Fantastic February in December: four penalty saves add much-needed sparkle to a bad year for South African football

Penalty king: Ajax Cape Town's Jody February

JODY FEBRUARY IS NOT A PENALTY SPECIALIST. His words not mine. Like Lionel Messi saying he's not much of a finisher, or Lewis Hamilton doesn't like fast cars.

The 19-year-old goalkeeper, understudy to Finland’s Anssi Jaakkola at Ajax Cape Town, saved a record-equalling FOUR penalties on Saturday as AmaGlugGlug somehow clinched third spot to grab their place at the Rio Olympics next year.

I can’t remember anything like it. Even the late Senzo Meyiwa must be up there somewhere, dancing in delight.

During a frantic 90 minutes, February pulled off a number of saves and somehow kept it to 0-0 as Senegal fired in 25 shots on his goal. But the defining moment came in the 73rd minute, when Jody himself was adjudged to have brought down an on-rushing striker.

February, unruffled, went full-length to his right to deny Moussa Keita a winner from the spot. Senegal followed-up and hit the woodwork but the hosts had to settle for the penalty shoot-out to decide the U23 Afcon third place play-off.

And that’s when February really got going, saving a sensational three out of four.

The first, a firm block to the right to give Bafana's U23 an immediate advantage in the shoot-out. The second, most impressive of all, a flying block to the left. He literally took off. A couple of misses from Bafana Bafana’s nervous lads (Kwanda Ngonyama and Keagan Dolly) meant there was one last miracle to come, a stop with the legs which left Phakamani Mahlambi, our outfield player of the tournament, to slot home the winner for South Africa.

Amid tearful celebrations afterwards, February insisted: “I’m at a loss for words... I am not a penalty specialist, I’m just happy!

“We showed that with passion determination and a lot of sweat we can achieve things as South Africa. This is good start, there are things to come.

“Thanks for all congratulations from back home. I just wanted to contribute to the team.”

Headed for Rio: South Africa's U23s after February's heroics

Coach Owen da Gama, who made a total of 12 changes to the team in five games (two wins, two defeats and a penalty enhanced draw) said: “The players were very motivated as they made history for themselves. We last qualified 15 years ago now we are going to the Olympics again.

“In this tournament we have learnt from all teams. We still haven't played our best football. today we had the mental strength to fight.

“It's not how you start but how you finish. I also think we were lucky. Sorry to Senegal. We were fortunate in this match the boys fought hard and it's clear that the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Back home in Sandton at the SAFA Congress, president Danny Jordaan insisted: “This has been an extraordinary year for our national teams.”

“Wow, what can I say apart from congratulating coach Owen da Gama and the boys. This has been some year for our national teams.

“Now, everyone can see what we mean by Vision 2022 when it comes to preparing winning teams both on the continent and globally.

“We as SAFA have just announced a huge profit of over R40 million at the 25th SAFA Congress on Saturday and now our U23 side has just put the icing on the cake with this marvellous result. Take a bow Owen and the boys.”

But the Mayor of Port Elizabeth is fooling us. In truth, it’s been a dreadful year for South African football. Vera Pauw got our girls to the Olympics too, but there were ridiculous calls for her head before that.

Bronze: the AFCON medal

We go in to 2016 with Bafana BOTTOM of their AFCON 2017 qualifying group, out of CHAN and unquestionably Shaky. Our U17 AmaJimbos, like Shakes Mashaba’s men at AFCON 2015, finished their World Cup with one point. We missed out on the All Africa games and the women's U20 World Cup. The two-legged win over Angola in pre-qualifying for Russia was Bafana's only true success.

Vision 2022 degenerated in to a farce, with veterans and has-beens picked repeatedly by our national head coach as we plunged down the FIFA world rankings.

The truth is Danny, we were LUCKY. But these Under 23s are the future. In the spirit of Vision 2022 at least five of them should have been playing regularly for the senior team.

But we soldier on, a nation rarely capable of getting to the African Champions League group stages, forced to celebrate a rare surge to the second-rate CAF Confederations Cup final this season. A nation held at home by Gambia and beaten in Mauritania.

Cameroon home and away at the end of March will probably confirm our failure to qualify for AFCON 2017 in Gabon, which will give South Africa the chance to appoint a new regime before the World Cup draw in June and the start of group qualifying for Russia 2018 in November.

Hopefully by then, sanity will prevail. Our big guns playing in Europe will be treated fairly. Dolly, Mobara, Mahlambi, Motupa and Masuku - perhaps even Liam Jordan and Jody February - will be the stars. And we’ll stop the continual chopping and changing prompted by rogue agents and poor management.

In fact, let’s make that a New Year resolution.

The TRUTH: Ajax Cape Town coach ROGER DE SA on Cecil Lolo's funeral: the grief, the pain, the LIES

ROGER THAT: De Sa's tweet on the day of Cecil Lolo's tragic death

ROGER DE SA left home for Cecil Lolo’s funeral at 6am in the morning. He returned home at midnight on Sunday exhausted and depressed. Now he is angry. Fuming.

Cecil Sonwabile Lolo was the “True Warrior” in De Sa’s Urban Warriors, a man who emerged from nowhere, with nothing, to become a professional footballer. His death at the age of 27 in a car accident two weeks ago left Ajax Cape Town, part of one of the world’s largest footballing franchises, shattered.

This morning, when De Sa took the side for their first training session since last Friday, Lolo’s seat in the dressing room was left empty and covered in flowers. De Sa says: “That’s how the players felt about Cecil. He was popular, he was respected by all.”

Which is why De Sa is eager to end the witch-hunt orchestrated by Robert Marawa and ANC MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture Pemmy Majodina after the funeral. De Sa rubbishes claims the players were banned from attending, he points out that Majodina was nearly as late for the funeral as he was and asks WHY DIDN’T ROBERT MARAWA ATTEND?

I’ll leave Roger to tell his story:

“Neal, all this “we didn’t care about Lolo” is pure bullshit. Let me start at the beginning. The day he died. Devastating. We did’t know what to do.

“We sit with the family. Three little kids from two moms who live with his mother. The player has no insurance, nothing whatsoever. No funeral plan. NOTHING. So our chairman Ari Efstathiou says we’ll provide an educational trust for kids, least we can do.

“Then let’s look after the family. His mother and other people he looked after. About eight of them. We have to look after them too. Help them recover from Cecil’s death, they all lived off his money.

“But for the kids (a daughter of six months, two boys of 5 and 8), let’s get a proper education. No company would do that, you know that Neal. We are doing everything we can here.

“Then we retire the number 21. His shirt. We’ll never use it again. Nobody’s ever done that, not even for Senzo.

“We name a stand after him. Did Pirates do that? Then there’s the memorial service in Khayalitsha, his base, his place, where he lived with his family.

“That’s followed (last Friday) by a memorial service for all supporters at our base, Ikamva. And yes, all of our players were involved in both memorials, they said their farewells, they cried, they cared.

“We are always in contact with the family, said we’ll help with funeral arrangements. They wanted to go somewhere remote in Eastern Cape. That wasn’t ideal for us but we had to respect it. We paid coffin, funeral, food, in the region of R50,000.

“We do all that. The one thing I don’t like thinking, and Ari is too scared to say, is everyone is saying the club stopped the players from going. That’s bullshit. I went. Last training session was Saturday morning, next one was today. We’d never stop anyone from going.

“They’re trying to say club stopped people from going. That not true. Some Chippa United players went, they were local. But there was nobody from the PSL, SAFA, no other club. For me to get there, I left at 6am got home after 11pm. How do you expect everybody to get there?

“It was a real trip. First we flew from Cape Town to East London, drove to Butterworth 120km. I thought that was it but then there was the drive to the village (Chebe in Centane).

“Neal, you’re English. You've got no idea, a dust road for about 50km, not even a four-by-four can go on that thing, we crossed river, water, rocks. And all of it in an Avis rental car, it must be buggered.

“We managed to get there 12.30, the funeral had started, we already told the mother we’d be late, she respected that.

“We were there. Listened to a couple of speeches. Then the minister started the real thing. Coffin was carried, Cecil was buried. After that we had to leave, needed three hours to get back to airport. We spoke to the father and the mother. We did everything we could.

“I hear stories Ajax stopped players from attending, all this hogwash. This minister arrived 45 minutes before me, having a political go. Using it as a political tool. DA against ANC. Majodina her name was. She looked disappointed when we got there.

“It’s about Lolo, not politics. Nobody stopped anyone from going, the club felt that’s what they were going to do from the beginning. The family chose the burial site, what more do you want?

“I have to ask. Why didn’t Robert Marawa go? I was there. Some close friends of his were there. But some people just can’t get there. That’s life today, you know what I mean.

“Everyone’s climbing on a bandwagon, trying to be all cultural, it’s very disappointing. Ari is trying to protect the players, obviously they didn’t go. No player came and asked to come because they knew where it was.

“Two memorial services, armbands, minute’s silence, we even stopped the match to clap in the 21st minute. All these things were done. Lolo’s seat is empty in the dressing room with flowers on it. We’re going to put a picture up. We respected his culture.

“I saw a picture of Senzo’s grave the other day, he doesn’t even have a grave stone yet. All the people who are having a go, these soccer journalists who never played football, where were they? Did they pay their respects?

Cecil was “The Real Warrior” to me. We had a very good relationship. I was devastated. It only sank in when I got to the parent’s home in the morning. It hit me.

“You go through it, feel every tear, yet here people are lying about players not being allowed to attend the funeral. What kind of story is that?”

Should any media houses/sites wish to use excerpts from this EXCLUSIVE story, feel free, just credit. And stop trying to capitalise on Cecil Lolo's death.

UPDATE: November 11: This story has been used by Kickoff, The Citizen, News24 and The Times.

FOR BALANCE:
1 What Cecil's dad says: http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/lolos-dad-feels-let-down-by-ajax/


2 What Senzo's dad says: http://www.timeslive.co.za/sport/soccer/2015/11/11/Senzo-Meyiwas-dad-furious-at-Khoza-for-going-public-with-insurance-payout

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED: De Sa and Igesund pose a threat to the big guns

Lurking: Igesund and De Sa

There is only one place to be this weekend. The Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday hosts the MTN8 final between unbeaten Kaizer Chiefs and resurgent arch-rivals Orlando Pirates. Stuart Baxter v VV will dominate the week for South Africa’s football-speaking majority.

To dare to predict the outcome of a game which sold out on Computicket in the space of for hours would be difficult, not to say deceptive… even dangerous. The AmaKhosi have played nine games this season, six in the PSL, and they’ve wwwwwwwwwwon them all. BuccaBucca fans will point out they are heading for a FIFTH successive cup final, an achievement as statistically improbable as it is laudable.

There will be 56,000 in Durban on Saturday enthusiastically pointing out the Forever Fearless revival of Reneilwe Letsholonyane or the Once Always option of starting with Kermit Erasmus or Lehlohonolo Majoro.

Me? I’m colour blind. Black and Gold? Black and White? It’s all the same to me, especially when your soft spot for rock-bottom AmaZulu leaves you feeling green about the gills.

More importantly perhaps, as Chiefs and Pirates take a week off league action for the R8m on offer from MTN, is what’s bubbling quietly beneath them in the PSL.

Obviously Gavin Hunt’s big spending Bidvest Wits and Pitso Mosimane’s champions Mamelodi Sundowns will enjoy their time off (Wits restart the PSL action on the 26^th against AmaZulu) before resuming the battle for the title that REALLY matters.

But I am here to warn of two quiet revolutions going on in South African football. One involves the sheer youthful exuberance of Roger de Sa at Ajax Cape Town. The other, the hard-bitten, silver-lined experience of Gordon Igesund at SuperSport United.

On Saturday, former Pirates boss De Sa, with 19 academy graduates in his 23-man squad, kept his side unbeaten in second place, four points behind Chiefs, with a 2-1 win over Bloemfontein Celtic.

Did he boast about it? Did he roar a warning to the big guns? No, De Sa simply said: “If we are going to be serious League challengers then we have got to score that third and fourth goal and we need to learn to do that."

It was De Sa who got Pirates to their first THREE Cup finals, including the big one, the African Champions League. Now surrounded by the young and impressionable rather than the over-paid and sinister, he chides: "We gave away a silly goal. Bad defending and bad goalkeeping didn’t help. We should have killed them off.”

A lot further down the table lies the other threat to the big guns. The return of Bafana Bafana coach Gordon Igesund was always going to be interesting. After an uncomfortable two years in charge of the national squad, he returns to his real speciality: winning PSL titles.

As the only man to do exactly that with FOUR different clubs, Igesund settled in to Cavin Johnson’s hot-seat at SuperSport United and immediately inspired a 3-1 win over Platinum Stars to keep the club out of the relegation zone after a difficult start.

Igesund purred: "All national coaches start out in club football. I’m just thrilled to be back. You miss the day to day running of the club; every morning you wake up and get excited about going to training.

“With the national team you have to get your players three days before a game; they come in from overseas, and you have to do a lot of work and then go and play. Now, I’m back to working daily with my players and building relationships.

"I am loving it, and I’m so excited to be back. They had no confidence, and they were demoralized after having played 5 games and only one win. You have to pick them up and lift their spirits, and that's how I felt when I got here.”

“We will get better as we go along. It’s only one win for us; we need to go forward now and try to pick up as many points as we can.”

Stuart Baxter and Vladimir Vermecovic will dominate the week. Mosimane and Hunt will gain a mention. But if we’re not talking about De Sa and Igesund by the end of the season, I’d be surprised.

SOCCERBALLZ! my innovative football show on www.ballz.co.za with Mark Fish airs every Thursday from 9am-11am. See Ballz' Youtube channel for our growing library of fascinating football interviews with the big names.

You can also follow me on www.twitter.com/nealcol for all the latest sports news and read my “Neal and Pray” column every Tuesday in www.thenewage.co.za.

My interview with Kermit Erasmus on Socerballz last week:

DO I WANT TO WORK FOR A FOOTBALL CLUB WHERE THE FANS BEHAVE LIKE THAT? Baxter on the boo boys

Outraged: Stuart Baxter refused to greet Chiefs fans last night

STUART BAXTER'S Kaizer Chiefs pulled off a sensational late escape in Polokwane last night - and then had another blast at the AmaKhosi for booing the club's Zimbabwean Kingston Nkatha.

The double-winners won 2-0 against Roger de Sa's Ajax Cape Town to extend their lead at the top of the PSL to six points with eight left to play last night with Gavin Hunt's Wits held 0-0 by AmaTuks.

But those two late goals from Knowledge Musona failed to calm the Wolverhampton-born coach who became the first foreign boss to win the title in his first season last year.

With a brutal African Champion League trip to Congo's AS Vita to come this weekend, Baxter was seen at one point gesticulating to the fans as the booed their favourite target Kingston Nkatha during the clash at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane.

Afterwards Baxter, 60, could barely contain his fury as he REFUSED to thank the 15,000 fans and admitted he was struggling to live happily with the AmaKhosi fans.

He said: "I will be brutally honest, usually I go and greet the fans but I will not greet the fans tonight.

"What they do with Kingston ... when Kingston was one on one with the goalkeeper we can thank the fans for that. Because he was so nervous he just blasted it. Now we can thank the fans for that, and I will not greet them.

"It leaves the question do you want to work at a football club where the fans behave that way to your players when they're top of the league and giving it their all?

"I don't know, that's a question I am going to have to answer."

Speaking on football show BOLLOCKZ! on www.ballz.co.za, Baxter emphasised his point, saying "Fans who boo their own players when we are top of the League? Who boo a player who works as hard as Nkatha? Deplorable. I don't understand it.

"My assistant Doctor Khumalo feels we should bring legends to educate the fans, but I don't see why. We go to Polokwane to show them our team, we don't go to get our players booed by our fans."


On the match itself, Baxter said: "I thought it was a good game of football to start with, two teams who are well organised and know what to do," said Baxter.

"In the first half, we gave away possession too many times for it to be a good first, at times we were excellent, Ajax were always a threat, we had to work hard.

"The second half, I thought the boys played better football in possession,a and when we got the goal, I thought it was rough justice, we were missing so many chances, i was beginning to think we weren't going to get that goal.

"Knowledge pops up and gets two superb goals and then they run out the game , there must have been some tired legs there, but it wasn't evident."

Zimbabwean striker Knowledge Musona, on long-term loan at Naturena from German Bundesliga outfit Hoffenheim, said: "We were under pressure because it was almost 90 minutes and we didn't score.

"We worked very well, we did a good job to collect maximum points , that was a very good game and well done to the boys.

"We missed a lot of chances, especially me, I got most of the chances in the game, I kept going, I knew I was going to score and finally in the last two minutes I got the goals." 

BOLLOCKZ! my innovative football show on www.ballz.co.za airs every Thursday from 9am-11am. See Ballz' channel for our growing library of fascinating football interviews with the big names. 

You can also follow me on www.twitter.com/nealcol for all the latest sports news… and read my “Neal & Pray” column every Tuesday in www.thenewage.co.za.

BOLLOCKZ! is backed by www.topodds.com - have a look at their site for my latest sports betting advice and charity bets for our Wingzofchange charity!  

Inside story: the curious tale of Bafana Bafana, Carlos Queiroz, Roger de Sa and Gordon Igesund

Job swap? Gordon Igesund and
Pirates ex-boss Roger De Sa

Roger and out. To some Orlando Pirates, that news came as a blessing. Brighter Buccaneers know full well it could prove to be DeSasterous.

The minute Roger de Sa livened up transfer deadline day with his resignation just minutes after the window creaked shut on Friday night, I tweeted exactly what I believe to be true: That the Mozambique-born former Bafana goalkeeper is all set to join Carlos Queiroz in the Bafana Bafana set-up after the World Cup in Brazil.

With Gordon Igesund yet to submit his CHAN report to SAFA’s technical committee that may have appeared a little premature. Gordon’s contract runs until July, a lot of people think Igesund deserves more time.

But the hand had been forced. In the Sunday Times, Roger said: “Right now my batteries are flat. I had a heart-to-heart with Dr Irvin Khoza (the Pirates chairman) and told him I was battling to motivate myself in the morning.

“I said I wanna go. He was quite surprised. But I told him I couldn’t give 100 percent. It’s not good for me, for you, the club or the fans.”

With that, Roger was gone. But he can go with his head held high. When he took over from Augusto “Bad Back” Palacios last season, Pirates were 10^th in the PSL. They ended third and he leaves with a remarkable record of reaching three successive cup finals. With Eric Tinkler in the caretaker role, Pirates could yet reach third when they’ve caught up with the rest.

True, he lost the Champions League, MTN8 and Telkom Knock-out at the final hurdles, but he did bring in R13.7m in the process. And most of the players, for all the “sinister” forces at work in the club, had good things to say about Roger’s reign.

The truth is, Pirates had a Belgian coach with African experience (I won’t name him), living in the Protea Wanderers hotel for weeks last year waiting for De Sa to slip up in the African Champions League.  He didn’t. He produced miracles at TP Mazembe and in the group stages to keep his side in the running against all expectations.

And throughout his reign, De Sa had to put up with interference from Stanley “Screamer” Tshabalala, Khoza, Floyd Mbele and several others on matters of team selection and tactics before, during and after vital games. Ask Lucky Lekgwathi, Fatau Dauda and Tlou Segolela about the chaos behind the scenes.

It had to come to an end. Roger’s patience had been tried to the limit, and he was pelted by missiles when Pirates drew with AmaZulu last month.

But relief was at hand. A couple of weeks ago I heard (from an impeccable source) Carlos Queiroz had approached Pirates, asking if Roger, 49, could assist him during Iran’s World Cup quest in Brazil later this year. Roger’s late dad Octavio knew Queiroz, 60, and the pair worked together before, both during Queiroz’s previous Bafana reign (2000-2002, played 20, lost four) and with Portugal at the World Cup here in 2010.

Despite insults and denials on my twitter time-line, Pirates fans woke up on Sunday morning with the newspapers echoing my tweets: Roger did not simply leave because he was weary at Pirates, he left because he has exciting new opportunities ahead.

Cape Town is not one of them. Yet. Ajax Amsterdam insist they have not even spoken to De Sa, though most of the football media put together Muhsin Etrugral’s recent departure with De Sa’s resignation to make a phantom marriage of convenience.

Etrugral, returning to Turkey following a bereavement, was quoted yesterday saying: "I have not spoken to anybody from Pirates. I'm flying to Istanbul to sort out some family matters."

Nothing is set in stone yet. It could be that Ajax, with backing from Amsterdam, could yet go for Roger. It’s possible Igesund could talk his way out of trouble when he tries to justify his CHAN disaster this week. The exchange rate will make it difficult for SAFA to pay Queiroz the required salary – he’s on R22m a year with Iran.

But ultimately, I believe Roger and Carlos (both born in Mozambique) will be in charge of South Africa after doing the World Cup together with Iran later this year. I think Gordon will be sacked – and rightly so – and he could even go to Orlando Pirates next, given his agent Mike Makaab’s relationship with Dr Khoza.

Sadly, none of the principle characters involved can confirm or deny much of these details as there is too much at stake. South African football thrives on secrecy and back-stabbing. Any conversations right now are strictly off the record, nothing can be said out loud for fear of upsetting Dr Khoza, Makaab, SAFA or Igesund.

But I for one would be more than happy for South Africa to begin their post-CHAN recovery in July with Queiroz and De Sa running the show for Bafana in their new Nike kit. In the meantime, Shakes Mashaba (or Igesund if he insists on working out his contract) will take charge for pre-World Cup friendlies against Brazil and other heavyweights.

But remember, South Africa will not be in Brazil later this year. Iran and Queiroz will. And we all know why.

BOLLOCKZ! my innovative football show on www.ballz.co.za airs every Thursday from 9am-11am. See Ballz' channel for our growing library of fascinating football interviews with the big names. 

You can also follow me on www.twitter.com/nealcol for all the latest sports news… and read my “Neal & Pray” column every Tuesday in www.thenewage.co.za.

BOLLOCKZ! is backed by www.topodds.com - have a look at their site for my latest sports betting advice and charity bets for our Wingzofchange charity!

Revealed: Bradley Grobler and Mabhuti Khanyeza, the first big moves of the South African transfer window

Headed for Tshwane: Bradley Grobler to SupersSport

 Ajax-bound: Mabhuti Khanyeza

SO here they are, the two men at the centre of the first MAJOR transfer of the year.
Mabhuti Khanyeza will leave Gavin Hunt's draw specialists SuperSports United and Bradley Grobler will travel the other way, forsaking troubled Ajax Cape Town for Tshwane.

News of the deal emerged on SportsTalk tonight when Hunt talked to Udo Carelse on Talk Radio 702 and 567CapeTalk. Until then, the bare details were all we had. Grobler, 25, started off life in Boksburg before playing 65 games and scoring 22 goals for Platinum Stars. He then went off to Turkey, scoring six goals. His return to Ajax Cape Town has not gone well as the club struggle in the relegation zone.

Khanyeza is 30, he has played for Golden Arrows, where he scored 37 goals in 112 games. He got 8 in 26 for Kaizer Chiefs but enjoyed his most goal-happy spell in the Mother City with Ajax, where he scored 16 in 24 in 2008-09. Mamelodi Sundowns plucked him from there, but after 57 games and 10 goals, he left for Supersport. A fall-out occured last November, when Hunt had a go about Khanyeza's defending live on television after a 2-2 draw with Chippa United.

Although the rift was smoothed over, Khanyeza has only played five games all season for Matsatsantsa without finding the net.

Who wins in this deal? Grobler has two Bafana caps - one international goal - and is 25. Khanyeza has 10 caps but hasn't scored a goal and is third.

Hunt told us: "There are still details, signing on fees, money paid to various players, stuff like that. But we'll look in to it, get it sorted out.

"We all know Mabhuti should be in double figures by now. He wasn't happy here for whatever reason. And Bradley wasn't getting on well down there. So now we'll make them both happy.
"You know how it is, these things will get done in the end."

Moving on to AFCON, Hunt said: "My last words to Gordon Igesund were: 'Get to the knock-out stages, Gord, we need to keep the interest up! No, seriously, I think he can get out of the group, do well with this Bafana Bafana squad.

"But I do think playing two of the group games in Durban is a mistake. We would have been better off playing all out games in Johannesburg like we did in 1996." 

See also: http://www.kickoff.com/news/32275/supersport-united-coach-gaving-hunt-confirms-mabhuti-khenyezabradley-grobler-swap-deal


TUNE in to www.702.co.za from anywhere in the world to listen to SportsTalk, which I now produce on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk with presenter Udo Carelse EVERY NIGHT except Saturday. Monday to Thursday, 8-9pm. Fridays and Sundays, 7-9pm. Call us 011 883 0702 and I'll get you on air!

Stekelenburg axed by Ajax in a week that was always going to be full of Double Dutch

Dutch too much: Maarten Stekelenburg is gone

MAARTEN STEKELENBURG’S umimpressive reign as head coach of Ajax Cape Town came to a grinding halt yesterday in what has been a distinctly dodgy week for Dutchmen in the PSL.

Even before compatriot Johan Neeskens was subjected to violent vuvuzelas after his Mamelodi Sundowns lost at Moroka Swallows on Sunday, Stekelenburg was vividly vilified by Urban Warriors fans in Cape Town on Saturday following a shocking 5-1 defeat at the hands of promoted AmaTuks. It was always going to be a week of Double Dutch.

Ajax CEO George Comitis told us on Saturday night: “We need cool heads, this is not a time to panic,” but he had changed his tune yesterday, telling the pen-wielding crowd assembled for Stekelenburg’s public execution: "As of today, Maarten is no longer our head coach. Sometimes you have to shake it all up. We needed to change before it was too late.

“It was a tough decision that we made over the past 19 games, we will find ourselves in trouble if we don't fix it now. We haven't decided on his replacement yet, we will look for someone with Dutch influence and SA experience."

Former Sundowns boss Hristo Stoichkov, Dutchman Ruud Krol and 1996 Afcon winner Neil Tovey are possible names to conjure with but the mother club in Amsterdam may have another obscure youngster or ailing veteran in mind.

Stekelenburg has struggled since he stepped in to the sizeable shoes of Foppe de Haan in 2011, a fact confirmed by Comitis, who said hopefully: "We would look at bringing back someone like Foppe, but we have no decision yet."

Former Head of Technical affairs and current chief scout, Jan Pruijn, get his chance to impress when he takes charge as caretaker against rock-bottom AmaZulu on Saturday. Wilfred Mugeyi will assist against the only side below Ajax in the current PSL standings.

Stekelenburg, just 39, was always a gamble. Cape Town was his first senior coaching post after an unremarkable playing career with  Dutch lower league sides SV Argon, SV Huizen and Amsterdamsche FC were followed by numerous coaching qualifications, a job at the Ajax academy in Amsterdam and a stint as De Haan’s youth development manager in the Mother City.

Comitis admitted: "Maarten lost the belief of the board. We believe were we need a more experienced coach because he is dealing with more experienced players. We have a three-year plan with the current squad.”

Exactly what that plan is remains unclear. In six games this season they had won once before Saturday’s Aubrey Ngoma-inspired hammering.

Neeskens, attacked at Dobsonville on Sunday, remains in place before Saturday night’s win-or-flee clash with Platinum Stars at the Lucas Moripe Stadium. General manager Kenneth Makhanya and Technical Head Trott Moloto issued a joint statement on the Sundowns website yesterday saying: "The issue of the coach's position with the club is hypothetical as it has never been discussed.

"Sundowns wishes to record that reports that he is facing the chop are without foundation, and management has given the coach full support to pursue the objectives of the club.

"No ultimatum has been given to the coach, or anybody, and Mamelodi Sundowns is confident that the club will turn the corner. Clubs the world over go through rough patches, but come out much stronger.”

Steven Pienaar: If you're from Westbury Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur's a doddle!

Bafana Bafana captain Steve Pienaar insists he has “mixed feelings” but “no regrets” over his R35m move from Everton to Tottenham Hotspur in January.

Pienaar, voted Player of the Year by fans at Goodison Park in 2010, chose not to sign a new deal at Everton and moved to Spurs in a cut-price deal with just six months left on his contract.

But injury and selection problems – he was always going to have trouble forcing his way past a fit Gareth Bale on the left of Harry Redknapp’s midfield – have seen him play just one game for Spurs this season. And that was in a second-string Europa League outfit in the defeat against Rubin Kazan in Russia just before the international break.

Pienaar, outstanding in South Africa’s 1-1 draw against Africa’s No1 side Ivory Coast in Port Elizabeth on Saturday, told The Independent on his return to England his week: “Yes, it’s been a bumpy road at White Hart Lane. It has been a year of mixed feelings, but hopefully I can make it a successful move. Don’t have to show the Spurs fans what I can do, they’ve seen me play against them for Everton.”

But Pienaar rejected a late bid from Chelsea to move to their London neighbours – and ignored warnings from Everton boss David Moyes that he would live to regret his decision to leave Liverpool. But the 29-year-old from Westbury near Johannesburg said: "Regrets? No, not at all. It was a very hard decision to make. It was hard to leave Everton as club and Liverpool as a city. The people I had around me, the players, most of the supporters were very good to me, and I will always be grateful to them.

"It was hard to go, but in life you have to make decisions. I made this one as a footballer and as a human being, and I don't have any regrets about what I chose to do. Not at all."

Pienaar, who left South Africa’s Ajax Cape Town for their mother club in Amsterdam before moving to Borussia Dortmund, was once told he would never play football again when he suffered a serious nerve injury.

He admits: "I had a tough time at Ajax. When I damaged my nerve, they said I'd never play again. I came back strong. I had a difficult spell at Dortmund, and I came back strong. Things like that help you appreciate the things that you do have.

“Being a footballer is only a short career. Having been through all of that helps me appreciate the time I am on the field. It drives you to fight for your place.

“Harry Redknapp (currently off sick for a month after heart surgery) has been very supportive. I want to be part of this team, and I want to show I did not come here by mistake. I have come back twice already, and I will come back again.”

Pienaar has proved he can return from adversity before. Ever since he was first spotted by the Ajax scouts playing for Westbury Arsenal – not a name his current club will enjoy – Pienaar has shown durability, a willingness to succeed despite the odds.

Now running a charity for jailed Johannesburg teenagers, Pienaar offers this explanation of his bouncebackability: "When I grew up in Westbury it was the toughest place in South Africa outside of Soweto. The crime rate was high and life expectancy was short.

"Because our house was in the area where the drug gangs hang out, they'd say to me 'You be our look-out. If you see someone you don't know, whistle.' Sometimes I'd get involved but I was more afraid of my mum than the gangs.

“If she found money in my pockets she'd want to know where it came from. I'd say we'd played football against other boys for money. It was difficult to stay out of trouble. It was a dodgy area and the temptation was huge. I'd be so envious of the boys who'd turn up with new sneakers from their drugs money. But I knew I'd get a hiding from my mum if I got involved.

"Now I realise how fortunate I was to have a mum who was always on my case to get an education. She brought up four children on her own and it was because she was strict we escaped gangs and drug dealers."

Peter Roebuck: the eulogy nobody will have the courage to publish.

Peter Roebuck threw himself out of a sixth-floor hotel room window at around 9pm on Saturday night. His death at 55, while covering Australia’s cricket tour of South Africa, sparked a plethora of glowing tributes from cricket writers all over the world.

A decent opening bat and superb scribe, such eulogies failed to spark any feeling in this writer – and I suspect many cricket followers around the world felt the same. It turns out a uniformed policeman was questioning Roebuck at the time of his death in Cape Town.

We will never know for sure, but the word from a good source is this: the cop was questioning him about yet another sexual assault in a city where penniless young men are known to offer themselves to rich tourists to earn a few rand. He called a cricket-writing colleague to demand a lawyer then, with the policeman still in the room, he leapt to his death.

A great cricket writer yes. A great man? No. He spent his life calling a spade a spade on the cricket field but in the end, he dug his own grave.

Roebuck, one of many first class cricketers who forged a career after attending the fantastically privileged Millfield School in Somerset, was a bespectacled sort who first came to the world’s attention when he got rid of Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Joel Garner when he was captain of his county.

That was my first interview with the bloke, back in 1986. As I went in to the treatment room in Taunton to chat to him one-to-one for the Sunday Mirror, a young Somerset player at the time, who prefers now to remain nameless, jokingly warned me to “watch my bottom”.

The discussion went well. I came to no harm. I kept my back to the wall, I guess. I was young and naive. I didn't get a spanking but that comment stuck with me. Roebuck, everybody in the cricket world knew, was “dodgy” like so many other British public schoolboys who grew up in a boys-only school with jock-straps and lewd magazines for company.

Of course, he was right to banish Botham, Richards and Garner from the County Ground, he told me. They thought they were bigger than the club. The former England Public Schools captain neglected to mention the book he’d written with the great Beefy, how he’d clung on to Botham’s coat tails to get where he got.

While Botham was flamoboyant and popular, Roebuck was considered dull and unimaginative, though he did once captain England at a time when nobody else wanted to. Against the Netherlands. Unthinkably, they lost.

In all ways, removing the titanic trio from Taunton was simply a case of Roebuck asserting his personality on a thriving county cricket team that took years to recover from his machinations.

Roebuck retired from professional cricket in 1991 and went to captain Devon, a minor county in the English cricketing set-up. That he had tactical nous – and a penchant for writing about the game – was never in question.

But then the dark secret began to emerge. In 2001 he was convicted of “common assault” against three young South African cricketers who had come over to coach and learn the game (see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1359991/Ex-Somerset-captain-caned-young-cricketers.html). Keith Whiting, Reginald Keats and Henk Lindeque, who were all 19 at the time, were procured while Roebuck was working overseas as a commentator. Roebuck persuaded them to live at his house while they were “under instruction”.

The first victim said at the time that Roebuck asked him to bend over and delivered three “forceful strokes” for failing to do his daily excercises properly.

The legal counsel at Taunton Crown Court said: “Roebuck then pulled the boy towards him, in what appeared to be an act of affection. He then asked if he could look at the marks on the boy’s buttocks, something which he in fact did.”

The second teenager was beaten by Roebuck when he failed to keep up on a run. He, too, was left feeling “considerable distress and humiliation”.

The third boy received similar treatment, being beaten by Roebuck and asked to show the marks.

The second boy, now living South Africa, said: “I did not consent to any assault but he is a dominant person who makes you feel that you must do as he says.”

Roebuck was originally accused of indecent assault for those acts, which occurred between April and the end of May in 1999. He eventually pleaded guilty to common assault. Tellingly, the judge said: “It was not appropriate to administer corporal punishment to boys of this age in circumstances such as these. It seems so unusual that it must have been done to satisfy some need in you.”

Roebuck said he warned the three South Africans he would use corporal punishment if they failed to obey his “house rules” adding he though they were “from a culture in which corporal punishment was accepted”.

Roebuck was sentenced to four months in jail for each count, with the sentences suspended for two years. Roebuck’s defence counsel insisted “more than 20 other promising young cricketers” had stayed at Roebuck’s house while receiving coaching and had never complained about any inappropriate behaviour.

Knowing his proclivities were now out of the closet, Roebuck began spending most of his time in Australia. There, his objective, hard-hitting writing went down well with the Sydney Morning Herald – and he was snapped up as a commentator for the ABC.

Soon, he was referring to Australia as “us” rather than England. He could offer withering critique of the fading Aussie cricket machine without fear of being contradicted.

And he could use his status as a public figure to continue his wicked ways. Strangely, where so many others would have been questioned over their criminal record, Fairfax newspapers and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation never bothered to check in to Roebuck’s past.

Look, Peter Roebuck was a fine cricket writer. But he used his status to procure vulnerable young men. That’s fact. The manner of his death and the reasons behind it will probably be hushed up. Cricket’s like that. Hansie Cronje and Bob Woolmer ditto. Some may feel we should consider Roebuck’s talents in his obituary. I think we should focus on the truth.