Durban - The devastated mother of Senzo Meyiwa, Ntombifuthi collapsed on Monday and was taken to hospital as waves of people arrived at the family’s uMlazi home to pay their respects to the Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates captain.
Siyabonga Miya, Meyiwa’s cousin, said the family were battling to come to terms with the loss.
Sam Meyiwa, Senzo’s father, broke down when asked how he was coping.
“I do not know what to say because… there will be no more Senzo. These people must face the consequences; I wish they can give these people life sentences because of what they did. I do not know where I am going to get another Senzo; it breaks my heart,” he said.
Neighbour Zanele Muthwa was one of the first to pay her respects.
“I am heartbroken. We did not sleep. We are shocked,” she said.
Muthwa said she called Pirates supporters in the area who said they did not go to work after the news broke.
Meyiwa’s high school teacher, Bongiwe Makhoba, said the soccer star’s life was part of the syllabus for her pupils.
During guidance classes, she said, she told them that even if they were not good with books, they could still make a living through their talents.
She told them he was a local person who they knew who had made his name great nationally.
He was a polite, respectful pupil who listened to his teachers.
“At 5am, when I switched on the radio, they said they had received bad news that Senzo had passed on,” she said.
“I was shocked. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I kept thinking, is this for real?”
Makhoba said Meyiwa never forgot about his old school, Mgaga High.
“I taught him in 1998 and 1999. In 1999, when he was in Grade 9, he left for the soccer development academy.
“You could see that soccer was his sport; that he would play professionally.”
After a few years, he came back to the school and donated uniforms for the soccer team.
“Orlando Pirates had won the Telkom Charity Cup and he said he was going to donate to his school.”
He came back again in 2010, before the World Cup
“He gave me a Pirates jersey as a gift,” his teacher said.
In class, he was quiet and not provocative.
“When I checked his homework book, I would find that he had not done his work. When I asked, he would tell me he was playing soccer,” she said.
Makhoba said she made peace with Meyiwa about putting soccer before school work because “I saw that his talent was in soccer”.
“The principal we had at that time was a soccer person, Vuma Mfeka, who was a goalkeeper for Wanderers. I think he is the one who was behind Meyiwa’s soccer career at a junior level,” she said.
Miya said his last conversation with Meyiwa was about a multisport programme they were planning.
“It was going to be a combination of cycling, swimming, athletics and, his first love, soccer. We were busy drawing up the concept. What was left for us was to launch the programme in the near future.”
Miya said Meyiwa’s twin brother had died in a swimming pool accident and Meyiwa had always wanted to do something for people who were keen on swimming.
“Senzo was not ours, but belonged to South Africa. He loved soccer… It was always about soccer.”
The Mercury