‘I had bad luck at Pirates’
The true nature of a football career is that it’s never clear when the curtains will come down. There are no warning signs ahead of a career threatening injury.
From his highly-successful time at Bloemfontein Celtic, where he rose to be the standout performer, Lebogang Mothibantwa saw his career go downhill while at Orlando Pirates, despite playing on for another five years.
“The car accident that I had in my second season at Pirates, when I crashed my VW Velocity onto a municipal truck back home in Olifantshoek, marked the beginning of the decline of my career,” Mothibantwa says. “After that I gained weight, had more injuries and got frustrated.”
Born and bred in Olifantshoek, a small town in the Northern Cape which is not famous for football but rather the military base of Lohatla and the mines that surround it, Mothibantwa had to chase a career that no-one from the area had ever considered.
“Most of the kids growing up there end up in the mines or the army,” he notes.
He started in the amateur ranks at Two For Joy, Moonlight Eagles and then Northern Delights, by which time his dad had long nicknamed him ‘Congo’after the former Moroka
