A tribute to uncle Simon ‘Oom Si’ Mogane

Authoritative, charismatic, flamboyant and shrewd were some of the adjectives used by former players from the golden generation of Black Africa to describe the football club’s late founding member Simon ‘Oom Si’ Mogane.

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, Mogane came to the former South West Africa in 1958, with fellow tradesmen under contract by apartheid South Africa to build houses and schools for Katutura residents.

However, after six years in the country, Mogane teamed up with a group of his Namibian friends to form what would become one of the great and most successful football teams in the history of local football – the Black Africa Football Club.

The Namibian spoke to a few Black Africa (BA) legends and asked them about the role Oom Si – as he was known in football circles – had on them.

We also approached Patrick ‘Mabos’ Vries, a former player and chairman of Orlando Pirates, BA’s fiercest rivals during their glory days.
Here is what the BA’s legends had to say:

Lucky Bostander

“Oom Si knew Black Africa like the palm of his hand. He was everything to the team, but he never intervened with the coach’s selection as to who must play and who not.

He would always be the one to pray for us before we got on the pitch.

“Black Africa always had an advantage over our opponents because Oom Si was like the 12th player for us.

You would always see him pacing on the touchline giving instructions.

He would always say ‘Lucky if you play today, we are going to win the game’,” Bostander says.

The former midfield kingpin says Oom Si would always call him aside on the pitch, pretending to tell him something.

“I would return back to play and if I made one fine move which almost resulted in a goal he would shout ‘Lucky did you see it’s working’.

That old man was a smooth operator, very shrewd and he really knew how to work up our opponents and their supporters,” the former footballer says.

Boni Paulino

“The old man was really an authoritative character. When we were struggling to score he would give us instructions contrary to what the coach told us.

The coach would tell us to build up from the back but he would tell us to leave the cross-country passes and play long passes instead.
“He always clashed with Rusten (Mogane) when he was the player-coach who told him that our strong point was not the long ball but the short passing game.

He always told me that he would never praise me because he would bewitch me as I would allow the praise to go to my head.”

Lucky Gawanab

“I remember the late Mr Mogane as a charismatic person with very strong Christian beliefs. I can’t remember one single match we played in Windhoek that he did not pray for us.

But he was also our psychological player,” the former defender says.

“He did everything in his power to dampen the morale of our opponents. He played with the minds of our opponents by acting as if he was strewing muti on the pitch.

People actually believed that he was some sort of a juju man but his antics also inspired us.”

In contrast, Mogane had strong Christian beliefs, was a regular churchgoer and always insisted on praying before he went on the pitch.
He always said the same prayer in his mother tongue Sepedi.

David Snewe

“I was thinking the other day why we were so good but then I realised it was because we played with a 12th man, Oom Si, and the other team had only 11 players.

He was not part of the technical team but, nevertheless, he would give instructions,” notes Snewe.

“One thing that baffled me was that one moment he would lead us through prayer and the next he would use psycholigal tricks on our opponents.

He would also insist that we were never the first team out on the pitch which wore our opponents and their fans out psychologically.”

Mike Awaseb

“Our opponents believed he was some kind of muti man and they did not even want him to walk across the pitch,” the former defender says.
“He was not part of the coaching team but we listened.

When the going got tough and we were struggling to score, he would say ‘Mike you must go forward, maybe you will get a chance from a corner kick or a freekick to score, because our forwards don’t want to score today’.”

Awaseb would point out that he was a defender who could not leave his position unguarded, but Mogane would insist. Everybody listened attentively before he went on the pitch.

Mogane would always have the final word and even the coach at the time respected his views, Awaseb says.

He adds that the strong character displayed by players like Bigman Schultz, Carpio Kavendjii, Lucky Bostander, Gindis Gawanab, Fighter Louis and himself was what Oom Si stood for, as he was never a fan of fancy football.

Patrick Vries

“Everyone considered Oom Si as one of the father figures of Namibian football. His appearance is full of respect. He was a caring man and he oozed authority,” the ex-Orlando Pirates goalie says.

“Through the establishment of BA he created a community where people could come together and laugh together. He was part of the people who created a team emulated by others.

He left the world without seeing the fruits of his vision given BA’s current situation.”

“That man won the game for BA before it was even played. I must admit, his antics also had a negative effect on us during my playing days; it drained us psychologically,” he notes.

Mogane will be laid to rest at the Pioneerspark Cemetery on Saturday but the legacy he left in Namibia, both as a builder and football administrator, will live on forever.

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