Coffee beans and cricket balls
Wihan Lubbe's journey in cricket and his love for coffee.
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This is the home of Gentlemen and Hooligans. The kitchen of the Lubbe home in East London. The enterprise was born over a cup of coffee, literally. While brainstorming about ways to earn money during the lockdown, Wihan Lubbe and his cousin Jacques du Toit decided to turn their love for coffee into a business venture.
The cousins would have gone mad if they had not had this business venture to occupy their time. They could not go to the gym, nor could they go to either a cricket or rugby field to train. Du Toit, a professional rugby player, was also not practising his trade. Both their careers were at a standstill, the future was uncertain.
First, they thought of opening a coffee shop. The duo had everything figured out. Not on the ground, but in their heads. They envisioned a perfect scenario where Lubbe would apply his knowledge of business and the business world in the establishment of their shop. Wihan Lubbe has a degree in business management, his honours are in management marketing.
In their heads, Lubbe’s wife would run it while the two continued with their sporting endeavours, cricket and rugby. She had the skills.
“That bubble burst very quickly,” says Lubbe. “We met a number of business people and they all told us the same thing, ‘Don't do it, it's not the time for it.’”
Lubbe and Jacques had not paid attention to the industry. Established coffee shops had put coffee trailers on the road in an attempt to supplement their income. The lockdown had hit the industry hard.
“We wrote it off, we said, ‘You know, that's cool. At least we tried, we'll see what comes across our way in a couple of months,’” says Lubbe.
But Lubbe had fallen in love with coffee. A couple of weeks after abandoning the idea of opening a coffee shop, Lubbe arranged to meet with a coffee roaster. He wanted to learn more about coffee. As they discussed coffee beans, Lubbe saw another business opportunity: coffee beans.
This is why the Lubbe kitchen in Gqeberha has a constant coffee aroma. That is Hooligans and Gentlemen’s centre of operations: headquarters, company storage room and dispatch centre. That is Hooligans and Gentlemen’s core business, they sell coffee beans to coffee consumers. As they originally planned, Lubbe’s wife handles most of the operations.
“It’s corny, but we call it Hooligans and Gentlemen because cricket is a gentleman's game and rugby is the hooligans’ sport,” says Lubbe.
Wihan Lubbe has seen the pictures. There are a lot of them. Countless.
They are pictures of him holding a bat, taking guard, and facing a delivery… There are many of them. Some were taken by his parents, others by his grandparents. His grandparents are part of the reason why he enjoys sports so much. They always encouraged Lubbe and his brother to be active and take part in sports.
Some of Lubbe’s early memories are of his grandfather making sure that the boys were well acquainted with the golf course. His grandmother never tired of recounting stories of ferrying their uncles to practice and games after school. When they were not doing that, they were in front of the TV watching sports.
Some of Lubbe’s earliest cricket memories are day-night matches. The matches ran for up to nine hours or so, with dinner breaks and the occasional water breaks. The starting times always varied, but they all somehow stretched to around midnight.
The matches were played in the Lubbe family yard, just in front of the garage doors. That whole area was keeper, slips and gully. So, a nick back to the garage doors was out. Aerial shots on the offside, Wihan’s offside, got you out 90% of the time. Lubbe’s brother is right-handed, so he had limited scoring options on his legside. Wihan’s legside had more space to play with, more scoring options and less risk.
Down along the driveway or over the bowler’s head was the most productive area for scoring. Rarely would one hit the ball over the wall in that direction for a six and out. There was a huge tree at the backend of the driveway, it saved many balls from going beyond the wall.
The lighting, the floodlights for the match, were provided by a neighbour. The man was a builder and he had these makeshift spotlights he was always willing to mount for the boys. The builder had three sons and they took part in the matches. Often it was Lubbe, his brother and the boy from next door. Sometimes a couple of kids from the neighbourhood would join in.
The afternoon matches attracted more players, particularly Lubbe’s brother’s friends. The matches got more competitive as these guys grew older. When Lubbe was in Grade seven, his brother and his friends were in grade 12. Lubbe’s brother is five years older. The older boys were first-team rugby players at school and none was good enough to make the cricket first team for their age group. They played cricket for fun.
However, at home, they all had a point to prove and didn’t take kindly to being hit for runs by a small boy. They unleashed raw pace as a response.
Lubbe didn’t mind facing raw pace. Those days he was in his Lance Klusener period. After watching Klusener put bowlers to the sword during the 1999 World Cup, all Lubbe wanted to do was hit the ball hard and far. He carried that mindset to Bakers Mini Cricket. He was there to have fun.
“In pressure moments or when things are not going well in the professional environment, I look back at those times. They remind me why I started playing cricket. I started playing for fun,” says Lubbe.
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Andre Seymore took an immediate liking to Wihan Lubbe when the boy arrived at Garsfontein High School. The youngster was always on time for practice, well-mannered and did his best all the time. His technique was a little scratchy, though. Seymore thought that was because Lubbe had not played a lot of organised cricket at primary school.
Lubbe’s early years were filled with informal play. Which is a good thing. Informal play helps kids develop creativity and the ability to think for themselves. A 2016 study compared elite and amateur footballers in Germany. The results showed that elite footballers, including the 2014 World Cup-winning squad, played more unstructured football early on in their lives.
Sometimes exposing youngsters to structured sports too early could have negative long-term effects. Seymore has seen a lot of youngsters who get proper coaching early on peak too early. Others simply fall out of love with the game.
Garsfontein was not Lubbe's choice of school. As a youngster, Wihan had his sights set on Waterkloof High School. His friends were going to Waterkloof and he wanted to be where his friends were. His parents decided that he should go to Garsfontein, instead. That is where his siblings were already. Also, the school was close to his mother’s workplace.
Meeting Seymore at Garsfontein was the best thing that could have happened to Wihan and his cricket.
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell traces The Beatles' pre-success years. In 1960, while they were still a struggling high school rock band, The Beatles were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany. At the time, Hamburg did not have rock and roll music clubs. The city was awash with strip clubs, instead. That is where rock and roll bands like The Beatles were invited to play, in strip clubs.
The clubs’ patrons were not savvy and neither did they appreciate rock and roll. Rock and roll bands, mainly from Liverpool, were brought in because they were a cheap option.
One particular club owner identified as Bruno, had non-stop shows, requiring bands to play more and more. The bands played seven days a week, for up to eight hours a day. Struggling bands kept going back because they were plied with something that pleases young men: lots of alcohol and sex.
According to Philip Norman, The Beatles' biographer, as saying that The Beatles were amateurish when they made their first trip to Hamburg. However, they were better organised, had better songs and had grown in confidence when they returned home after their third trip which ran between November and December 1962.
Garsfontein Hoerskool was Lubbe's Hamburg.
Garsfontein is not a bastion for sporting excellence. Youngsters with dreams of someday playing professional sports don't fall over each other to get a place at Garsfontein. The school is nothing like Affies, and neither is it like Waterkloof, Lubbe's first choice. Garsfontein’s strength is that the school is nothing like Waterkloof or Affies.
At Garsfontein, Seymore gave Lubbe the one thing he would not have gotten at a school such as Affies or Waterkloof: time. Lubbe was a slow cooker and top sporting schools are not designed to nurture slow cookers. At a top sporting school, Lubbe would have been lost in the crowd. He would have been stuck in a third-string side.
“I am happy that he has turned into a good allrounder, his spin has come a long way,” says Seymore. Seymore has seen a fair number of slow cookers not make it because of a prevalent fascination with early maturing players. “Every time he steps on the field, I call my kids. Wihan is a good example of how far you can go if you work hard and have focus.”
Garsfontein did not win many matches. That year, Lubbe’s age group won only one match in the season. However, despite the obvious lack of talent in the ranks, Seymore treated his charges like future stars. Every now and then he took a handful of boys to Willowmoore Park, Benoni, the home of the Easterns cricket team. The boys would act as ball boys for the day. After the matches, he took them into the dressing rooms to meet and talk with the players.
“Food was not allowed in the dressing rooms, so I had to smuggle food for the boys when they were in there,” says Seymore.
Wihan was one of the boys Seymore took along to Willowmoore Park. The experiences helped solidify his desire to pursue cricket as a career.
“I realized during that year that cricket was something that I was really passionate about. I've always been passionate about it, but it dawned on me that I really loved it and that if it was a possibility I would want to give myself the best chance to play professional cricket,” Lubbe recalls.
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If we discount the Laser bat that comes as part of a set with stumps, bails and a tennis ball, Wihan Lubbe’s first bat was a Duncan Fearnley Gold. The bat is special to Lubbe for two reasons; one, his childhood hero, Lance Klusenar, also used a Duncan Fearnley. Two, Lubbe received the bat on his birthday.
Wihan’s father was not in the habit of buying sporting equipment whenever his children made a request. Lubbe’s father never said no to a request for new sporting equipment or toys, when they were younger, but he made them wait for special occasions.
“Unless we really needed something, he made us wait,” says Lubbe. “I think because he grew up with a little bit less, he wanted to make sure that we understood the value of things that we received.”
With age, Lubbe has grown to appreciate the lessons his father was trying to impart at the time.
One time, Lubbe and his friend, a teammate at the TUKS Junior Club, had a movie that they really wanted to watch. It had just been released and was showing at a theatre in Midrand. The entrance fee was R20 per individual. It was not a lot, but it was money that Lubbe and his friend did not have.
Instead of giving Lubbe and his friend the cash, Lubbe’s father and the other parent gave the boys a carwash kit.
“We literally went door to door knocking on people's doors trying to find cars to wash so that we could go and watch the movie,” says Lubbe. “He tried instilling that mindset in us that it's not just about getting and getting and getting. That you actually have to put in some work for things to come your way as well.”
They are lessons that held Lubbe in good stead. He had never been shy to put the work in. When he arrived at NWU, he played third-team cricket, batting at number eight. This was different from the reception he had received when he had moved from Garsfontein to Waterkloof. When he got to Waterkloof, Seymore and Neels de Villiers had prepared the ground for his arrival.
After a year and a half at Waterkloof, Lubbe moved to Klerksdorp High School. At Klerksdorp, Werner Faul, the first team coach wanted him in the team. Lubbe’s reputation had preceded him.
At NWU he was an unknown quantity and had to work his way up.
Wihan Lubbe joined the Lions after the franchise suffered a player exodus. The franchise was rebuilding after losing four players to a match-fixing scandal.
“I think the Lions picked me for my performances for North West University,” says Lubbe. “I did not do very well for North West Dragons before moving to the Lions.”
As competitive as varsity cricket is, Wihan Lubbe made batting look easy during his three years at NWU. He scored a bucketload of runs and was instrumental in a number of victories for NWU. De Swardt likes to tell the story of how Lubbe and Janneman Malan catapulted NWU to close to 250 runs in a T20 match against the University of Johannesburg.
The duo put on a masterclass in clearing the boundary.
“I really enjoyed batting with Wihan at NWU,” says Janneman Malan. “He brings such positive energy to the crease. I fed off it a lot.”
During the first half of his NWU career and part of the second half, Lubbe batted at number four and often took the game away from the opposition easily. Sometimes he came in after a procession of wickets and as required, he would dig in and rebuild. In the later stages of his time at NWU, Wihan opened the batting.
Of course, he did not arrive at NWU ready for the challenge. Conrad de Swardt did a lot of work with him. As with many first-year students, it took de Swardt a while to remove the schoolboy element from Lubbe’s game. When he arrived at NWU, Lubbe was a swashbuckling batter who placed little value on his wicket.
“Conrade de Swardt transformed my cricket. He helped me make the leap from school-age cricket to the next level,” says Lubbe.
De Swardt protests. He says that he is not the reason why Lubbe became a successful player during his time at NWU and in later years. According to de Swardt, Lubbe threw everything he had, including the kitchen sink, into his cricket.
“Wihan was a late bloomer and took the long road,” says de Swardt. “But he did not let that deter him. It took him a while to play for the first team, but he never compared himself to others. He ran his own race.”
Robusta. That is the coffee bean variety that best defines Wihan Lubbe. Unlike the Arabica coffee bean variety, which takes seven to nine months to mature, the Robusta takes longer, up to 11 months. Unlike Arabica, Robusta can flourish in hotter and harsher conditions.
75% of coffee producers prefer Arabica coffee beans. Robusta occupies the other 25% of the market share. Similarly, the professional cricket space is occupied by a majority of early maturing players.
According to De Swardt, appreciating his unenviable position, Lubbe put in the hours. He spent hours on end in the nets. He was forever badgering de Swardt with questions, looking for ways to add an extra one per cent to his game. It was not just his game that he focused on. Lubbe always made time to assist any teammates in need of help.
“One thing that stands out is that Wihan would go the extra mile to make sure each player understood his role in the team. He also made sure we had a good team environment,” says Hanco Olivier, a friend and former NWU teammate.
He was exactly the player Seymore had coached at the high school level, only older. Seymore moved to Waterkloof at the end of their first year together, and Lubbe was one of the few Garsfontein learners he had retained at his academy. Unlike most others, Lubbe did not pay Seymore. At least not like other academy students.
Seymore charged Lubbe a nominal fee. Not because his parents could not afford the fee, but because Wihan was always willing to help around the academy. Good character is high on Seymore’s list of attributes a player must possess. Lubbe was a model student.
“I wanted to see Wihan grow. It’s not that his parents could not afford the academy fees, but Wihan was a good boy, always helpful. A lot of times he would throw balls for the other kids. He helped around a lot,” says Seymore
When the Warriors are on the road or in bubbles, Wihan Lubbe likes to travel to matches with two cricket balls in his bag. One red and the other white. The red ball is the match ball from a 2019 encounter between the Lions and the Dolphins in Pietermaritzburg. He took a five-wicket haul on the day.
“I almost missed out on the five-wicket haul,” says Lubbe. “They were nine down and I was on four wickets when Kerwin Mungroo looped one back to me for a caught and bowled chance that I fumbled.”
Luckily, he dismissed Prenelan Subrayen shortly afterwards.
The five-wicket haul is a proud moment in Lubbe’s career. Lubbe is sometimes used as a second spinner, at other times as a part-timer. Opportunities for five-wicket hauls are not many for a bowler of his calibre. This is why Lubbe used to tease Marco Jansen with it. Jansen, a skilful left-armer, did not have one at the time.
“I would take the ball I would walk to Marco's room. ‘Have a look at this. This is something that you don't have,’ I would tease him,” says Lubbe.
The teasing came to a stop when Jansen took his first fiver.
Wihan Lubbe and Marco Jansen gravitated towards each other at the Warriors. They are both from Klerksdorp. The hometown link drew them together. They also arrived at the Warriors within days of each other. Jansen moved from the Knights and Lubbe moved from the Lions.
“The Lions have an exceptionally strong squad and when the Proteas players are available I had to make way,” says Lubbe. “So, I knew that if I wanted to reach the next level, I was going to have to be on the park more often than not, and I also needed to have a bit more responsibility in the roles that I took.”
The white ball is from his time with the Proteas. Lubbe was part of the Proteas team that faced Pakistan in 2021. It is a momento. A constant reminder that he once made it to the top of the hill and he can make his way back there again. This is what everything was all about, all the years of hard work and patience.
The two balls are beyond his wife’s reach. She wants him to give away more of his memorabilia. There is so much of it. But, giving it away is easier said than done. Wihan is a sentimental individual. Each piece of memorabilia that he has held on to over the years has a special meaning, a special memory.
His memorabilia is in two bags, one that is in his home in Gqeberha and the other, a PEP plastic bag back at his parents’ home in Klerksdorp.
The PEP bag has everything, from the first wide-brimmed Proteas hat his father bought for him when he was seven to his North West kit and everything in between. The wide-brimmed hat has the first autograph he got from a Proteas player. The boys received a signature each from Nicky Boje at SuperSport Park.
The boys met Boje on the boundary as they made their way off the field at the end of the innings break. Their team had been playing a short match against another team, as young boys did back in the day. Getting that signature was such a big thing for him that he didn’t stop talking about it for a while.
His Proteas cap is in neither bag.
His baggies from all his former teams are also not in either bag. He likes to keep his baggies close to him, they are constant reminders of his journey and how far he has come. The only baggy missing from that lot is the old North West baggy. He framed that one.
The Proteas cap will soon join his North West baggy as the two framed caps. But he is taking his time on that front. The delay is not because he is waiting to see if he is called up to the Proteas again. Wihan received his Proteas T20I cap during the New Balance era, so it is ‘out of commission.’
For Wihan, the question is not ‘if’, but rather, ‘when’. A player of his calibre is always on the selectors’ radar. So, naturally, he will get a new cap when he is called up again.
For the time being, the cap is part of a triad, along with the two balls, that he keeps as close to him as he can. He always has to know where they are.