As a group of athletes step onto the escalator in single file, heading towards international departures at OR Tambo, there’s one person in a Team SA tracksuit cruising up the adjoining stairs. He’s taking two at a time.
That in itself isn’t something that will have you rubber-necking, given the squad representing the country at the African Games in Accra is filled with sprightly, fit, strong young men and women in their athletic prime. Except, the man bounding up those stairs is Anver Lyners. He is 70.
The vastly-experienced coach of the women’s table tennis team is on yet another international assignment. Ghana is another country visited that can be added to a long, incomplete list that includes China, Japan, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Australia, Sweden Egypt, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Russia and Taiwan.
He’s a husband, father and grandfather, and he admits that around 60 percent of his life is totally dedicated to his family, while the other 40% is to improving the lives of youngsters that he can take off the streets and into the community halls. Through the power of table tennis.
In a parallel universe Lyners could have been one of the finest sportsmen produced by the country he loves and now, belatedly, represents. However, he was born into an apartheid South Africa in 1954. He became a poster boy for the South African Council of Sport (Sacos) and with a God-given sporting ability, and hard work, he reached the top of the tree as much as he was allowed to.
“I played pro soccer for a while, on the left wing. I also played rugby on the left wing. I was light and fast. I played cricket for Transvaal B and tennis for Transvaal. But before that I was introduced to table tennis. I was in matric and we were waiting for exam results. A couple of us found two table tennis bats in a cupboard, a ball and a net. We used to have those desks with ink wells in them so we put two of them together and used the ink wells to place the net. We were poor and barefoot, but found something that excited us.
“I then went along to the local community centre in Johannesburg, and started beating the better players. That’s when people started taking notice of me. But table tennis wasn’t my only love. I was driven to excel at sport.”
Lyners went on to become a five-time national table tennis champion under the Sacos banner.
“Then, I was in my early 20’s when the Johannesburg Sky Rink opened in the 1970’s. Because it was apartheid, we were only allowed to be on the ice on a Sunday afternoon. But, I befriended a couple of white youngsters and they invited me to join them during the week as well. I took up ice skating and learned fast. Then I saw speedskating, and started that. I became No1 in the 5000m. I could have been an international.”
Lyners always had the desire to represent a land that cruelly deprived him of endless possibilities. “My heart was burning to play for South Africa. I had achieved the pinnacle within the Sacos fold, whose mantra was ‘no normal sport in an abnormal society’. I believe I would have become a table tennis world champion, but I chose to stay with Sacos.
“Ironically, it was apartheid which kept us focused and gave us hope in those years. We could focus all our energies in one direction, and that was to get rid of apartheid. We developed tunn
el vision. And that’s what’s affecting a lot of today’s young talents. They lack direction, they have too many choices and not enough guidance.”
Which is where Lyners thrives.
“Yes, I do see myself as something of a father figure. I’d like that to be my legacy – to have been a decdicated family man and also to have encouraged young kids to take up sport and get off the streets.”
He has become an International Table Tennis Federation qualified coach and is now also coaching coaches in Africa. “Table tennis is such a simply sport to play. Like myself when I started, all you need are bats and a ball and a makeshift net.”
Obviously, with a lifetime of lessons and experience under his belt, it’s impossible to run through his story. So, we will add to the abbreviated version.
He got married in 1987 at the age of 33. He’s still married and his wife is an international table tennis umpire. Her introduction came a year into their union when Anver, who has since moved to Cape Town, but still says he’s Bloemhof (Free State) born and Johannesburg bred, bought her a rules book. “She would come and watch me nd then ask questions about the rules. So, buying her a book seemed the obvious thing. A year later she became an international umpire.”
As he put his playing career behind him the coaching aspect became all-important. I started taking kids from Soweto to the club in Johannesburg and drove a Ford Cortina XR 6. It was made for five people to fit in it but I would give about 13 youngsters a lift to Joburg and back to Soweto. It gladdened my heart so much when one kid in particular, named Mlu, used the life lessons I imparted and became a big lawyer. We still reminisce about those days.”
While his days of competing are a thing of athe past, that’s not to say he isn’t competitive. He’s one of the fittest and healthiest 70-year-olds to be found anywhere. “I stay in shape because of a few things. One of them is that God has blessed me. Another is that I walk a lot. I’m a panel beater and on my feet a lot. I do regular workouts in the gym. But, I also live a healthy life, I have a diet that includes a lot of water and natural foods. And I’m a hands-on coach, I get involved with the kids at practice.
“I also believe that if you put your mind to something you can achieve anything. I’m even on TikTok!”
Perhaps the last sport that Lyners was introduced to was golf. “If I
had my life over again, I would have become a golfer. I would have been rich!” And he laughs. “I only started playing when I was 47 and won the second tournament I entered against a lot of good players. It was at the Gary Player Country Club at Sun City and I shot one-under-par from the back tees off a scratch handicap.
“There’s no money in table tennis though, but the richness I get from coaching table tennis and seeing youngsters grow can’t be attained from money. It’s priceless.”
The man who has looked Father Time squarely in the eye and said, “I’m 70 going on 40,” still has plenty of petrol left in the tank. And those who are benefitting from his coaching and imparting of life’s lessons probably don’t appreciate how privileged they are.
Photos: Roger Sedres in Accra