Eoin Hand’s South African adventures — June 2010

EOIN Hand runs through the stories of his experiences in South Africa and you wonder why the hell he’s so keen to go back there for the World Cup.
There were the constant death threats to deal with. There was the night he had a bottle smashed into his eye socket. There were the anonymous calls in the middle of the night.
There were the fires started in a corner of the dressing-room by a witch-doctor.
And then there was the day when he was lounging by a hotel swimming pool but suddenly found a gun being waved in his face…
Yet the former Ireland manager still maintains that South Africa has more good than bad in it, that it is a wonderful country that will one day win the World Cup.
“I first headed out in 1976 in the middle of the apartheid era. Loads of players used to head over at that time,’’ he explained.
“The likes of Bobby Charlton, George Best and Franny Lee were all out as well.
“I was playing for Arcadia Shepherds in Pretoria and we had one black player — Vincent Julius from Soweto.
“I was captain and we had our dinner dance at the end of the season and the chairman came over to tell me that Julius would have to leave before the dancing started.
“I was going ‘what are you on about? Sure he might be getting the player of the year award’.
“But he just said that’s the law. I told him if that was the case, I’d be going myself and I’d be taking as many players as I could with me.
“That’s what we did. We went off and had our own party and the dinner dance just went wallop.”
After his time with Ireland came to a bad end, Hand headed back to South Africa after he’d been promised the carrot of managing the national team.
Instead, he ended up in a chilling situation that still sends shudders up his spine.
“I was manager of Amazulu down in Durban and suffered apartheid in reverse,’’ he said.
“It was a totally black club and the supporters just wouldn’t accept a white man as manager.
“There were death threats, stones thrown at me, I was spat at. I had to change hotel rooms because I was getting anonymous calls saying ‘we are coming to kill you if you don’t listen and go’.”
His spell with Amazulu opened Hand’s eyes to a different South Africa.
“I’d come into the dressing-room before games and there’d be a burning smell,’’ he recalled.
“So I’d look around and there would be a fire in the corner. It was the local witch-doctor.
“He’d be trying to employ what they call mutti for the team.
“It was clear that my face didn’t fit.
“There was an open training session one day and suddenly I was surrounded by about 40 Zulus.
“I thought I was brave and doing the big man going on about us having political problems in Ireland and me just being there to manage a football team.
“The Zulu chief came through from the back, looked me in the eye and spoke quietly — ‘you are not listening, we are going to kill you’.
“It was that blunt. Point taken. Bye bye.”
Hand resigned but it was made clear to him that the supporters wanted him out of town.
“I was staying in this hotel with a nice swimming pool and just lounging there reading the newspaper,’’ he said.
“This guy came over to me and pulled out a gun and started clicking it. I got up, packed my bags and left the place as fast as I could.”
Hand ended up running a sports bar in Johannesburg but that ended badly as well.
“I was set up. This woman came in and asked where the toilets were and I pointed them out,’’ he said.
“Then this huge fella came storming across, going ‘what did you say to my woman?’
“He grabbed a bottle and smashed it in my face. The lower half of my eye socket was brokken.
“Then he hit me again and put me out cold. I was in hospital for three weeks.”
Despite his harrowing experiences, Hand admits to being in love with South Africa.
“I was there for some pivotal moments in the country’s history,’’ he said.
“I was there when Nelson Mandela was released from Robben Island.
“I was there for their first democratic elections.
“And I was there for the Rugby World Cup in 1995.
“I’ve been there for the whole change-over from an apartheid state to the great country that it is today.
“The World Cup going to Africa…it’s such an important occasion.
“That’s why I’m heading out. RTE didn’t pick me but I just thought ‘feck it, I’m not missing this, I’ll go as a freelance’.
“I think it’s going to be a faboulous tournament.
“I’ve always felt that South Africa will win a World Cup but it’ll probably take another 20 or 30 years.
“The skill of the natives is simply incredible but they’re just short on the tactical side of things and the nutrition and sports science side.
“If you look at their squad, 18 of them are playing in the domestic league.
“When more of their players move abroad, they’ll improve dramatically.”
And Hand feels that most pundits have under-estimated the impact that playing at altitude will have at this tournament.
“It’s going to play a huge role,’’ he said.
“I’ve played out there and people don’t realise how tough it is at altitude.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that South Africa’s three games are at altitude.
“That gives them a decided advantage.
“And if they get out of their group, it’ll be like winning the World Cup for them.”