If you are a novice footballer, passing up an opportunity to sign for a top club is a gamble, and it might even sound careless to snub a second one—midfielder Ethan Brooks did just that.
When midfielder Ethan Brooks’ career was fast taking off, he came very close to signing for Mamelodi Sundowns.
This was shortly after missing out on another opportunity to sign for SuperSport United after a successful trial.
Ricardo Katza, then a development coach at Matsatsantsa, remembers how buzzing the 16-year-old was in the middle of the park.
“I remember him. He was that good already at the time,” Katza, now director of football at Grey College in Bloemfontein, tells FARPost.
For a boy whose Sunday school teacher had predicted that he would play football professionally when he was only three, there was always an inkling he would make it to the big stage.
His grandmother, Yvonne Brooks, remembers waiting to pick him up after Sunday school at Rhema Bible Church 17 years ago when a teacher held his three-year-old hand, asking who his parents were.
The Sunday school teacher, later identified as Kotie, had a message to relay. So convinced was she that she couldn’t keep it to herself.
When Yvonne, 74, stepped forward to confirm that she was the boy’s granny, the teacher made a bold prediction: “This boy will be a professional athlete one day,” she said.
Ethan’s dad, Fabian Brooks, admits those words meant they had to pay particular attention to their son’s interest in the game.
When Sundowns and SuperSport came knocking for their teenager in 2017, it evoked memories of that prediction.
And what a better way to start his professional career at a Sundowns side that was already a dominant force in local football under the masterful tutelage of Pitso Mosimane.
While Fabian admits it was quite a tempting offer before even opening the envelope that contained the contract, he says after giving it some thought, they decided otherwise.
He vividly remembers Trott Moloto, a senior Downs official, walking into their Mondeor home clutching a khaki A4 envelope in his hand.
Interestingly, they neither touched nor opened that envelope. Whatever the contents of that contract were, it could wait until the boy was done with his Matric.
“Until today, I don’t know what was in that contract. I’ll never forget what Mr Trott Moloto said. He said: ‘you know what, this is the first time I walk into somebody’s house, and the first question is not ‘what’s in that envelope?’
“For us, it wasn’t about the money, the name or the fame. We knew that it was important for Ethan to get an education. Until now, we stress the importance of education because, unfortunately, football is a short-term career,” Fabian tells FARPost.
Downs had spotted the boy while playing for amateur side Panorama FC. His dad’s insistence on completing his Matric first meant he would continue with his development at Panorama under Michael, now based in Greece.
As fate would have it, Dan Malesela, then in charge of Galaxy, who shared a training ground with Panorama in Radiokop, caught a glimpse of the boy in action. He was lording it over the midfield of that Under-19 team.
“It’s just the thinking, the football intelligence; I could see something that was not in many youngsters. Sometimes, you see pure talent but with no football brain. It’s very rare [at that age] to see someone who is very calculative. I like people who think about the ball. That’s what hit it for me,” Malesela tells FARPost, stressing that he didn’t have to look twice.
Luckily, Galaxy, who were then playing in the GladAfrica Championship, were not in a rush to sign the teenager. All they wanted was his and his parents’ word that he would join them once he was done with school.
“At the end of 2019, coach Dan knew when the exams finished. It took about three months to March 2020, and we officially put pen to paper. It wasn’t until the Bio-bubble that Ethan actually started playing for TS Galaxy,” recalls his dad.
The pint-sized midfielder made his debut in a GladAfrica Championship encounter against Cape Umoya on August 19, 2020. The following 12 months would be phenomenal for him.
Brooks was part of the triumphant 2021 Cosafa Cup campaign in Gqeberha. He also formed Bafana Bafana coach Hugo Broos’ squad that had a decent run in the World Cup qualifiers, playing five out of six matches.
The 20-year-old has since joined AmaZulu, and his new coach Brandon Truter is confident he will regain his form and bounce back to the national team.
Does the midfielder regret having refused to join Sundowns and SuperSport? Maybe. Maybe not.
But certainly, his parents have no regrets that they allowed the midfielder to focus on education first before plunging into the often-unpredictable world of professional football.
