Ernst Middendorp started his second spell as Maritzburg United coach by gathering the Team of Choice’s players around him at the club’s training ground.
It was New
Year’s Day 2016, and Maritzburg sat bottom of the log twelve matches into the
2015/16 season.
Middendorp’s
first words to his new players were, “Guys, we only have one target, that in
May 2016 we want to still be in the league.”
They went
on to achieve that goal on the final day of the season with a 3-1 win against
fellow relegation-strugglers Jomo Cosmos. “This is the greatest escape of all
time,” marvelled Maritzburg chairperson Farook Kadodia. For the entire time
Middendorp had been at the Team of Choice, the club never sat above the bottom two
places until that dramatic final day.
Five years
later, Middendorp was once again Maritzburg’s saviour when he steered the club
to 13th place, having joined the club whilst it sat rock bottom four
games into the 2020/21 season.
Middendorp,
however, is not the only Premier Soccer League (PSL) coach with a memorable
relegation survival story to tell. In fact, the likes of Steve Komphela, Owen
Da Gama and Gordon Igesund have all joined topflight clubs sitting in the
relegation zone and gone on to turn the team’s fortunes around.
Steve Komphela:
Steve
Komphela, known for his pearls of wisdom, once said, “Victory has many fathers,
but defeat is an orphan.”
If Komphela
had taken heed of this quip upon joining Free State Stars in 2008, he may have
felt like he was entering an orphanage. Stars had suffered five defeats in its
first eight league games of the 2008/09 season. Few fathers were in sight as
the club had only tasted victory once.
However,
Komphela proceeded to lead the joint rock-bottom club to 11 wins in its
remaining 18 league games to finish in fourth place, only eight points behind
title winners SuperSport United. Stars never finished that high on the topflight
log again until the club was sold in 2022.
Komphela completed
a similar feat with Maritzburg United in the 2013/14 season. Fifteen games into
that campaign, he took over a Maritzburg side sitting in 15th place,
second last on the log. The team that finishes the season in this undesirable
spot has to contest the promotion-relegation playoffs at the end of the season.
Under
Komphela’s guidance, thoughts about those playoffs soon disappeared from the
Maritzburg training ground. He led the club to seven wins in the second half of
the season and a 10th place finish. The club had not finished that
high on the topflight log since its promotion ahead of the 2008/09 season.
Owen Da Gama:
“It is a
great challenge, but I am fantastically motivated by it." This quote could
perhaps sum up how Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama felt as he set out to
become the first human to sail from Europe to India by rounding Africa's Cape
of Good Hope.
If truth be
told, those words were uttered by Owen Da Gama following his appointment as
coach of an Orlando Pirates side struggling in unfamiliar territory. The mighty
Buccaneers occupied the bottom spot of the log with just three points
from its first five league games of the 2007/08 season.
Da Gama
went on to steady the ship. The perennial cap-wearer steered Pirates to 11 wins
from its remaining 25 league games. The club finished eighth on the log, 13
points above 15th place and 12 points behind winners SuperSport United.
Da Gama
also found himself taking over the reins of a rock-bottom team in the 2008/09
season. That basement dweller was Bloemfontein Celtic. The club had only
collected 11 points from its first 14 league games. Da Gama set about ensuring
the team avoided the dreaded drop and he delivered. Celtic finished in 14th
place with 33 points, ahead of 15th spot on goal difference.
Gordon Igesund
When Gordon
Igesund joined Moroka Swallows in the 2010/11 season, the four-time PSL top
division title-winning coach found the Dube Birds nestled rock bottom
with just two points from its first nine league games.
“I am
confident in the potential of the players and my ability to lift Swallows,”
Igesund told the media after his appointment. “They are a famous sleeping giant
of South African soccer and I want to wake them up. But first, my priority is
to get off the bottom of the table and start winning games.”
The club
went on to soar under Igesund’s tutelage, winning eight of its remaining 21
league games to finish in 13th place, two points ahead of 15th.
Igesund took Swallows to greater heights the following season. The club came second
on the log and he was named PSL Coach of the Season.
Igesund
also accomplished a from-relegation-to-survival story with another big South
African club, SuperSport United. He took over a Matsatsantsa a Pitori side hovering above 15th
place on goal difference with just one win and four losses. He went on to lead the
club to 11 wins and 6th place.
Dylan Kerr:
Dylan Kerr
had instilled a feeling of invincibility at Black Leopards within his first
three months of joining a Lidoda Duvha side languishing in 15th
place.
“The
players have said to me since‚ ‘We thought we were unbeatable,’” Kerr said
after his six-match unbeaten run with his new club came to an end.
By then,
Kerr had already become Black Leopard’s first PSL Coach of the Month in 10
years. His team went on to finish the campaign in 14th place, two points above
15th spot.
Kerr had an
even tougher challenge in the 2021/22 season when he took the coaching reins of
a Swallows side sitting rock bottom with eight points from 12 games. He went on
to lead Swallows to 15th place and retained the club’s topflight status
by getting more points (seven) than University of Pretoria and Cape Town All
Stars in the promotion-relegation playoffs.
Dan Malesela:
Quick
question: What does Dan Malesela have in common with Ernst Middendorp?
They have
both been suspended by a PSL club, Chippa United.
While Malesela
was put on special leave – the media call it ‘suspension’ – by Chippa in April 2017,
Middendorp was suspended by Chippa in March 2015.
Legally,
Middendorp couldn’t go anywhere during his suspension. His lawyer told him,
“Don’t move, because suspension means legally that you have to be available
from one day to another.”
At any
moment, Middendorp knew he could get a call saying, ‘Take the team tomorrow at
nine o’clock for training’ or ‘Yes, it’s the morning now, but you must do the
training at four o’clock in the afternoon.’
In the end,
Middendorp didn’t receive such a call before he was fired at the end of the
2014/15 season. Malesela, on the other hand, was called back by Chippa with two
games left of the 2016/17 campaign and it proved to be a masterstroke.
The club had
lost all of its three league games under assistant coach Mbuyiselo Sambu while
Malesela was suspended, resulting in the club sitting in 15th place,
one point behind Highlands Park.
Malesala
then returned to lead Chippa to a 3-0 win over SuperSport. It was only the
team’s second league win in 2017. A goalless draw against Free State Stars on the
final day secured Chippa’s survival. The club finished in 13th spot,
ahead of 15th spot on goal difference.
In the 2021/22 season, Malesela’s Marumo Gallants had no final-day worries. Having joined the club when it was sitting rock bottom with four points from nine games and no wins, Malesela led his new troops to seven wins and 10th place. He also took Gallants to the Nedbank Cup final that season, losing 2-1 in extra time to Mamelodi Sundowns.