It’s hard to go back. It’s hard to wonder and think to myself: that was me. I look at that picture with a full head of hair, calves that look like they’ve been fashioned out of ebony and a broad smile that splits the face from ear to ear. That was me.

I am no longer that soccer star. Those days have passed with the change in tide that has brought younger, faster and better-paid players. We are not them with their slick hair, expensive cars and lucrative contracts. No, we are the soccer legends: a disparate group of geriatrics, has-beens and could-have-beens.

The room is packed. We sit at our tables in our black blazers emblazoned with the symbol of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We are addressed by the mayor, Amos Masondo, and a host of other speakers, politicians and business people who remember our heydays.

My eyes are rheumy and glossed over with memories of our soccer past, when striker Blessing “Killer” Mgidi was transferred from Orlando Pirates to Moroka Swallows for R250.

“We were playing a game against Pirates, and Blessing had created an opportunity for a shot at goal,” says former Swallows player Shadow Kota. “Blessing was supposed to pass the ball to another player who would shoot, but he didn’t. The owner of the team thought Blessing had been paid off by the other team, which is why he decided to sell him.”

Blessing insists that he was innocent in the entire debacle. Calloused hands grip the edge of the seat as he gives a blow-by-blow account of that fateful day. His body sways this way and that as he pseudo plays out the lead-up to his attempt at a strike. In the three games he had played for Swallows, Blessing had scored more than six goals and had been the inspiration for countless others.

The room is held in awe as legend after legend tells his story. Phil Venter was one of the few white men who not only played in a predominantly black team but who also played in all three major clubs: Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Moroka Swallows.

His round belly jiggles with glee as he takes a draw on his cigarette and recounts the days he spent bucking the system and the powers-that-be to play with black people. Interracial shenanigans were not just frowned upon during those days but duly punished as well.

“Those were the real dark days of soccer,” Phil recalls. “The condition of the stadiums was absolutely shocking. There were no change rooms, let alone showers. And for a white boytjie like me, you can imagine how disturbing that was.”

The inadequate infrastructure did not scare Phil off though, as he took part in some of the most thrilling clashes in the history of South African soccer. The kind of games that people would call derbies – intense matches between two rival teams from the same area.

And no derby has lasted longer than the relentless rivalry between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. Both teams are products of the South Western Townships (Soweto for the uninitiated), where boys learnt how to kick a ball from the moment they took their first step.

Game after game, match after match, these two teams met under the gaze of thousands of fans on good fields and bad fields alike to run, pass and score until their sweat dampened the gold-and-black and white-and-black jerseys they wore respectively.

In one particular derby, the Mainstay Cup final, the rivals slugged it out for more than 120 minutes only to end in a five-all draw. Orlando Stadium back then could accommodate 25 000 spectators, yet on that day more than 50 000 fans turned to watch their team beat the other.

“I was playing for Pirates at the time, and we drew with Chiefs in extra time,” recalls Phil, “And the following week we played them again and won the tournament two-one. That day will live in my memory forever.”

And do those memories ever leave us? For brief moments in time we were gods to the people. Our every movement held them in a trance. Each time we went remotely near the goal posts they caught their collective breaths. They would wear our colours and paint their faces to encourage us, to make us score. They would chant our names in unison and blare vuvuzelas (plastic horns) until the surrounding areas knew each goal and miss by the dips and peaks in the cacophony.

It was in those days when the “prezzas”, the presidents of the soccer clubs, ruled the hearts and hopes of the fans with their selection of a steady stream of soccer-playing youths hailing from Naledi High School in Soweto. In those days when you were injured the appointed paramedics would pump your  legs, no matter what the ailment was.

“I remember that for half-time snacks all we used to get was a bag of oranges,” says Blessing.

Someone else gets all nostalgic about what we used to get paid in those days. We hear amounts of R4 a game being bandied about, which just puts the R250 transfer into perspective.

We are not the only who reminisce about those days.

“Indeed this all takes me back to my days as a small laaitie. I wasn’t a great player, but I was an excellent observer, and these guys used to entertain us throughout the year: winter through summer,” says Johannesburg acting city manager Dr Refik Bismilla.

Yes he remembers, the City of Johannesburg remembers, everyone remembers. We are remnants of a bygone era in the 1930s, the 1950s and 1960s when the beautiful game stood up to an oppressive government and defied the call of the final whistle.

That was a time when the likes of Phil Venter, Andy Karajinsky and Peter Bala’c dared to play in predominantly black teams. And strikers such as Shadow struck fear into the goalkeepers who were unlucky enough to be in front of the posts as they hurtled towards them.

When the wine supply runs dry, and the people leave the room, they will look back and have dreams of yesterday when we were their heroes, their gods. But tonight and for the rest of eternity we will forever be their soccer legends.