Seat: 164. Row 15. Section: Tribuna Central. Venue: Mestalla Stadium
In that stadium in Spain, a man occupied an orange seat where he watched matches of his favourite football team
He was an ever-present whenever Valencia played a home game.
And when he was 54, Vicente Navarro Aparicio went blind.
But so strong were the ties that bond between the supporter and his beloved club that his loss of sight was never going to be reason enough to stop him from making the pilgrimage to the cauldron on match days.
Trips to the cathedral never stopped and the blind man continued to enjoy the ambience and soak in the atmosphere in the Mestalla.
His son did the job of giving him detailed descriptions of action on the field.
The ties that bond father and son.
Navarro died in 2017.
As part of marking their centenary celebrations and in recognition of his life-long support of the club, Valencia decided to build a statue in his honour. He may be gone, but he will never be forgotten.
In 2014 Senzo Meyiwa, captain of Orlando Pirates and Bafana Bafana, was shot dead.
Cue the late Brenda Fassie's song Promises.
A promise of erecting a statue in memory of Meyiwa was made by the SA Football Association through its president Danny Jordaan.
Because Meyiwa was shot dead, Jordaan's idea for material to build the statue revolved around smelting illegal guns in a furnace and using the by-product to fashion the likeness of Meyiwa.
"We will take those guns to the furnace and build a statue of Senzo Meyiwa," Jordaan told families and sports fans gathered at the Standard Bank Arena in a joint memorial service for Meyiwa and boxer Phindile Mwelase.
The three sporting icons had died in the same week.
"You will decide how big that statue will be. That Senzo Meyiwa will stand in front of Safa house. When you walk in, you must walk past Senzo," said Jordaan at the time.
Jordaan and many people have walked into Safa House since Meyiwa perished when a trigger was pulled and a bullet left the chamber of a gun on that fateful night in Vosloorus seven years ago.
[Danny] Jordaan and many people have walked into Safa House since Meyiwa perished when a trigger was pulled and a bullet left the chamber of a gun on that fateful night in Vosloorus seven years ago
What is clearly visible is that there is no statue in front of Safa House.
Neither massive nor miniature.
No mention was ever made that it would be an invisible one. Unless one missed the memo.
The former mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has previously tried to explain the delay to make good on his promise.
Sam, Senzo's father, did not want the statue to be erected until the truth came out about what happened during the death of his son.
"I used to talk to Senzo's father and remember originally we wanted to put a statue, a monument, but he was always against it, always against the unveiling of the tombstone.
"Because in his understanding once you put a tombstone, that means closure and you walk away, and the tombstone stands there as a memory and monument of his life," Jordaan said at Ezinkawini in Chesterville, where Meyiwa's remains are buried in the Heros' Acre section of the cemetery of my township in Durban.
Sam has since passed away.
Now that we have entered October, the month Meyiwa was murdered, he will once more be the talk of town from Umlazi to Upington.
A man in a hat will say something into microphones while TV cameras roll and photographers click away.
Safa will say something.
Everyone and their dog will make utterances.
All the talk will not change the fact that Senzo's murder remains a cold case.
AfriForum's Gerrie Nel tried to give the case some serious mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with a claim of uncovering the mastermind. But those efforts have not resulted in much progress. So far they have been stillborn. Like the statue.
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