By David Macgregor
When John Smith skipped town 10 years ago leaving a string of bad debt in the Eastern Cape, his angry creditors thought they would never see him or their money again.
Like the mountains of cash he allegedly pocketed, John Smith simply vanished into thin air.
That was until last weekend when tubby lager-lout Pieter van Zyl got angry over some dubious decisions against his beloved Boks and evaded 419 security guards during the test against the All Blacks in Durban before laying into rugby referee David McHugh.
Dressed in the green and gold with his boep hanging over his blue jeans, in their eyes there was no mistaking that 43-year-old Pieter van Zyl was the same man as the Eastern Cape chokka fishermen knew as John Smith - even though he had gained at least 20 kilograms in the past 10 years.
Now, stories about his alleged wheeling and dealing in the Eastern Cape are spreading like wildfire and creditors are rubbing their hands at finally being able to settle some old scores.
In the years since John Smith vanished from Humansdorp and the chokka industry in the early 1990s, Pieter van Zyl has amassed a fortune in the mining industry in Potchefstroom, personally pocketing a reported R2,5 million a year.
Although everybody in Humansdorp and St Francis Bay knew him as John Smith, a friend and fellow fisherman admitted this week that Smith had confessed to him 10 years ago that he was in fact Pieter van Zyl, and that he had moved to the area and changed his name to avoid creditors on the Rand.
Clamming up tighter than a mussel on a rock, Pete Smit refused on Thursday to even talk to the Cape Argus, following earlier claims he made that Van Zyl had lived in the area under the name John Smith.
According to reports, Smit said he had been shown newspaper clippings and photographs by John Smith about 10 years ago showing he was in fact Pieter van Zyl - a former Northern Transvaal rugby player and swimming pool builder on the Rand.
Smit said this week the conversation had taken place after he had wondered why his friend was called John Smith and his wife was known as Rosemary van Zyl.
That was when Smith said: "Let me tell you the truth" before admitting he had amassed huge debt in his failed pool building business and fled under an assumed name to escape creditors.
Killing time in the pub, chuckling into the foam of their beers on Thursday, a group of chokka fishermen - not out at sea because of a blustering south-easter - said Van Zyl must have been "getrek" (drunk) when he ran onto the field and attacked McHugh.
"We are all pissing ourselves over how he f...ed himself up by running onto the field and attacking the ref. Besides getting sued by the ref, he has also alerted his many creditors to his real name and where he lives. It seems like the chickens have come home to roost," a boat owner said.
He said the chokka industry asked few questions of their crew and it was an ideal place to lay low and earn serious cash at the same time.
"We did think it strange that this Afrikaans ou was called John Smith, but he did the work and caught his chokka."
For a landlubber, Van Zyl proved to be a very good fisherman, rising from skippering for someone to owning his own boat, supplying seafood giant Lusitania. He even built a house in Fisaan Street in Humansdorp. But, he was also allegedly running up debts all over the show.
He allegedly opened an account with the local Federated Timbers and failed to pay. Federated Timbers later folded. He also owed money to a boat shop, people in the chokka industry and even "a couple of thousand here and there to friends".
"He was a lekker ou - if he did not owe you any money. He still owes me R1 000 for a sale, but he was battling then and I was his friend so I did not mind," a fishing mate said.
Former Humansdorp rugby club president "Oom" Rudolf Gerber admitted John Smith was one of their star players more than a decade ago at wing or centre.
Ever diplomatic, he said: "It is hard for me to tell whether John Smit is Piet van Zyl because he has put on a lot of weight, but others say he confessed to a friend, so they must be right."
Van Zyl, who owns Mustang Mining Supplies in Potchefstroom, was released on R3 000 bail and the case was remanded to September 9.
Explaining why the attack took place, Van Zyl said from the back of a police van shortly after his arrest: "The whole of (the) stadium was mal (angry) with him. It's just that I decided to do something about it."
As suddenly as he arrived in Humansdorp, Pieter van Zyl, aka John Smith, disappeared. His house was auctioned to recover some debt while other creditors gave up all hope of ever getting a cent back - until he ran on the field and attacked the ref. - @LiveWire