains.

“They weren't allowed to play football for a period, they had to do chores around the home and they were excluded from the ‘reward initiatives' we offer the boys. These include giving them a soccer jersey or cap for best performance or taking them for a restaurant meal. Fortunately this hasn't been a major problem and the more fit they get the less inclined they are to sniff glue or abuse their bodies in any other way.”

Glue, he explains, is more of a psychological addiction - a “chemical blanket” to take away the cold and the pain of living on the streets. This chemical blanket is replaced with an emotional blanket when they start experiencing a sense of belonging at the Homestead. “Coming off glue is not the major hurdle,” says Jacobs. “It's the deep-seated self worth damage that takes a long time to heal.”

The boys heal in different ways. Sixteen-year-old Nelson, the captain of the team, has been living at the children's home since he left the streets at the age of eight. He built his self-worth through football and a form of kickboxing called Muay Thai.

He's played football for Western Province Schools and is the junior amateur South African Muay Thai champion. Training under South Africa's world Muay Thai champion, Quentin Chong, he has a powerful role model and is respected by the other boys for his strength and achievements.

Nelson is also the only boy in the team who has ever flown in an aeroplane or been overseas. He represented South Africa in Thailand in May this year where he won a bronze.

“Thailand is beautiful,” he says. “What I liked most about it is that you can walk in the streets there without worrying about danger.”

Vice-captain Ayanda (16), a highly intelligent boy and an exceptional football player, came to the home several years back. “When he first came off the streets, he was depressed, introverted and prone to untruths,” says Jacobs. “Today he is a transformed character; he is open, communicative and has strong leadership qualities. He encourages the little ones and he stops fights in the home. He doesn't even look like the same boy.”

The boys can remain at the home until they are 18. To prepare them for adulthood, the social workers at the home intensify their life skills programme, get them into job shadowing or help them to apply for scholarships.

“Thebe Tourism – one of the main sponsors of the football tour – has helped our older boys tremendously,” adds Jacobs. “They get them to shadow people in all their associated companies – from their boat company to tourism to curios retailing.” The person the boys all dream of shadowing now is David Beckham.

“With the right guidance and opportunity some of them have the potential to become professional soccer players,” says Hepburn. “But what deeply concerns me is the lack of opportunity and infrastructure at grassroots level. There is so much talent right across the country but the politicians and football administrators aren't doing nearly enough about it.

“As development coaches we go to the South African Football Association (SAFA) for assistance but there are no formalised coaching course standards we can follow. Neither is there any development framework we can slot into or some official form of payment. We sometimes get payment from sponsors, mostly we coach on a voluntary basis.”

SAFA's mission statement as the governing body of football in South Africa stipulates that it is ‘committed to promoting and facilitating the development of football through sustainable infrastructural and training initiatives'.

Yet when you go to their website www.safa.net and click on ‘Coaching', all it says is ‘No coaching information found. Please check back soon.'

“ We're having the world cup in 2010 but millions of our children don't have even have a field to play on,” states Hepburn. “Children from the Cape Flats are playing soccer on the verge of the N2 highway, right in front of the airport. They train here at 4pm every day with cars driving past at 120 kilometres per hour. There have been many deaths. I think this is proof enough that we have to get back to our roots and invest in our communities and our townships.”

“Hopefully the street soccer project has helped to set an example of what can be achieved,” adds Jacobs. “It's very difficult to rehabilitate street kids but as we get on that flight to England we know this project has been a success. We're not saying the boys are all going to become professional players or doctors and lawyers; we're just showing what a little bit of love and attention and investment in grassroots can achieve.”

Anyone interested in sponsoring development clinics should contact Craig Hepburn on:

grturtle@mweb.co.za