Kaylin Swart recently achieved a milestone when she won her 50th cap for Banyana Banyana in the 2-1 win over Malawi at the Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium on April 8.

The 30-year-old has come a long way from the little girl who played football in the street with the boys in her hometown of Gelvandale in the Eastern Cape to winning the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.

Swart sat down with Layla Arrison this week as she opened up about her footballing journey on SuperSport Unplugged’s ‘Off The Bench’, revealing that she wasn’t always a goalkeeper and hated having to don the gloves initially, but it steadily grew on her.

The JvW star admitted her passion for the game started at a very early age, but it was only when she became a teenager that her path as a shotstopper began, with her father suggesting she should give it a go.

“It’s been a crazy journey but it’s been incredible. I mean 50 caps for the national team is not a small feat and for me to get where I am now, obviously with a lot of hardships, but I’m just grateful that I was able play 50 times for the national team and may it continue,” Swart told Arrison.

“I played in the street, that’s where it started. I was playing in the street with the boys and I was always the only girl so I never saw it any different because that’s what I was so used to.

“I think I was about five or six [years old] and my dad asked me if I really want to play football so I said ‘well we could try’, I mean I enjoy playing in the street and I don’t care about it.

“Then I started with the local team called Glenville Celtic AFC down in Gelvandale and the rest is history. Honestly I never looked back and I mean I was the only girl up until I was 14… that’s probably where the love and the joy [for the game] started.

“I just turned 13 and my dad was like ‘why don’t you try being a goalkeeper?’ and Hope Solo was my idol since I started but I never thought I’d become a goalkeeper. When I did, my obsession became even more.

“But in the beginning I hated it. So when he asked me if I wanted to be a goalkeeper, I was like ‘hell no, I’m not even going to put on gloves’. But if I think back about it, it just came naturally and then weeks went by and obviously he was my first goalkeeper coach, my dad, so everything just fell into place.”