Mustapha Cassiem, SA’s young hockey prodigy

The teenage sensation has huge expectations, billed as the next great hockey star and coming from a family that breathes the sport. He explains how he is handling this pressure and his ambitions.

By: Adrian Ephraim
Photographer: Chris de Beer-Procter


Mustapha Cassiem in action at Woodlands Hockey Turf. The Cassiem family come from the working-class area of Mitchell’s Plain, a world away from Bishops in Rondebosch where he attended school.

Mustapha Cassiem has a sweet tooth. One of the country’s youngest ever national hockey players admits this sheepishly when quizzed about his favourite things in the world, though it’s hardly surprising for a young man who’s only just 18 years old and who up until a few months ago was still a schoolboy. He has a weakness for sweets, but that’s the extent of his weaknesses it seems.