In the latest edition of My Muti Story, KickOff speaks to former Dynamos player Sandile Ndlovu on his brush with the popular practice of muti in South African football.
Who and where?
"This is something that happened in a river in Limpopo province. Dynamos is one club that I know that used muti more than any other clubs I played for."
Why were you doing it?
"For the team to win and score a lot of goals. After that, you were not supposed to look back."
Who was the muti man?
"Was this old man who was wearing normal clothes? His appearance said nothing about him being a Muti man. But he knew his story very well."
What did you have to do?
"We had to get into the river, and as strikers, we had to scream Goaal! Each time our muti man shot in the air with his gun.
"All this happened late at night. And we could see a huge shiny snake down inside the water staring at us. Imagine all this at 12:00 at midnight. Our muti man went to the snake and said a few words. After that, we got on with our business.
"That's where our goalkeeper, the late Arthur Baartman cried tears saying 'Hhayi I'm leaving this team! The whole thing was too scary for him. He didn't like this whole muti idea."
Did everyone take part?
"Everyone. Chairman, manager, coach all of us."
What stood out?
"The following day, we played Black Leopards. They led us 3-0, during half-time, our muti man burned some stuff in our change room, and in the second-half the tables turned [laughs].
"That's where I realised muti does work in football. In the second half, we scored four times after going to half-time three goals down."
What was the result?
"We won 4-3."
