A Standing Ovation For the Ref! September 17, 2009 Former AmaZulu striker George Dearnaley is back with his latest instalment, this time recounting a trip to Mthatha in the early 90’s.

The Independence Stadium in Mthatha was always a hostile environment for away teams. We used to drive from Durban through the Eastern Cape, spend the night in a local hotel and then play the next day.

My first match there was for AmaZulu in 1992.

We walked into the dressing room and our security man, Makhaye, who was walking in front of all of us turned around and started shouting something in Zulu. The players all stopped, and Junior Njiyela told Clive Barker that there were some ‘funny bones’ in the dressing room.

Clive walked in and said they were only old chicken bones from the local KFC. He kicked them out the door, and we all walked in and started to get dressed.

We walked out onto the field to almost a full house, and the AmaZulu fans on one side of the stadium all started shouting and cheering. When Bucks came out, the rest of the stadium cheered for their local heroes.

But the big surprise was when the ref came out on to the field. He had a cheap red plastic whistle between his lips, and was obviously a local favourite. When he came out the whole stadium erupted!

The game was tough, as they always were away from home. We were 2 -1 down with only a few minutes to go, and then we had Patrick Gumede sent off. To make matters worse, I think it was Tim Nzoyi who got cramp and couldn’t run, and we had already made all three substitutions.

We were now playing the last few minutes with nine men. In the last minute of injury time, Joe Mlaba crossed from the right, and before I could get to the cross, Bush Bucks Captain John Mbidzo put his head in the way and scored a beautiful own goal.

The ref hesitated and looked at the linesman. They were looking for something wrong, but there was no way they could disallow an own goal with nobody near the ball.

The final whistle went and we had got a valuable point. I went up to shake the ref’s hand, and saw that one of his eyes was squint! He smiled and said “you are very lucky boy.”

How do you tell people this story without them thinking you are lying?!