The Boy Who Slept in the Veld

Teko Modise was born in Meadowlands, Soweto, and was raised in Diepkloof by his mother. He went on to become one of South African football's best-known midfielders, but his childhood was disrupted early. In a 2021 podcast interview with MacGyver Mukwevho, known as MacG, he described the years when he was a small boy who had to look after himself.

He said his father, Steve Sekgaila, had played football himself but did not want his son to follow the game and pushed him towards school instead. According to Modise, he was beaten whenever people tried to recruit him to play. When he was eight, his father put him out of the house. For a few months he lived as a street child in the area near Johannesburg.

He recalled how he coped. An older boy who knew the neighbourhood taught him how to survive. He hid his bag and clothes in a hole in the veld, covered with plastic, and he searched the bins at Florida Park, a picnic spot, for food. He changed his clothes so that people would think he still lived at home. The longest he went without eating was three days, and he recalled that the first time he ate Chicken Licken, it came from a dustbin.

His mother searched for him until she found him, and he then lived with his sister and brother in a house where, he said, there was little warmth or encouragement. Football became what he called his escape and therapy. He played for SuperSport United, Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns, twice won the PSL Footballer of the Year award, and represented Bafana Bafana at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. After finishing at Cape Town City he became a SuperSport TV analyst, and as an adult he has tried to reconcile with both parents.