Gerald, or "Gailor" as his closest friends and family call him, is the younger brother of one the country's most influential cricket figures in both pre and post-apartheid, the now deceased Khaya Majola. The Majola family was heavily sports-orientated with Gerald and Khaya, seven years older, actively encouraged by their father to play both rugby and cricket. One of the greatest names in South African non-white sport, Dan Qweqwe, was the Majolas' next-door neighbour. Majola remembers him not just as sporting leader, but a moral one too. "He was my father's best friend. He used to tell us all the time that, no matter what we did, we should know right from wrong and respect that difference above all else." The Dan Qweqwe stadium in Zwide, outside Port Elizabeth, now hosts both rugby and cricket and ensures that the great man's name will live on.
Although softly spoken and apparently gentle in demeanour, Majola can be tough - even ruthless - when he feels he has no choice. When his predecessor, Ali Bacher, originally announced that he would stepping aside, he also said that he would work alongside the new chief executive (who had not then been appointed) in a "mentoring capacity" for one year. One of Majola's first actions after being appointed was to cancel that plan.
"I have to be my own man. If I was working with Dr Bacher then I would be compared to him, or people would expect me to imitate him, so I couldn't accept that. I will be the first Gerald Majola, not the next Ali Bacher. Many of his goals will be my goals, but I'll get there in a very different way, along a different route," he said at the time.
Another cornerstone of Majola's philosophy, he says, is honesty - but honesty "that works both ways. Players have to be totally honest with each other, about everything. If white players have worries or fears, about transformation, for example, they need to feel they can express them. It's important to know everything about the process, what it's goals are, and why it is important. We must all understand each other. We want the same things."
Majola could play a bit, too, although records and statistics of non-white matches and careers during the apartheid years bare no comparison to the recognised 'first-class' structure. Simply organising and competing, on poor or artifial pitches, was achievement in itself and yet Majola's name features in every batting list there is: leading run scorers, century partnerships, highest scorers. Amongst his favourite memories is the sixth wicket stand of 145 he added with Khaya for Eastern Province against Transvaal in Johannesburg in 1986/7. Gerald made 117, his career-best. He was a natural leader, too, captaining the SA Schools side to victory over the provicial 'B' teams for a unique success in 1978-9.
Majola has a tough job and he has made mistakes. He has admitted as much. Financial difficulties continue to entangle the first-class game as it wrestles with a cumbersome switch from 11, failing professional unions to six regional franchise teams. But Majola is slowly assembling a board of directors, the most important of whom are independent, and the trademark nepotism and selfishness that characterized cricket administration for years before Majola ever appeared is finally showing signs of disappearing.
Neil Manthorp
