Dear Bra Kala
On this seminal occasion of your life, your 80th birthday, please accept my best wishes-and many happy returns.
Reaching 80 years of age is no mean feat...it is simply awesome!
Indeed, yours has been an eventful life resplendent with history. From that fateful day on the 21 October 1956 when you left South Africa to venture into the vast yet exacting expanses of European football, your life has just been going from strength to strength.
Your career as a soccer player was out of the ordinary. It all started in 1955 when you carried the footballing hopes and yearnings of the supporters of English side Coventry City on your debut game.
Not only were you the first South African footballer to play in Europe, but also, you were the first African to do so, blazing a trail by rising above the near-impossible odds.
I speak with no sense of hyperbole when I say that you are simply the best player of the century not only here in South Africa, but at the level of our continent, Africa. Such were your dazzling footballing abilities that you were put at the level of the greatest footballer of all time, Pele himself!
As the Esteemed Member of The Order of Ikhamanga Gold, the highest honour our country can bestow on any South African achiever in sport among other areas of human endeavour, you have joined the many South Africans who, due to their exceptional gifts, have redounded to our nation’s credit.
Even with the torturing atmosphere of life in exile, of self-exile, you held out as a resilient individual enlivened by the strength-giving words of Dr Willie Nkomo and Dr Peter Tsele (may their souls rest in peace) that: "Kala," remember every goal you score will bring us closer to our freedom and independence."
Accordingly, you have acquitted yourself with distinction as a South African ambassador on the length and breadth of the global stage.
What makes you an exceptional human being are your breath-taking achievements in both sport and the academia. The fact that you earned a PhD degree immediately after your soccer career speaks volumes about your protean abilities, making you one of a kind.
Your professorship in psychology is further proof of your splendid life and amazing aptitudes that do us proud as a people and a nation.
Throughout the years, including the difficult years of our struggle for freedom, you have been, as you still are, an inspiration to many people for your commitment to the ideals of peace, human development and freedom.
Indeed, the celebration of your birthday should serve as an occasion to encourage the younger generation to take a leaf from your exemplary life which has been well-lived.
Inimitable, you have been immortally and aptly described by the Italian soccer writer, Beppe Branco, that:
"If Pele of Brazil is the Rolls-Royce of soccer players, Stanley Matthews of England the Mercedes-Benz and Alfredo di Stefano of Argentina and Spain the Cadillac of soccer players, then Kala of South Africa, lithe and lean, is surely the Maserati."
South Africa is forever proud of you as its prized possession, Maserati!
Indeed, today is a blissfully joyous moment that you must relish to the fullest!!!!
May you live to see many more years!
Once again, Happy Birthday!!
