Former Orlando Pirates captain Happy Jele has opened up on how his career almost came to a premature end in November 2011.
Jele revealed that what made it worse was that his contract with Soweto Giants was coming to an end in June 2012, and it was not clear whether Pirates were going to renew it.
That left Jele, not only bearing the physical leg pain, but mental pain of his uncertain future.
Pirates confirmed that Jele, who had scored two goals in eight games in that season of 2011/12, would be out between six and nine months.
This happened after he had collided with Bidvest Wits defender Siboniso Gumede during their league match at Nelspruit’s Mbombela Stadium on 19 November 2011.
According to John Williams, the Pirates physiotherapist, Jele was taken to hospital, but the scan did not reveal the extent of his injury.
He visited an orthopedic surgeon to realign his broken leg before he was ruled out for the rest of the season.
“It was very hard for me, I thought I would not play football anymore,” said Jele when asked by iDiski Times about that horrific injury.
“I went to do my surgery. I had to go to three doctors, and they said I’m not going to play football again and that killed my morale.
“But now it’s over (when they said at that time), I need to start focusing on something else. (But) at Morningside Clinic; they told me that they would do something with your leg.
“Because I had torn my MCL (medial collateral ligament). They said we had helped lots of rugby players and they came back and played. They said, ‘You are not going to play; I’m not saying you are going to stop (because of the injury), but we are going to try to help you.’
“I went home, and I thought about it, I told my parents. My parents said, ‘Go and see the doctor and see off the injury and see what happens because this one is giving the hope, (unlike the three doctors)’.
“Surgery came, we did it. The whole of December I was walking on crutches.”
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Jele, who joined the Soweto giants in 2006, departed Pirates as a legend in his own right in July 2022, having been an integral member of the side which went on to lift two league, two Nedbank Cup, Telkom Knockout, and three MTN8 Cup titles, including the CAF Champions League, and two CAF Confederations Cup silver medals in 401 appearances.
