Ten thousand kilometres and as many differences may separate Leeds from Yorkshire city and a sprawling South African township will forever be on opposite sides of the world. But, for Lucas Radebe, they are crammed together inside the more crowded space within his own head.
“It’s difficult,” the captain of Leeds United and South Africa says, “because from the weather to the people, from the culture to the football, nothing is the same. Except for one thing: I now belong to both Soweto and Leeds. They somehow live together in my mind and in my heart.”
Last Sunday night, four hours after he led Leeds to a thrilling 5-2 victory over Manchester City in the best tie of the FA Cup’s fourth round, Radebe stretched out in his seat and again thought of both his footballing homes as a darkened aircraft raced down the runway and climbed into a black sky. He had the whole night, 11 hours in all, to consider the impact his ensuing five-week absence might yet have on Leeds’s richly promising but recently faltering season.
While Radebe and South Africa’s cherished national team, Bafana Bafana, pursue the African Nations Cup in Nigeria, he is likely to miss four games in England which could decide whether his young Leeds side are ready to translate their undoubted potential into trophy-winning reality.
Leeds may still head the Premiership and be in contention for both the FA Cup and Uefa Cup, but successive defeats to Arsenal and Aston Villa have reopened doubts about their sustained challenge. The more experienced heavyweight campaigners at Old Trafford and Highbury will have noted the callow performance against Villa at Elland Road on January 3 when Leeds were given an early and unpalatable taste of life without their captain.
Missing the suspended Radebe, their rudderless display suggested that further cracks may emerge during the next month. While he is in Nigeria, Leeds face away matches against Sunderland and Liverpool, followed by a fifth-round FA Cup tie. If South Africa reach the African Nations Cup final on February 13, as they have in their only two previous attempts, Radebe will also miss a home game against Tottenham.
“It’s not a good time to be leaving,” he agrees. “I would have felt happier and less guilty about deserting them If we had got even three points over the new year: We were unlucky David Batty was injured. But other senior pros like David Hopkin and Robert Molenaar are coming back.”
David O’Leary, however, knows how badly Radebe will be missed. “Lucas is a leader on and off the pitch,” the manager says. “Everyone looks up to him. Apart from being a very nice man, he’s the equal of any defender in this country. He has pace and a great ability to read a game. His distribution is good and his man-marking is excellent. There’s no one in England I would pick ahead of him.”
His influence on Bafana Bafana is even more celebrated, and his failure to return for the African Nations Cup would have had a shattering effect on their hopes of upsetting Nigeria, still Africa’s most accomplished team.
“It’s great to be wanted,” he says, “but it causes terrible problems. You are torn between two places. If it was only a footballing decision, I might have stayed in England. But how could I refuse playing for my country in a tournament as important as the African Nations Cup? Back home it’s just as significant as Euro 2000 is here.
“After so many years in the darkness, we did incredibly well to win it on our return from isolation in 1996. We then reached the final in ’98 while also qualifying for the World Cup. We have to build on that. And I am always conscious of what we went through in South Africa to reach this point.”
Although it is a source of some amusement to us, as we grow nostalgic in an empty Portakabin at Leeds’s training ground, Radebe and I share a past not only in South Africa but in Soweto, too. More than 15 years ago, when he was a teenager thirsting for an education and I was a young and hopeless English teacher, we spent time at the same Soweto school in the invigorating but volatile township zone of Diepkloof.
My years as the token white guy at Bopasenatla High, or “Bop” as Radebe still calls it, are filtered by hazy memories of getting drunk in funky shebeens in between failing to explain the intricacies of Tess of the D’Urbevilles on steaming township summer days. But for Radebe, who lived with 14 others in a tiny four-room house, there is a darker undertow.
“I always remember those days at Bop High,” he murmurs, “because we were desperate to learn and to take what little opportunity apartheid allowed. A lot of our friends fell by the wayside. Students were detained or died in the riots. And, even here in Leeds, I remember the pain. There are people without limbs and people who are crippled.
“I was lucky. I found this football life. So I have to play too for those more talented kids who never had the chance I got.”
Of all of the Soweto memories we hold, both the sweet and the grave, the image of so many as astonishingly slicked players juggling a ball on the hard and dusty fields of Diepkloof returns most sharply. While other teachers with names such as Shortie and Moses would reel with delight on the touchline, extravagantly gifted boys from Bop High would make a football bend, curl and almost sing with the pleasure of being struck, even by a split boot or a bare foot.
“It was unbelievable to play with such guys,” Radebe confirms. “But we lost so many of them. My older brother was much better than me. But I’m the one who got to Leeds. When I left Soweto six years ago, I was very depressed in Leeds. I was so homesick that I wanted to give up. But I decided to try harder because I knew that a day gone is a day forgotten. Our time in this game goes very quickly.”
Without Radebe, the next five weeks may drag on more for Leeds United. Further defeats might ruin their Premiership ambitions even before their captain returns. “I hope not,” he stresses, “because this team has a good chance of doing something this year. If we stay to-gether, who knows what we might achieve?”
Radebe’s enduring loyalty to Leeds emerges even more strongly when asked if he would swap African glory for a Premiership title. “Shoo,” he yelps, “how can you ask me that question?” But after an agonising pause, he gives his answer. “I’ve played in two African Nations Cup finals and have a winner’s medal. So I have to say the Premiership. I would really love to achieve something special in England with Leeds. To win the Premiership would be incredible.”
From now until the second Sunday in February, Radebe will first chase his different African dream. But, whether he is in Soweto or Lagos, a part of him will still worry and yearn for his now beloved Leeds.
“I know that wherever I am,” he says, “I will have to hunt down a television for coverage of Leeds. It’s the same story. When I am here, I always think of home and when I am there, I always think of here. It always happens when you belong in more than one place …”