AT LAST, the South African Football Association is recognising one of the country's best soccer ambassadors.

AT LAST, the South African Football Association is recognising one of the country's best soccer ambassadors.

Described as the Maserati of all footballers and Pele the Rolls-Royce by a foremost European soccer writer of his era, Steve "Kalamazoo" Mokone is also rated among the best to grace the Dutch Football League where he played for Heracles in 1956-59.

Parts of a modern-day stadium and a big street in Holland's capital of Amsterdam have been named after him.

In Coventry, England, when he became the first black professional footballer in Europe, a newspaper went gagga: "Coventry has never seen such clamour since the end of the war."

Mokone was a founder member of the Sanroc, which campaigned for the isolation of South Africa from international sport.

We say to Safa better late than never - about time we perfected the history of our game.