The murder that HAUNTS Chiefs
Death has an unwelcome way of sneaking in uninvited and it does not matter who you are, it can strike with the same devastating effect. Except with the Kaizer Chiefs team manager Ewert Nene, it was so tragic and such a great loss for football.
On that fateful night in August 1976, the life of one so colourful, a man described as someone born far ahead of his time, someone who loved football passionately and indeed life itself, was senselessly killed while on a mission to recruit another player for his beloved AmaKhosi.
The man who accompanied the larger-than-life Nene that cold night, Jan ‘Malombo’ Lechaba, who had also incidentally been recruited by the self-same Nene only a few weeks previously from Pretoria Callies, recalls the events that led up to the tragedy.
Attired in a multi-coloured grey and maroon scarf, dark tracksuit pants and the famous Mamelodi Sundowns canary yellow top, Lechaba looked up to the heavens as if seeking divine intervention when describing those tragic events, and then momentarily closed his eyes, with pain still etched deeply in his face.
“I sometimes ask myself where Kaizer Chiefs would be
