10 Things You Didn’t Know About Mark Fish

Mark Fish is best remembered as being a crucial part of South Africa’s victorious national soccer squad when they won the 1996 African Cup of Nations. He’s  one of the best players to walk on this planet,not only in South Africa but all over the world. If you think you knew Mark Fish very well,then there 10 things you didn’t know about Mark Fish.

1. Fish started his career in his native South Africa under the guidance of renowned coach Steve Coetsee, playing for Arcadia Shepherds, an amateur team based at the Caledonian Stadium in Pretoria. He was spotted by then Jomo Cosmos coach Roy Matthews and turned professional as a striker. It was at Cosmos that he was converted into a central defender and went on to become one of the most promising defenders in South Africa at the time.
2. He was signed by Orlando Pirate in 1994,after Cosmos were relegated. At Pirates he arguably played the best football of his career under the tutelage of Mike Makaab. He also won the league championship at Pirates, as well as the BP Top Eight Cup in 1994, the 1995 African Champions League and the 1995 Bobsave Super Bowl (then the premier cup in South Africa).
3. He captained The Buccaneers when they beat JS Kabylie in the 1996 CAF Super Cup. In the same year he was part of the history making South African national team to have won the African Cup of Nations at the first attempt after South Africa’s readmission to FIFA in 1992.
4. Foreign scouts came knocking and he was signed by Lazio of Italy, after he turned down an opportunity to play for his boyhood club, Manchester United.
5. Fish moved to England after just one season at Lazio to become the highest paid player at Bolton Wanderers.
6. “The Big Fish” as he was affectionately known throughout his playing career went on to make 102 Premiership appearances for the Addicks, scoring three times.
7. He scored one of the goals in the quarter final against Algeria and was named to the Team of the Tournament in both the 1996 and 1998 African Cup of Nations.
8. Fish won 62 caps for the South African national team, scoring twice.
9. He made his international debut in a friendly game against Mexico on 6 October 1993 and received his last cap in a World Cup qualifier against Ghana on 20 June 2004.
10. In August 2008 Fish’s wife, Loui, and his ten-year-old son, Luke, were at their Mooikloof home with friends when five men, armed with an assortment of weapons including an AK-47, burst into their house.