All was well before Kaizer Chiefs officials came knocking at the door of house 1014 Daveyton, Benoni on the East Rand. Until then, nobody gave a second look at the little old lady, her two sons, daughter and five grandchildren.
After Premier Soccer League aristocrats Kaizer Chiefs came seeking the signature of a gifted soccer star, whose friends called him ”Shuffle” and whose relatives called him Jerry, things were never going to be the same again.
In those days in 1998, the Mahlangu home on a narrow, bumpy and windswept street looked like any other township ”matchbox” house. It still does.
One July afternoon in 1999 this Jerry appeared in the Chiefs colours and scored a goal in a match against Côte d’Ivoire giants Asec Mimosa. It was his first official match for Chiefs. He later repeated the feat by scoring for his country on his international debut.
The official records, though, will reflect that the wonder boy’s name was Jabu Pule, whose sure first touch on the ball won the hearts of all those who swear by the Gold and Black.
Those who went to school with him remember Pule — known to them as Jeremiah Mahlangu — as an average schoolboy who, other than through his soccer skills, was never expected to amount to much in life.
An older generation of Daveyton residents had seen this type of talent before and it had tapered off with age. They had seen the ”Original Shuffle” — Jabu’s father Elias Mahlangu — now a sickly middle-aged man. But Jabu was destined to be different from his father — or was he?
For those who saw him grow up in the tough part of Daveyton — known as Emashanganini because of the predominance of Shangaan-speaking residents — the change of name was as surprising as the change in behaviour of one who had always been a quiet and assuming young man.
Pule, the Chiefs midfielder, is currently out on bail after being charged with statutory abduction after he allegedly went partying with a 16-year-old Soweto girl without her mother’s consent.
Having recently returned to the Chiefs line-up after being suspended for three months for missing training, Pule is now on the carpet after he yet again failed to join his team-mates at training. All this happens hardly a year after returning from a drug rehabilitation centre.
Elsewhere, the football obituary of a youngster who turns 23 on July 11 is already being written.
”Maybe the problem with this boy is that, after his mother’s death, the two families [maternal and paternal] never made peace. Maybe the ancestors are not happy with the way things happened,” offers Pule’s grandmother, Emma Khumalo, about her grandson’s wayward behaviour.
She cannot remember when exactly Pule’s mother died except that he was about 10 or 11 years old then.
”He was a good boy. Always respectful and he liked school and his soccer. I prayed that one day his soccer would take him as far as it could,” says Khumalo.
Then almost as an afterthought she adds: ”You know, ever since he played for Chiefs, we have not done the traditional things. We have not washed him [as is ritual after the death of a close family member].
”He has not erected a tombstone for his mother even though he can now afford it. Perhaps the Ma-hlangu ancestors are not happy with this ‘Pule’ surname,” she says.
Khumalo explains that when Pule was born, his parents were unmarried and thus his birth was registered in his mother’s last name.
By the time he started school at Kwa Ntsikane, the couple had married and their son was known as Jeremiah Mahlangu.
”When the Chiefs people came, they were in a hurry and decided to use the name on the birth certificate to register him,” she says.
That puts paid Pule’s former teacher at Daveyton’s Hulwazi Secondary, Bongani Nhlapo’s view that: ”Maybe the change of name was a rebellious move on its own. Changing from the quiet obedient Jeremiah we know to the person we now read about in the media.”
As with many Daveyton residents, the change in Pule’s behaviour has been unexpected. ”Look, I’ll be honest with you, Jeremiah was not an exceptionally bright student. He would bunk classes but would always attend my history class. He would even look through the window [to see if the class was on],” says Nhlapo.
”He tried to engage in discussions about Napoleon and the French Revolution, but as with many of our children, there was always a language barrier.”
Nhlapo says he suspects that Jabu was taken too abruptly from the environment he was most comfortable in.
While in grade 10, Jabu was removed from the township school to Chiefs’ education partner, the Rand Afri-kaans University’s (RAU) programme for players still at school — about 50km from home.
”The umbilical cord to this place was cut off completely; his growth was never step-by-step. He was still playing in the under-17 side when he left, and was suddenly in a new environment where he was supposed to be a man. The boy had not yet seen what the township was about. He had never grooved with his peers. All these things were taken away from him too soon, maybe he is trying to catch up,” says Nhlapo.
Even at RAU, the potential of Pule falling off the wagon was there. He was expelled from the programme for behavioural problems.
”Jabu pleaded with us to take him back. He put me in contact with Ryder Mofokeng [Chiefs’ youth team coach] who told me that Pule would be reinstated to the programme on condition he was at school. So we took him back. He stayed here for about two weeks before returning to RAU,” says teacher Sipho Dzingwa.
Another teacher, Jabu Thomo, underscores Pule’s lack of scholastic potential. ”He was in grade 11i. The school system works in a way that the students who show the greatest potential would be in grade 11a and descends to those who show the least.
”He was always more interested in sports than the academics. He would be absent from school Monday and Tuesday but would make sure he was present on Wednesday, sports day.
”When we played against [Chiefs teammate Thabiso] Skappie Malatsi’s school — Mabuya Secondary — then he would definitely be at school on that day,” says Thomo.
”We would easily forgive him. He was our trump card. Just to prove it, in one year, we won the Benoni High Schools annual tournament, but in the next year, Chiefs were playing on the same day as the final, we lost that match.”
Through all this, Jabu’s friends and fans have remained loyal. At the Diepkloof, Soweto, house where he hangs out, a young woman denies ever seeing him.
”Jabu who?” she asks incredulously. As other residents confirm that the place, known to locals as Ezithebeni or Sandton, is indeed Pule’s favourite hang-out, the Chiefs star’s regular partner in crime, Patrick ”Ace” Mbuthu, and his friends park an old Toyota Corolla outside.
In Daveyton, his childhood friends gather at ”The Brother” Vilakazi’s fruit stall. ”I love Shuffle, but I don’t like the fact that he bunks his job. Soccer is his job. He should do it,” says one. ”We don’t to tell our children the same stories we hear about his father, the ‘Original Shuffle’.
”Everybody knows that he was a great player, but unfortunately played when there was no money in the game. We want our children to be proud of Shuffle.”
Quipped another: ”Kaizer should allow Shuffle to do what he wants with his money and not interfere. Shuffle has always been one of the guys. Now they want him where they can see him all the time. He is not used to the type of life they want him to lead at Chiefs.”
Adds Mighty Zitha: ”He is one of the guys. He always hangs out with us when he is here. If you did not see his car or don’t know him well, you would not know that he is the Jabu Pule people talk about.”
But no cheering from real friends or hangers-on compares to the grandmother’s passion for her ”son”. ”If you meet him, tell him I love him. He is my child. Even if he loses his job, I will still love him. He will not be the first person to lose his job,” laments Khumalo.
If history was indeed Pule’s favourite subject, there are a few lessons. The ”Original Shuffle” — Jabu’s father — never fulfilled his true potential because of limited opportunities. The other Shuffle — Elias Mokopane, the late former Orlando Pirates and Chiefs ball wizard — was himself a delinquent. In between playing soccer, his managers had to bail him out several times after he ran into trouble with the law.
While playing for Chiefs, Mokopane will be remembered for dribbling the entire Pirates backline, including goalkeeper, only to leave the ball on the goal line and walk away. Unimpressed, Chiefs boss Kaizer Motaung summarily dismissed him.
Last year Mokopane died at his grandparents home in Rockville, Soweto, a few years after he had returned from a 10-year jail sentence for armed robbery.