Miracle worker Cavin Johnson leaves Platinum Stars for SuperSport United. You read it here first.

On the move: Cavin Johnson

WARNING: THIS BLOG IS NO LONGER ON HOLD!


CAVIN JOHNSON has finally made official his departure from Platinum Stars after a season which saw the Crocodiles from Phokeng so nearly take the PSL by storm.

Dikwena finished second behind Kaizer Chiefs - by just one point - and reached the semi-finals of the Nedbank Cup. But as I said A MONTH AGO (see tweet below) Johnson has called time on his reign a fortnight of wrangling with the Royal Bafokeng Kingdom, owners of the club.

That's the official version. In truth of course, Cavin had made his decision months ago. Just as Gavin Hunt, the SuperSport United coach, made his decision to decamp to Bidvest Wits not long after Christmas.

While players and fans carried on happily "giving their all for the boss" in both Phokeng and Tshwane, both coaches had made up their minds. And if you want proof of this assertion see my tweet on n May 18, at 6.25pm, it looked like this: https://twitter.com/nealcol/status/335778181174943744.

If you go to the link, you'll see all the doubters questioning my prediction of Johnson to SuperSport United, though Hunt's move to Bidvest Wits was never really questioned. Suggestions he is on R750,000 a month are of course, ridiculous. He's on around half that, with bonuses. Jose Mourinho returned to Chelsea today on a salary of around R10m a month, AFTER tax. So let's not get in to figures.

Today, finally, the merry-go-round has turned, two weeks after Johnson's submitted a resignation letter suggesting he needed to move closer to Tshwane for "family reasons".

But that's ridiculous. Johnson knows SuperSport, expensively backed by DSTV, have big plans. With Stanley Matthews now the CEO at Matsatsantsa a Pitori (The Swanky Boys, The Trendsetters). 

I've long been a fan of Johnson. I wrote this after seeing his side come back from the death in the Nedbank Cup quarter-final against Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus Versfeld: http://neal-collins.blogspot.com/2013/04/cavin-johnson-and-platinum-stars-what.html

But despite his performance this season - he lost out on the PSL Coach of the Season only to double-winning Stuart Baxter at Kaizer Chiefs - Johnson has spent the season looking over his shoulder. His assistant Allan Freeze has always been highly regarded in Phokeng.

Johnson and Freeze were installed as joint coaches after Owen De Gama's controversial departure two seasons ago, but Johnson eventually got the nod as big boss.

March: Phala with Matthews

Now he gets to try his hand at SuperSport United, a club with a title-winning pedigree (lest we forget, Hunt won the PSL for three successive seasons in 2008, 2009 and 2010) and a raft of impressive reinforcements.

From Moroka Swallows he has Bennett Chenene and David Mathebula - they signed pre-contracts as long ago as January - while the impressive Senegalese striker Mame Niang will move from neighbours AmaTuks.

And of course, he can also call on his own Stars stars. In March, Thusa Phala was snapped up by former PSL CEO Matthews - his mother Suzan works at SuperSport as an events manager - along with fellow Dikwena man Enocent Mkhabela.

It worries me a lot that those deals were made in March, around the time Hunt was finalising his deal at Wits and, presumably, Johnson was agreeing his move to SuperSport United.

Breaking the news: my Cavin Johnson tweet, May 18

Will Johnson do as well at SuperSpot as he did at Platinum Stars? Time will tell. Follow me on twitter @nealcol for updates.

Cavin Johnson and Platinum Stars: what we need to know about the surprising double hunters

Starring role: Cavin Johnson

CAVIN JOHNSON. Took me a while to get the hang of that name. Not Kevin. Not Calvin. Not Gavin. CAVIN. It simply doesn’t feature on any list of popular South African names.

But with his Platinum Stars unexpectedly competing for the double of Premier Soccer League and Nedbank Cup at the squeaky-bottom end of the season, Cavin says: “We started badly, we weren’t quite ready - but now we’re super fit. We can climb the mountain.”

I saw Cavin last Sunday when two late goals sealed a Nedbank quarter-final win over his old club Mamelodi Sundowns at Loftus. I told the tiny band of Dikwena fans they’d win 2-1 (I have Brazilian witnesses), remarkably they did with seconds to spare. They’ve got SuperSport United in the last four. I predict a similar outcome.

And after the come-from-behind 2-1 win over Wits this week, they are now two points ahead of Orlando Pirates in second and just four points short of favourites Kaizer Chiefs at the top of the league.

The top two meet on April 28 in Polokwane with Johnson well aware that his side is the only club to down the AmaKhosi in the league this season. And football analysts are finally starting to talk about Dikwena, the crocodiles snapping at the heels of the lumbering Soweto giants.

Johnson accepts: “The League is there for Chiefs to lose. They have the best side and – in Stuart Baxter – the best tactician in the country. It’s up to them to make mistakes – that would open the door for us.

"My challenge is to make this team peak at the right time – I’m happy we’re doing that.”

Then he issues the stock: “For us it is one game at a time and we cannot get ahead of ourselves and put players under unnecessary pressure.”

In the old Gaelic, Cavin is spelt Caoimhan, it means “beautiful at birth”. It’s listed as the 18,267th most popular name in the USA and apparently one in every 351,102 Americans is called Cavin. So the bloke who has taken South African Premier Soccer League by storm this season is fairly unique.

But we knew that. Perhaps Cavin’s greatest claim to fame is discovering a lad called Steven Pienaar in Cape Town. Now 54, Johnson came across the lad from Westbury in 1994, when the Everton star was a mere 12-year-old.

At the time, Pienaar was playing street football (for R5 a goal) and Johnson had just set up the Transnet School of Excellence. Johnson recalls: "There were other players around just as good but Stevie's attitude 

stood out, not just his technical quality.”

And perhaps that’s the key to Johnson’s rise. His ability to spot attitude. He soon added Dillon Sheppard and Brent Carelse to his finds and he became youth coach when Ajax Cape Town emerged from the merger of Seven Stars and Cape Town Spurs in 1999.

Then he took a similar role at Sundowns before rising to assistant coach under a bloke called Gordon Igesund when Msandawana won the PSL in 2007. Those were heady days in Mamelodi.

Both Johnson and his current Platinum-plated star Thuso Phala soon found themselves struggling to stay afloat in Patrice Motsepe’s money-no-object environment.

But they have reunited just outside Rustenburg after Owen de Gama’s controversial reign - and the club is finally fulfilling  King Leruo’s ambitions in the kingdom of the Bafokeng (more of that later).

Phala came to prominence as Igesund’s surprise Bafana Bafana package at the African Cup of Nations earlier in the year and Johnson grins: "Thuso is just reaching his peak at 26. His first touch has improved, we do a lot of technical work in training. His decision-making has improved too.”

Benson Mhlongo is another former Sundowner who has found his feet under Johnson. The former Orlando Pirates centre-back is the fulcrum for Dikwena with Johnson confessing: "Benson was told he would never play again when he injured his knee at Pirates.

“But I knew him from Sundowns and I bought him mostly to offer his experience to our youngsters. But it turned out much better than I thought it would. He won't play 35 games for us, but he's made a huge difference."

There are gems only Johnson could unearth in the mineral-rich, 14,000 square kilometre kingdom of the Bafokeng. Players like Vuyo Mere, the fullback from Chloorkop, another former Pirate in winger Patrick Malokase - and he spotted the former Leopard, Robert Ng’ambi.

Up front, Botswana’s Mogakolodi Ngele (9 after his brace against Wits this week) and Namibian Henrico Botes (7) have scored 16 between them to form one of the most-feared dynamic duos in the country this season.

And then Cavin offers this secret behind his success: "Kabelo Rangoaga does our fitness and Godfrey Sepuru is my physio. They are vital. We have not had a strained groin or hamstring for 18 months."

Or is it this? He wears TWO wristwatches – a posh one and a cheap digital - to keep Ferguson-like tabs on the referee’s time-keeping. He grins: "It's my only muti!”

PLATINUM STARS?

There’s a toughie too. Used to be Silver Stars. The name first came up, for me, in 2009. A bloke called Martin Bekker, spokesman for the Royal Bafokeng family, told me all about King Leruo’s plans for the little team that started out as Khakhu Fast XI in 1937 in the eponymous town 170km east of Polokwane.

A couple of months later I watched England and Wayne Rooney beat them 3-0 in a pre-World Cup friendly. Steve Komphela was in charge then. I saw nothing special, though Gavin Hunt told me at the time: “England aren’t going to win the World Cup!”

But the memory stuck. Bekker showed me a 35-year plan for Leruo’s Bafokeng nation which included shoving Platinum Stars to the top of the footballing tree in South Africa.

But I could find little evidence of impending success back then. And precious little record of Platinum Stars’ footballing feats until 1998 when the club’s then-owner Joseph “Tycoon” Mapfulagasha moved his team to Mapate, 30km south of Khakhu. They changed their name to the Mapate Silver Stars and were promoted from the Vodacom League to the National First Division in 1999.

Then came a link with the old white National Football League titans Highlands Park, when a Sandton businessman called Larry Brookstone purchased half of the club and linked them with his juniors at Highlands North, though “HP Silver Stars” continued to play their games just over 300km north of Johannesburg.

After four seasons in the NFD graveyard, they came to life in 2004 and were promoted to the PSL. They finished 11^th, 7^thand 5^th – and that’s when the Royal Bafokeng Nation took an interest.

It started off with a sponsorship deal, closely followed by a provincial border-crossing from Limpopo to 

North West. In December 2006, they beat Ajax Cape Town 3-1 in the first-ever Telkom Knock-Out final and they finshed the season as runners-up in the PSL.

That encouraged Royal Bafokeng Holdings to buy 51% of Silver Stars’ shares in May 2007 – and the name was changed to the local mineral, Platinum.

The catalytic benefits are obvious. This week Botes, the 33-year-old who was voted the best PSL player in Q2, signed a new deal, joining Ng’ambi, Msomi, Kagiso Mlambo, Lindokuhle Mbatha and Solomon Mathe as long-term investments. But the club has already lost Phala and Enocent Mkhabela to Nedbank Cup rivals SuperSport next season.

There are further problems as the club struggles to attract decent crowds at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium for their home games, despite being the only PSL club in the Northwest province.

Johnson is working on that: "We have to create a brand of football that pulls more supporters. We want to compete with well-supported clubs like Bloemfontein Celtic - but it's difficult to change footballing loyalties. So we have to attract a younger generation. It's a long-term thing."

Claiming the Nedbank Cup or the Absa Premier League title – or both - might help.

Follow me on www.twitter.com/nealcol and see me on eNCAnews, DSTV channel 403 every Monday at 8.15pm.

Killing giants explained: How to produce Roy of the Rovers Cup upsets in THREE EASY STEPS

Pirates plundered: Mashale Rantabane

By an extraordinary stroke of good luck, I can explain to all those tiny teams out there, worldwide, who hope to produce a Roy of the Rovers Cup upset EXACTLY HOW TO ACHIEVE THEIR MIRACLE in three easy steps.

Yes, you’re a bunch of amateurs from, say, Maluti Further Education and Training College in a place called Phuthaditjhaba in an area with mysterious clicks called Qwa Qwa… and you play in the rather modest Free State Second Division.

(Note: Phuthaditjhaba (formerly Witsieshoek, is a seSotho name that means meeting place of the tribes. It is located on the banks of the Elands River. Neither Wayne Rooney nor Steve Pienaar have ever heard of it).

You’re a bunch of amateurs and you’ve been drawn in the FA Cup, Copa de la Ray or even the Nedbank Cup against the all-conquering multi-million conglomerate that has just won your country’s domestic League TWICE in succession.

People wear their replica shirts on every corner of every town, including Phuthadijhaba (or Witsieshoek/Whitey's corner).

Okay, let’s go a step further. Into the realms of impossibility. You’re playing Orlando Pirates, winner of SIX trophies in just two seasons. They haven’t lost in 12 games, they’re top of the Professional Soccer League – or will be if they win their game in hand over Kaizer Chiefs. Oh, and last week, the Buccaneers won their opening game of the African Champions League FIVE NIL!

So how do you beat The Sea Robbers? On my new show SportsTalk which I produce for Talk Radio 702 and Cape Talk 567 every night at 8pm, we spoke to Morena Ramoreboli, who is indeed in charge at Maluti FET College.

When I set him up for the interview with presenter Udo Carelse on Friday, I asked him: What are your chances? It was of course, a trick question. They didn’t have a chance.

To my surprise, rather than the modest and inevitable “we haven’t got a bloody hope”, Morena said: “We have a huge chance to beat them. We have prepared for this.”

With the wry smile of the hard-bitten former Fleet Street journalist, I set him up for his big interview. This is what he said. Word for word. We giggled in the studio. Nice bloke, hasn’t got a hope.

And they went on to win 4-1 against Roger de Sa’s shocked Buccaneers. Yes. 4-1. Against a side expecting a sixth successive clean sheet for Senzo Meyiwa. Against a side with Zimbabwe's TakeSure Chinyama and Zambia's Collins Mbesuma, a team that doesn’t show much concern about not having last year’s title-winning top-scorer Benni McCarthy available.

So in effect, read these words from Mr Ramoreboli.

THEY HOLD THE KEY TO BEATING ORLANDO PIRATES or MANCHESTER UNITED or BAYERN MUNICH or BARCE-BLOODY-LONA!

“I can say I am excited but I am a bit worried about the way we are going to perform tomorrow.

“Obviously there’s a lot at stake and we want to win.

“I am worried. Will the players be at their best tomorrow or what?

“You know last season, we had a dream and we discussed this. But we did not win the League or qualify for Nedbank.

“This season things went according to our plan. To us it was not a miracle, it was not a surprise. We knew this would be our season, that we might play against these bigger teams.

“We have tried our level best to condition our players to do well against Orlando Pirates, physically and mentally.

“We have looked at some videos. What we know about Orlando Pirates, everybody knows. They won’t change their structure of the way they play. They may change players, but not tactics.

“Obviously when you play a big team there are three thingsyou have to take in to consideration.

“ONE you must make sure they don’t play the kind of football THEY want.”

“TWO you must make sure they play each and every ball where you can see it.”

“THREE every time you win the ball you must make sure that you play quickly away from the area you have won the ball from.”

“Then we’ll do well against bigger teams. I’m telling you. That’s football. There are moments in football, and we must treat them very seriously.

“If we don’t have the ball we must switch on and defensive.

“If we have the ball, we must go on and attack.

“To be honest with you, with have some very good players, very young, very talented. We have a good man-marker Mashale Rantabane (he scored twice on Saturday). We won’t have any problem dealing with their top strikers.

“Pirates always congest the midfield, we must always make sure we don’t give them space where they have numbers.

“We have Lucky Mokoena up front (he also scored twice on Saturday). And a young boy, Godfrey Niels. He’s the next Benni McCarthy. I believe he will be that good.

“Obviously we want to win. I will be interviewed today like you are doing now, I won’t be honest if I say I don’t believe I can do well and get what I want.”

I spoke to Morena again after the game. He just laughed: “You didn’t believe me. I told you we could win! I am very excited. We are all excited. If you prepare properly, you can all be winners.”

I’m not arguing. And woe betide the side drawn against Maluti FET College in the next round of the Nedbank Cup. Especially if you’re an AmaKhosi who’s been making fun of the Pirates.

Even Kaizer Chiefs aren’t safe!

This column forms the bulk of my Neal and Pray column in The New Age on Tuesday. www.thenewage.co.za
 

Can Majoro fire Kaizer Chiefs out of the doldrums?

We already knew Lehlohonolo Majoro had balls. It was written all over his t-shirt when Kaizer Chiefs downed Moroka Swallows 3-0 back in February.

After his record-breaking four-goal Nedbank Cup blitz against the rarely-spotted Leopards in Polowane , he earned the match ball – and on Saturday against Platinum Stars he was at it again, scoring the first in a 2-1 win which puts the Amakhosi right back in the title hunt.

For South Africa’s estimated 15 million Amakhosi fans, a goalden Majoro could be the difference between another season of frustration and an autumn of wild celebration – his record 16-minute first-half hat-trick ensured a place in the Nedbank quarter-finals and a few more to finish the season will leave Vladmir Vermezovic’s men handily placed to snatch the double if leaders Orlando Pirates stumble – and I suspect they might.

Though we must keep an eye on Sundowns – who play Leopards tomorrow night at the Peter Mokabe Stadium – and Moroka Swallows are certainly my pick as dark horses – Chiefs remain a potent threat with their huge following and depth of squad.

Majoro, affectionately known as Laser, didn’t quite match the world’s fastest-ever hat-trick in that Nedbank Cup clash – that was set in Scotland in 1964 when Thomas Ross scored three in 91 seconds for Ross County against Nairn County – but the statisticians are struggling to find anything quicker than 16 minutes in the record books, if you discount the 24-0 Sundowns hammering of the shocking Powerlines in the last round.

With the impressive Steve Khomphela’s Free State Stars to come in the quarter-finals (the draw also gave us Amazulu v Santos, Supersport United v Jomo Cosmos and Mamelodi Sundowns v Maritzburg United), Majoro knows there’s plenty of hard work to come.

But what a change from a month ago. On March 9, after unveiling his “I do have balz” undershirt after scoring against Swallows, the former Amazulu striker told Supersport after being fined for getting things off his chest: "I just wanted to answer my detractors. I had to make a point. The message on my vest was light-hearted, I wanted to make my point politely, but in a meaningful manner.”

Today, the ridiculous R30,000 penalty handed out by the “offended” PSL for his vested interest appears historical, hysterical. The goal against Swallows was followed by his first Nedbank Cup strike against Cape Town All Stars, a supersub effort against Orlando Pirates, another in the 2-0 win over Bloemfontein Celtic. Then came all four in the 4-0 cup triumph and Saturday’s strike at the afokeng Sports Palace. He now has nine in his last nine games, with 14 so far this season.

Majora was glowing when he told us: “There was so much expectation when I came here and yes, I did struggle. They were saying I was a one-season wonder at Amazulu (where he scored 14 times in 27 games last season) and that I was a mistake.

“But I pushed myself. The results are showing now. But credit to Siphiwe Tshabalala too. He knows the runs I make, his passes always put me in a good goal-scoring position. We win as a unit, that’s what swings games in our favour.”

Born in Ladybrand on August 19, 1986, Majoro started kicking ball for Manyatseng United Brothers before playing for Free State University and then Bloemfontein’s Young Tigers. Then he was off north to the University of Johannesburg and Highlands Park before Amazulu spotted his spiky-haired, fleet-footed talent and nose for goals.

The rest is history. Capped once by Bafana Bafana – against Tanzania in May last year – Majoro deserves to be seen as a potent answer to the nation’s goalscoring problems before AFCON 2013. Are you listening Pitso?

Neal Collins (@nealcol on twitter) is a South African sportswriter who dodged national service for 25 years by working among the madmen on Fleet Street. The World Cup brought him home.

This story first appeared in The New Age, the latest in my Neal & Pray series which appears every Tuesday in South Africa’s newest daily newspaper. www.thenewage.co.za.