The very first football captain of the first Venda Football Squad, Mr Robert "Cross" Phalanndwa (81), started playing football at the tender age of six years.
Born at Tshitereke village in 1942, Phalanndwa moved to Khubvi village in 1954. He played with other gifted young players such as Tshipuliso Nemavhola and T Khomunala for Goldville Young Tigers juniors in the mid-1950s. Because of his immense talent, he was recruited to join Thomengo FC in 1956, when he was only 14 years old.
"The first football team in Khubvi village, Thomengo FC, was formed by the late Mr Masindi Philemon Madula in 1955. It is not Khubvi Peace Makers as many people believe," he said.
Phalanndwa said he was elected as captain when the Venda Football Squad was assembled in 1963. He also excelled in athletics and represented his region in athletics meetings many times. In 1964, when he was in Standard 6 (Grade 8), the first squad of the Venda National Team was selected by the football administrators in those days, the late Mr Freddy Ambani and the late Mr Jonathan Netshisumbewa.
The Venda National Team's first game, Phalanndwa remembers, was against Musina XI, who had players from Zimbabwe and Malawi who were working at the mine. "Even though we lost the game 3-2, we outclassed them for the better part of the game as they had players who were participating in professional leagues in their countries," he said.
When he was asked to give his opinion about the standard of the game in the country today, he said: "There are good players at the moment, but they keep the ball too long without passing it to other players. They are dribbling a lot while on the ball and are not really physically fit. In our time, players were not allowed to dribble past more than two defenders at a go. You had to pass the ball quickly. There was no time to play for the gallery," he said.
At his ripe age today, Phalanndwa is still as fit as a bull, working as a vendor in the village. His secret "medicine", he says, is to keep on exercising and refrain from eating fatty foods.