Salute to a rebel and a rarity

Clive Barker was a renegade who wanted, through football, to impart the quality his 1996 Africa Cup of Nations-winning captain Neil Tovey identified as what set him apart as a coach — his love. 

Democracy and Bafana allowed Barker, who died aged 78 in Durban last Saturday, to express that love fully. And it became reciprocated by football supporters as they became infatuated with the new national team that first was regarded with suspicion. Barker emerged a national hero for it. 

He was not political; far from an activist willing to die or go to prison for a cause. Barker's passion was football. If through it he had some personal awakening, like the often rebellious 1980s white footballers of his club teams, his perhaps unwitting response was to break barriers. Barker became, partly through Nelson Mandela's influence, a cultural figure. The new president viewed national teams as nation-building instruments, and especially Bafana, whose 2-1 friendly win against Zambia at Ellis Park Madiba attended at halftime by helicopter from his inauguration. 

He never did anything to make an impression. He would be honest with people that he came from humble beginnings and never tried to act as if he was more than that  

—  Yvonne Barker, wife

When Barker, in 1994, joined a Bafana who had earned the nickname “4x4s” for their heavy defeats, Tovey said he knew from his experience working under the coach at Durban City and AmaZulu that his positivity and remarkable man-management would heal a team that “just needed love”. 

Partly due to his curiousity about cultures other than his own and consequent ability to handle players from varied backgrounds, Barker had become one of South Africa’s most successful coaches in the 1980s. Few, if any, other white coaches strove to understand cultural diversity. He knew how to use muti as a motivational weapon rather than an oddity to be disrespected as inferior, which he began to learn when coaching AmaZulu and Golden Arrows in the 1970s. 

It was an approach stemming from his humility and respectfulness. After his career was ended by a knee injury in 1969, Barker drove taxis in Durban — a worrying time for his family, but one he approached, like anything else, with enthusiasm. 

“He had this business — it was just stupid — selling car batteries,” Yvonne, Barker’s ballet dancer sweetheart whom he married in 1967, said. “Of course, he was far too generous with people. He ended up in debt and went bankrupt. He had to get a job and as an extra job, part-time, ended up driving taxis. 

“He never did anything to make an impression. He would be honest with people that he came from humble beginnings and never tried to act as if he was more than that. And whoever he spoke to, no matter who they were, he treated the same — and just far too positive most of the time.” 

Coaching AmaZulu might have been part necessity. Scribe Mark Gleeson said at Thursday’s memorial that “for a white man to go into the townships in 1974 was rare”. 

“He was certainly among the first whites to coach in the black NPSL [National Professional Soccer League] and his contribution would have been immense. Clive, I don’t think, was a political animal — I don’t think I ever had a political discussion with him. He was in the townships for the football. But however inadvertent, it was one of those little knocks against the system of the time.” 

It was typical of Barker to be enthused by such an endeavour. At the same time, through football, he saw the other side of apartheid. Being notably empathetic, it affected him more, perhaps, than many of his colleagues and players from the white National Football League who were part of the amalgamation in 1978 with the black NPSL and Federation Professional League for Indian players and those categorised as coloured, as soccer thumbed its nose at apartheid doctrine. 

“Many of his friends and some of his family were racist,” Yvonne said. “They all knew to say: ‘Don’t say that because Clive’s here.’ 

“I remember him going to coach in the townships and coming home and telling me matter-of-factly: ‘I was there, but there’s no lights there. There’s no electricity, there’s nothing’. I’d say: ‘Whatever do you mean?’ And there were these white, entitled people who had no idea. 

“And it never entered my mind. I was 19 when I got married and hadn’t come across anybody like Clive. Everybody was treated the same. You thought you were being kind to people but you didn’t know their situation. He’d seen their situation. Through football he’d seen the other side. 

“And he was quite aggressive in the beginning with how he spoke to people about that. Then he realised you’re not going to get anywhere unless you just keep telling them they’re wrong, and why they’re wrong. That was a big part of what Clive did for me, opening my and our children’s eyes to that. 

“Even now, I’ve been surprised at people’s reactions [to his death]. My brother said to me: ‘We took him for granted, hey.’ Grown men said they couldn’t speak [at the memorial]. Then you think: ‘Maybe he did do something good.’ We just took him for granted — he was who he was.” 

Of course, Barker was partly a product of his time and those around him. The white footballers and coaches who were part of the amalgamation of leagues were, some more reluctantly than others, caught in a rebellion against the separation of races in sports. 

Some of these were players such as Paul Lafferty, Butch Webster, Dennis Wicks, Brummie De Leur, Lawrence Chelin, Andy Stanton, Mark Tovey and a young Neil Tovey at the Durban City where Barker, 37 when he took the job, shocked the football establishment with back-to-back NPSL titles in 1982 and 1983. 

Barker’s memorial was at Olive Convention Centre, two roads back from North Beach — Durban’s old ice rink. Barker’s son, sports photographer and owner of the Backpagepix agency Gavin, recalled how after City won the league in 1982, they wanted to watch Escape to Victory — the 1981 romp about POWs who created a team to beat the Nazis and stage an escape — at Ocean City cinema, which occupied half of the ice rink building. City, a mostly white team, had coloured players Rodney Charles and brothers Michael and Ryan Wood and black player Moffat Zuma. 

“They wanted to come on a Saturday but it was a whites-only cinema. My dad arranged for us to come on Sunday and the black players were let in. It was a small thing but a start of chipping away at apartheid through sport,” Gavin Barker, who attended with the team as a young boy, said. 

The white players — many of whom joined big, more-supported traditionally black teams Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Moroka Swallows, becoming folk heroes to supporters who knew most whites as oppressors — may not all have been fiery liberals, and some might be called conservative today. But enduring friendships were forged across the colour barrier and the players fought for each other off the field. There was rebellion in the air in football. 

Lafferty said City “used to go out after training and if they wouldn’t let us in we all wouldn’t go in. We’d create so much noise outside the manager would say: ‘Let them in — they’re not all white but they want to spend money.’” 

When Lafferty went to play for City against Durban Bush Bucks, where Barker won the inaugural National Soccer League (NSL) title in 1985, he and brother Pete would ride to Bucks’ infamously intimidating small ground, Glebelands Stadium, on scooters. The image of two lanky, bearded white brothers riding scooters into Umlazi in the 1980s to play football seems profound. 

Having coached black AmaZulu and mostly white City, at Bush Bucks Barker got to try mixing cultures, a precursor to his 1996 national side whose strength was the fused styles of play of white English-style physicality, coloured football’s directness and black soccer’s high-skill element. Midfield great Mlungisi “Professor” Ngubane resisted overtures from Johannesburg clubs and opted to build a team around himself, luring administrator Lawrence “Big Bear” Ngubane and Barker to the traditionally smaller Durban team. Bolstered by a sponsorship from Puma, Mark Tovey, Wicks, De Leur, Dave Kershaw, Calvin Petersen, Mike Mangena, Harold Legodi, Scot Stuart Turnbull and Chilean Rául González arrived to form one of the most fearsome combinations seen on a South African football field. 

Barker’s training sessions at his clubs and Bafana were “like a World Cup match”, his ex-players would say. “Clive got us fired up,” Lafferty said. “He’d pick the two most volatile guys in two sides that trained against each other. We were at each other’s throats, and he’d say: ‘You guys are ready now.’” 

It irritated Barker he became labelled as a superb motivator but less tactically astute. His tactical strength lay in knowing how to assemble a quality side, unleashing it with a simple but devastating game plan. His man-management, partly though his ability to pick up and understand cultural sensitivities, was unparalleled. 

It’s the reverence with which his players speak of Barker that says so much about the coach. None more so, probably, than his favourite player, Doctor Khumalo. 

With him it was his identity and showing he really understood the culture of each individual

—  Doctor Khumalo, former player

“Clive was a father figure who rallied behind every individual when they were in need,” the Bafana midfield legend said. 

“When you arrived at camp he wouldn’t say ‘hello’ and then ‘bye, go to your room’. It was: ‘How’s USA, say happy birthday to your mom, your old man OK?’ You’d get to your room and ask yourself: ‘How does he know it’s my dad or sister’s birthday?’ 

“We’re also talking about a social factor. He worked at Durban City, AmaZulu, Bush Bucks. With him it was his identity and showing he really understood the culture of each individual. 

“At a media day he wouldn’t send a Zulu-speaking player to a Sotho interview — he would send a Sotho-speaking player. And he made it clear these journalists were important to us, and we didn’t know about that. 

“When we were playing a match against DR Congo, the likes of [journalists] Thomas Kwenaite and Billy Cooper gave us what they saw in the other camp. I was like: ‘Wow, so Clive made us friends with the media.’ These are things that seem minor, but are unusual and important. He was the only coach who allowed a journalist to go and interview a player in his room. This was a Nations Cup, you had to be focused, and he would ask journalists to join us at breakfast. Why would he do that? But he knew exactly what he was doing.” 

Outside the memorial on Thursday Lafferty and some of his 1980s contemporaries stood unmolested while fans swamped Bafana’s class of '96, though the legendary Ngubane remains a fan favourite. The older guard never had the chance for international football, but played their role. 

The careers of Barker’s Bafana were built on the shoulders of 1980s giants such as Orlando Pirates and Jomo Cosmos great Jomo Sono, a key technical adviser to Barker at the Nations Cup; and Kaizer Chiefs’ Pule “Ace” Ntsoelengoe and Nelson “Teenage” Dladla, who competed amid the explosion of the super-competitive, dream football of the 1980s after the amalgamation of three strong leagues. Many of Barker’s Bafana — including Phil Masinga, Tovey, Mark Williams and Khumalo — cut their teeth in that environment. 

Barker the renegade paid for his fights with the South African Football Association, losing his job six months before the 1998 Wold Cup he had qualified Bafana for. As usual it came from a good place. His loyalty to some ageing senior players, reward for how they’d given everything for him, lost him some public support as new talents such as Benni McCarthy seemed to take an age to introduce. The coach remained convinced until the end his Bafana could have done well — or in characteristic hyperbole, “won the World Cup” — at France 1998. 

The legacy of the nation-building Mandela envisaged for Barker’s Bafana, as South Africa strains against a widening of the cracks left by apartheid under the societal pressures of the 2020s, seems as important as ever.