In this edition of My Muti Story, once again KickOff catches up with former AmaZulu FC player Bonang Ngaka, a raconteur of note.
Ngaka tells a story of how a group of Christians, who were all female, found the AmaZulu squad butt-naked on a Durban beach.
Who and where?
"At AmaZulu, we once woke up at 04h00, and we were instructed to head to the beach to bathe. We drove from the clubhouse to the nearest beach. We had a game against Mahwelereng Real Rovers.
"At the beach, we found a muti man standing in the water holding his ishoba [fly-whisk] on his right hand, and a bucket on his left hand.
"Two by two, we had to kneel before him, in our birthday suits [laughs]. He'd whip you with his ishoba and pour water on top of you, using the bucket. You would then rush to the team bus.
"While we were still busy, a kombi carrying abomama baseZayoni [women from the Zion church] stopped nearby [laughs].
"You should have seen us running for our lives hiding our manhood with both our hands. We went straight into the bus.
"The following day, the muti man arrived at the clubhouse, he performed his muti rituals, and the instruction was not to look behind you once you were inside the team bus.
"So, we had this bus driver of ours, he was also from KZN. Because he was so passionate about muti, he decided to join the AmaZulu players in the muti ritual.
"Now, remember the order was: 'Do not look behind once you are inside the bus', but now because he was the driver and he had to reverse the bus first before we could hit the road, he wanted to turn his head and look behind [laughs]. You should have heard everyone screaming: 'Nooo! They said you shouldn't look behind' [laughs]."
Why were you doing it?
"To win games."
Who was the muti man?
"He was a very quiet old man. No one knew even the sound of his voice."
What did you have to do?
"We had to do it as a team for it to work properly."
Did everyone take part?
"They'd tell us: 'If you are a Christian, you are a Christian at home, not here'. It's only one incident when we were camping in a Cape Town hotel where we found in our dressing room 18 razor blades and small papers, allocated to each player.
"The muti man wanted to do small cuts on our flesh. Our captain, Liswa Nduti, who was from Congo, said: 'No way!' and we all supported him.
"After that game, each player was fined R2000 for boycotting the muti ritual."
What was the result?
"We lost that game. But still, I believe if muti worked in football, teams should be winning all their games."