MOGAMAD ALLIE: A tribute to Clive Barker, a true people’s person

The tributes to the late Clive Barker from all sectors of society including, almost inevitably, nearly all political parties, speaks volumes about the wonderful character of the former Bafana Bafana coach and the esteem in which he was held across the country. 

Clive was a people’s person in the true sense of the word. Notwithstanding his lofty status as the coach who guided Bafana Bafana to their first and only Africa Cup of Nations success and being a three-time league winner with Durban City (1982 and 1983) and Durban Bush Bucks (1985), he always had time for a chat with whoever wished to interact with him. To top it all, his interactions were always genuine and warm. 

It’s telling how ordinary South Africans, in their tributes on social media, fondly recall their chats with Barker at the airport, on the street, in the gym and wherever else they may have encountered him in the public space. 

As the coach who led Bafana Bafana into their first Africa Cup of Nations in 1996 Barker carried a huge responsibility on his shoulders to deliver success to a country that needed every bit of positivity it could get to start the project of building a nation that was still coming to terms with the reality of demise of apartheid. The destruction of an evil system had to be followed by a necessary rebuilding process, which is still ongoing 29 years after the first democratic elections in this country. 

Of course, winning the Nations Cup was never going to solve the country’s problems but it sure had the potential to become a building block in our march to unify a populace that had been kept apart by the force of legislation.

When the Springboks won the World Cup at Ellis Park in June 1995 and Hansie Cronjé’s Proteas edged the home five-Test series against England with a 1-0 win, followed by a 6-1 thumping of Mike Atherton’s side in the one-day international series, Barker was fully aware of the immense pressure on Bafana Bafana to produce something similar.

If he didn’t already know it, the late Nelson Mandela’s regular calls to his Durban home to inquire about the welfare of the players and the team relayed to Barker the importance of Bafana lifting the 20th edition of African football’s flagship event.

It was important for a predominantly black sport to also bring something to the table with the country still basking in the glory of the success of the predominantly white rugby and cricket teams. Barker felt obliged to deliver the same for the country’s majority.    

He found the perfect balance to harness the country’s unique diversity by selecting what was a squad representative of the country’s demographics. No-one could quibble with his selection, the players were all called up because they deserved it.

Of course, there was also a touch of good fortune in that 1996 success. The powerful Nigeria side that won the previous Nations Cup in Tunisia decided not to travel to SA after tensions between the Mandela government and Sani Abacha regime that executed environmental rights activist Ken
Saro-Wiwa and eight others. And the tournament was moved to SA after the hosting rights were withdrawn from Kenya.

The 2-0 victory over Tunisia in front of 80,000 delirious fans at the old FNB Stadium sparked celebrations bigger than those that followed the Rugby World Cup success. Soccer had come to the party. Typical of Barker, he magnanimously handed his gold medal to Madiba.

It was during those heady days when Bafana Bafana reached an all-time high Fifa ranking of 16 in August 1996 that the team went toe to toe with giants such as Brazil, Argentina, the Netherlands, Germany, France and England shortly afterwards. 

Barker’s contribution to the game and to trampling down apartheid barriers started well before the 1996 Nations Cup. After a promising playing career was curtailed by a serious knee injury in the late 1960s, he could be found coaching at township schools in Durban and coaching black teams in defiance of the National Party government’s apartheid laws.   

The beauty of Barker’s involvement with AmaZulu in the mid-70s is that it showed how much he was part of and how much he empathised with the team’s culture. From sleeping in a kombi because, as a white person, he wasn’t allowed into the hotel to embracing the culture around the use of muti, Barker scaled the colour and cultural barriers with consummate ease.

He was more than just a coach, he was a mentor and father figure to many of his players. Clive Barker was an agent for change because he felt at home in Durban’s townships, leading the way for other white footballers and coaches to follow suit. 

Instead of basking in the glory of being the only South African coach to have lifted the Africa Cup of Nations, he was genuinely concerned that no-one else had been able to match the feat in the 27 years since.

SA’s footballers owe it to the memory of Barker to return to the heights of the late 1990s, capping it with a second Nations Cup title in the near future.