Johan did it his way

IT WAS the summer of 1995 in South Africa and a tall, lanky 17-year-old was making his highly anticipated debut for first-class cricket club, Transvaal.
Highly anticipated because the skilful fast bowler was, at the time, only the second youngest South African to debut at first-class level.
As fate had it, the first-gamer was to bowl his first ball to celebrated Proteas batsman, Philip Amm, who was playing in his 100th game.
After six balls, Amm had been dropped three times.
A frustrated Vorster returned to fine leg only to watch Amm nick another catchable ball to slips that was again dropped.
“Nice shot, Jenny,” Vorster sarcastically shouted from afar.
Jenny was Amm’s wife but the pair were battling through a divorce settlement.
The widely respected Amm did not take kindly to the newbie’s cheap shot and sprinted down to fine leg where the pair engaged in a wrestle.
After the day’s play, Vorster, fully aware of his new-found standing with his opposition, showered and headed to the opposition change rooms for the traditional post-game festivities, only to again encounter Amm.
This time it was a full-on fist fight.
Vorster recalls that days later, a local official and big supporter of Amm invited he and his father to discuss his cricketing life.
“’Name your price’,” Vorster recalls the official saying as he pulled out a chequebook.
“ ‘Name your price, I’ll write you a cheque and I’ll close all cricketing doors for you for the rest of your life’.
“I said to him, ‘you can take your cheque book and shove it …’
“You can’t buy my silence; you can’t buy my career; you can’t end my career … as long as I keep performing I should play.”
While the run-in did adversely affect his playing career, it was this type of strength and self-reassurance that would hold Vorster in good stead when faced with greater adversities later in life.
Vorster was born in Transvaal, South Africa in 1977 and within 20 years he was training with the South African national squad.
While Vorster is honoured to have been asked to train with the South African team, his major shot at professional cricket came when he was approached by the then captain of South Africa, Hansie Cronje.
“I had one training session at Wanderers when Hansie Cronje asked me if I would like to play for his (first-class) team in Free State,” Vorster recalls.
“I jumped at the opportunity.
“(Because of the bitter spat with Jennings) I’d had some bad experiences at Transvaal and this was a way to put all those bad experiences behind me and start afresh.
“I remember this so clearly, after one training session Cronje said, ‘give me your number’ so I did and he wrote it down on his hand but I said to myself ‘whatever, what are the chances (of him remembering me).’
“He’ll probably forget about it.
“The number will come off, he’ll sweat, he’ll shower, he’ll forget.
“Two weeks later I get a phone call from Hansie and he said you’re playing a trial match for Free State against Warrickshire.
“I had a fantastic game. I took 3/12 off 11 overs and scored 48 runs.
“I went back to Johannesburg and got the phone call saying ‘we want you, we want to contract you.’
“Fantastic!”
For the first time in his life, Vorster was set to become a contracted cricket player.
He packed his bags, and along with his wife at the time, left his hometown to start a new life in the province of Free State.
“When we got there, we rock up at Free State Cricket Union, have a chat … then it explodes,” Vorster said.
“Hansie Cronje has been involved in a match-fixing scandal.”
Cronje was handed a life ban from playing or coaching cricket after being found guilty of match fixing.
Free State immediately discredited all involvement the club had with Cronje, including any proposed contracts to sign players that had been scouted by the former national captain.
“I’m sitting there and they (Free State cricket) said, ‘sorry, we’re not going to offer you a contract,’” Vorster said.
As quickly as it had come, Vorster’s hopes of a professional playing career were dashed.
Vorster made the tough decision to remain in Free State and stick to what he did best, cricket.
It paid off and within the year Vorster discovered a skill, and passion, for coaching.
Before long, Vorster was offered a lead coaching role at South Africa’s most prestigious university, the University of Johannesburg.
After splitting with his wife, Vorster, who was only 25, accepted the role and led the struggling university to four premier championships, including three national championships, in four years.
In 2007 Vorster took a break from cricket and began to start a family with his current wife and “soul mate”, Daleen.
Together, they developed a prospering memorabilia business.
After building it to a multi-million dollar entity, the Vorsters fell out with a business partner, and good friend, and before long they filed for bankruptcy.
“We went from millionaires to bankrupt,” Vorster said.
“We lost everything.
“It was tough, but we believe in God and that everything happens for a reason and thanks to our parents and our church we never went to bed hungry.
“Whenever we have asked God for something we have got it; nowadays we pray for the important things – a loaf of bread and two litres of milk.
But the suffering in the Vorster household became unbearable, so only a week into the New Year Vorster and Daleen decided “enough is enough, we’re not going to get out of this hole”.
“Our kids are struggling andsuffering and we can’t providethem with the life they deserve,so we decided to pursue a dream I always had and that was to comeand play cricket and live in Australia.”
After only two days of searching and applying, Vorster was appointed coach of the Cranbourne Cricket Club and within two months, Vorster, Daleen and kids Mene, Melissa, Shenica and Shiloh each had a visa to start a life in Australia.
After selling most of their possessions to pay for the visas, the time had come to make the hardest call of their lives – to buy a return ticket or a one-way.
“We sat down as a family and said we had no intentions of returning to South Africa,” Vorster said.
“It was a hard decision.
“But it was also easy knowing we are going to a country where there is equal opportunity, no discrimination and no need to fear for your life on a daily basis.”
Since arriving in Australia in July, Vorster set out to create a new life in a country he now calls his own.
Immediately he got to work on returning Cranbourne to Turf One in the Dandenong and District Cricket Association, leading the flag-favourites to an undefeated start to the season.
But his time in Australia took a turn for the worse.
Last Monday the passionate coach was told he would no longer be required at the Cranbourne Cricket Club.
Tension between the playing group and the coach forced the Cranbourne committee to make a decision and in the interests of the players the club decided to part with Vorster three months into a season-long contract.
Vorster, who is now fielding calls from clubs as high as the Victorian Premier division, says despite the setback, he’s not worried.
“It has been tough,” Vorster said.
“Trust me I get upset and I still shed a tear when I speak to my family back in South Africa.
“But would it be tougher on somebody who doesn’t believe in anything or who isn’t as strong? Definitely.”
“(Financially) we haven’t started recovering yet.
“But in terms of healing from the heart, we are most definitely on the road to recovery.”