The business of turning rough gems into superstars is no easy task. So rough can some diamonds be at times that would-be mentors can choose not to get their hands dirty and pass them on to the next gaffer who might take them.
This was the case for George Khumalo who, while at Giant Coal Aces, decided that Percy Tau was not worth the trouble and decided to let him slip through his fingers.
“The first time I met Percy was when he was playing for a team in the SAB League Giant Coal Aces. he was playing there with Buti Khoza. He was quite young then, but he was very raw. You could see he was an exceptionally good player. He was highly intelligent.
“I spent six months with him, but we experienced a problem with him where he was supposed to come and play, and he went away to play with his friends.
“It was not the first time; he would go away and gamble instead of coming to play a league game (SAB League). It wasn’t because he was not good enough, it was because he was not disciplined,” says Khumalo, who guesstimates Tau may have been 12 at the time.
Interestingly, when he plays the game of football, Tau still does so with childlike enthusiasm.
This enthusiasm is evident from his every movement – the way that he roves around the pitch, hungry and searching for the ball. The way he seems to cherish every touch of the ball, how at times he seems in a deep romance with the oval shaped piece of leather, caressing it gently with his left foot as he takes it in his stride.
It all looks so innocent and childlike that one would be forgiven for thinking he goes to sleep with the ball in his arms. One can see it in the way he celebrates every goal with elaborate dances that look like there are products being crafted and choreographed for hours all beforehand. In the hands of a capable coach, as many opponents discovered when he was Pitso Mosimane’s weapon of choice at Mamelodi Sundowns. Diminutive Tau is a hot knife. Defences are just butter.
However, there are times when he is truly in his zone that one feels like the Lion of Judah’s script is unrehearsed, that the nappy-haired forward is actually freestyling on the pitch. It is in such moments, that one thinks perhaps, in his mind, Tau is not actually in some great arena facing down some of the world’s best players, but back in those dusty pitches of Klarinet in Witbank.
From Loftus Versfeld to the Santiago Bernabéu, Tau’s touch and his indomitable spirit has remained the same. It is a spirit that can only have been born on the streets, where skill, not brawn or other attributes looked for by professional coaches, defines one’s market value.
Witbank Spurs owner Themba Mafu remembers when Tau, then just another rough, uncut gem from the mining town, descended on the field as one of dozens of trialists hopeful for a fair shot at success. It was exactly after Khumalo chucked the boy away.
“He was a tiny lil’ boy when he came to trials. On that day, I saw this little boy who was quite creative and incredibly good with the ball,” Mafu tells FARPost as he sips from his mango juice at a Pretoria East restaurant.
“And as the trials continued, I left because I had some commitments. When I came back (after two weeks), I looked at the list of the people who were picked and I wanted that young boy – that name that I couldn’t see and I asked where he was and was told he didn’t make it. I was actually upset.
“That’s when I went to check him at his place in Klarinet where he used to stay, and I brought him. I could just see a young boy that loved football and that had all the prospects of a good player that we were looking for and I said, ‘this is the one’.”
Anyone who has spent some time watching or playing diski in the streets or in the amateur leagues can tell you how addictive it is. It is football at its purest, its ardent followers will say, an intoxicating cocktail of skill freedom, showcasing the beautiful game before it is shackled by the rigid structure of professional football. It is the diski that many yearn for, the fabled style of play that some say, if it were to return, fans would flock back to the stands too. As effective as he is, Tau offered a glimpse of that and when he turned up for those trials just over a decade ago, he had all the attributes of a budding diski prince.
But with some much freedom, sometimes comes great irresponsibility. Many times, coaches in the professional set-up have complained of diski stars that, although entertaining to fans, are often an obstacle to their teams because of selfish showboating or indiscipline. When he came to Mafu, the pint-sized attacker also needed to learn that he was not playing for himself alone.
While his individuality might not have been ideal in a team sport, for Harris Chueu, the man who took Tau to Sundowns, it was this ability to stand out in a field of 22 players for one ball that marked him out from the rest.
“I played for Witbank Black Aces and I know Witbank very well, I have people in Witbank who are still my friends, they told me about Percy,” he tells FARPost in a separate interview. “I went to see him play, it was a school competition in Eldorado Park, I witnessed him playing for 30 minutes and I knew he was a top player. I just stayed till the end of the game, but I had already seen that he was good and had football intelligence. I didn’t waste time, the next Monday I was at his home and I signed him. He was about 14 at the time.”
The odds for footballing success were always stacked against Tau. In a way his story is a typical South African tale. He was the fourth child in a family of eight, all cared and provided for by a single mother. Coal, and not football stars, is unearthed in from the hills of Witbank, a place that is reputed to have the dirtiest air in the world. Witbank rears its children to go into the coal mines and not the football field. His mother has admitted to how, in the struggle to provide for her family, she would prohibit him from playing football, his one true love.
A teary Tau, who was only ever happy with a ball at his feet, would break down, sobbing as he pleaded to be allowed to play again. It was from that disciplined household, a home where he could not have everything he desired, that Tau emerged. Now as he continues his ascent to South African football greatness, having so far led a rather surprisingly scandal free life, fans can appreciate the efforts of his mother, Elizabeth Tau.
“Percy’s mother was very strict, if you talk of people who come from humble beginnings,” says Mafu. “They stayed in an RDP house. It tells you that if everybody is given an opportunity and somebody is patient with them, guiding them, they can achieve anything. He didn’t stay for too long (at Witbank Spurs), we wanted him to be 16 so we could register him. Just as we were about to give him a contract, Sundowns came looking for him to join their development,” adds Mafu.
Despite his mother’s efforts, Tau found himself on the football pitch. Perhaps it was inevitable, given the fact that football seems to run in the family’s blood.
“… It’s a football family from the eldest brother to the little ones that are still coming, there’s unbelievable talent in the family. Percy has a 13-year-old nephew, who is extremely talented, so it definitely runs in the family,” says Mafu.
The Percy Tau story is being written. Despite all his achievements, the 27-year-old seems to be only now approaching his prime. But the story would not have been written, no ink would have been spilt, if a skinny teenage boy did not pick up his boots and head for trials at Witbank Spurs all those years ago.
“He came to trial for the senior team, which proved that he was a very brave young boy, you know how kids get when they hear about trials. You get kids from as young as 12 or 14 years of age coming to try their luck. He was brave for his age,” says Mafu.
Tau, who had a stint with English Premiership side Brighton & Albion Hove, has taken his talents to Cairo, Egypt where he turns out for Pitso Mosimane’s Al Ahly.
And the boy from Klarinet wants to shine at the Club of the Century with a childlike enthusiasm.
