I was wet behind the ears and still an intern at a magazine called Tribute when the Ellis Park disaster happened on April 11, 2001.
The sight of 43 dead bodies reposing on the pitch and the bellowing screams from those who lost their loved ones cannot be erased and will forever be engraved in my mind.
It was not the kind of scene a person should endure more than once in a lifetime; that could lead to some kind of a mental breakdown and untold psychological damage.
It’s just too emotional for words and enough to make the skin crawl for days.
Last week, as I was covering the Soweto derby at FNB Stadium, there was a sense of déjà vu, and flashbacks came back rushing.
Driving into the stadium from the Riverlea side, the traffic jam was a nightmare; kick-off time was fast approaching, the fans were restless, and it was just chaotic.
And while this was happening, quick-witted, nimble-fingered, and shady-looking shysters were making a killing selling counterfeit tickets to desperate fans.
I am told that some fans drove from as far as Secunda and even Kuruman without tickets, with the hope of getting them from the dexterous swindlers outside the venue.
This created disarray at the turnstiles, with some tickets not scanning and some fans gaining dubious access, which resulted in the venue being oversubscribed.
About 100 000 people must have been crammed into the 94 000-seater calabash like a bunch of hapless refugees.
As soon as people found their way inside, they expropriated any seat or piece of space they could find, whether it was in the VIP or the media tribune; they did not give a toss.
They were standing and blocking the view for others, and as a result, sporadic knuckle-samosas and chisa-mpamas were dished out and exchanged with gay abandon in the stands while the hapless security looked on — tell me if that’s not like a bomb in the hands of a toddler.
Why am I blabbering on about the issue of tickets? It was one of the major contributing factors why 43 football lovers left their homes to watch a game of football and did not return home to their loved ones on that fateful day in 2001.
They were last seen in body bags.
The then SA president, Thabo Mbeki, initiated a commission of inquiry into the Ellis Park disaster chaired by Justice Bernard Ngoepe.
According to the inquiry, one of the factors that led to the 2001 tragedy was the ticketing:
“When the stadium holds rugby matches, each ticket is allocated a particular seat. It was suggested that it was difficult to apply this system to soccer matches.
“There was also an attempt to explain why it was not practical to implement a system of marked seats where soccer was involved,” reads part of the findings of the inquiry.
“It was suggested that soccer spectators of a particular team would prefer to sit together in one pre-designated area of the stadium.
“This cannot be an insurmountable difficulty; for example, the system of colour-coding can be used.”
As diski supporters, we need a mindset shift, adopt a new set of beliefs and values, and move on with the times.
In 2023, organisers clamped down on fake ticket merchants and introduced a high-tech plan, additional cameras, and a new ticketing system to curb bogus ticket sales at the derby.
They seem to have abandoned those plans as the rogue dealers are once again roaming around freely — and that is very dangerous.
The PSL, Safa, stadium managers, police, Joburg metro police, and all the stakeholders need to sit down and have a serious conversation about this before it is too late, or we are headed for yet another disaster, head-on, and at full speed.
