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.

Giants beware: Platinum-enriched Stars go to the top of the Q

First class coach: Cavin Johnson of Platinum Stars

On a weekend where Roger de Sa closed gaps and Stuart Baxter wore gags, there is only one coach more newsworthy. Cavin Johnson of Platinum Stars.
 

I first heard about his current club, shock winners of the R1.5m Q2 bonus on Sunday, back in 2009. I wondered when they’d start to hit the peaks then.
 

As an Evening Standard journalist over from London covering the England v Proteas cricket tour, I’d taken a couple of days off to track down England’s under-construction Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus somewhere between Boshoek and Rustenburg, not far from Sun City.
 

Luck rather than judgement led to me to a crumbling hotel opposite the magnificent Kedar Lodge on a small backroad off the N4. And there, I found the roots of the current successful but generally unfashionable Dikwena.
 

Amid the frantic building before the World Cup, I unearthed a chap called Martin Becker, a former St Stithians boy who worked – with some gusto – for King Leruo, otherwise known as Kgosi Leruo Tshekedi Molotlegi (born in 1968, ruler since 2000), the 36th monarch of the Royal Bafokeng Nation.
 

 A sporty former Hilton College victor ludorum in the 1980s, Leruo is President of the Mineral Rights Association of Indigenous People of South Africa, has a degree in Architecture and Urban Planning from Natal University and is an Honorary Colonel in the South African Air Force.
 

His “first contact” Becker, often referring to the Bafokeng people as “we” and “our”, explained how King Leruo had utilised the mineral rights of the platinum-rich soil surrounding us to ease his way on to the local foreign mining boards, earning huge dividends and chunks of foreign companies. His predecessors had simply taken a share of the profits.
 

And as the World Cup approached and visits over the next six months continued, I learned how the wily monarch, whose great-grandfather had signed future rights to his land on the advice of a top-hatted bloke called Paul Kruger, had funded not just the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace stadium but had also attracted the Leopards rugby team and the local footballing Crocodiles, the Dikwena.
 

That’s not all he does of course. He also provides a hot meal every day for every school child in his 14,000 square kilometre kingdom and provides them with one of five sporting activities every day. Though mining has had it’s troubles locally with migrant labour, the Phokeng people enjoy the benefits of living on platinum-soaked land.
 

Becker showed me a 35-year plan which pointed the way ahead for the kingdom, with the newly-built sports campus turned in to a High Performance Centre to rival Pretoria and Potchefstroom, high school matriculants outperforming all rivals and, incredibly, even plans for a future Olympic games.

And in the middle of this mighty platinum-enriched portfolio? The team once known as Khakhu Fast XI, an amateur outfit formed in 1937 170km north-east of Polokwane, then Pietersburg.
 

In 1998, owner Joseph “Tycoon” Mapfulagasha took the team 30 km south to Mapate and they became the Silver Stars. At the turn of the century, the Silver Stars forged a link with the old white club Highlands Park with Larry Brookstone purchasing half the club.
 

After four years in the National First Division, Silver Stars were promoted to the PSL in 2003–04 ending 11^th, 7th and 5th in their first three seasons in South Africa’s top flight.
 

And that’s where King Leruo stepped in. In 2006, the Royal Bafokeng Nation signed a sponsorship deal with Silver Stars and the club moved home from Peter Mokabe in Polokwane to the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace.
 

That season, they beat Ajax Cape Town 3–1 in the first Telkom Knockout league cup final an finished second in the PSL. King Leruo promptly bought 51 percent fo the shares and changed the club’s name to Platinum Stars.
 

In 2008, Platinum Stars became the first South African side to beat the Egypt’s continental giants Al Ahly, though their 2-1 home leg triumph in the African Champions League was overturned in Cairo.
 

That season, they finished 10^th in the PSL, 13th in 2008–09 and 14th in 2009–10. The Royal Bafokeng Nation brought the rest of the club’s shares from Brookstone and Mapfulagasha in November 2008, and moved training and administration from Modderfontein Sports Club in Johannesburg to the sparkling Bafokeng Sports Campus.
 

Head coach Owen de Gama came and went amid considerable fuss and the club turned to little-known former Mamelodi Sundowns assistant coach Johnson this season – and Dikwena have hardly looked back.
 

The Q2-clinching 1-0 win against Gavin Hunt’s hardy SuperSport on Saturday was their ninth win in ten and they are now just one point behind overall PSL leaders Kaizer Chiefs.

Johnson insists: "I think it's still early to start thinking about the title, we are building for the future, a trophy would be a bonus.
 

"Our main objective is to bring more bums on seats at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium and the only way to do that is to play exciting football. This is what we are currently doing, trying to bring in more supporters."
 

If he carries on the way he is, Johnson may just manage that. With a little help from King Leruo and the Platinum-enriched Bafokeng.

A SHORTENED VERSION OF THIS STORY APPEARED AS MY NEAL AND PRAY COLUMN IN THE NEW AGE NEWSPAPER IN SOUTH AFRICA THIS MORNING. See www.thenewage.co.za.

Spector of defeat looms for England, says the very average US full-back from West Ham

JONATHAN SPECTOR, a little-known American who carves out a living as a journeyman full back with London Premier League club West Ham, insists the opening match against England in Phokeng tomorrow will be the USA’s “easiest match” in Group C.

With Slovenia and Algeria to come, Spector – sent out on loan to Charlton after three games for Manchester United before his move to the Hammers in 2005 - said: “It's our easiest game. There will be some great bragging rights in England next season if we manage to win."

"There is a quiet confidence in the US team," Spector, 24 with 25 caps, told the BBC World Service's Sportsworld programme. "There are no expectations in the US so the only pressure comes from ourselves. We are not expected to get anything from it where as the other two games there will be pressure.

"We have captured the attention of the general public in the United States and we would like to keep their attention by doing well at the World Cup."

England may be a little wound up by Spector’s assessment before the eagerly awaited clash at the Bafokeng Palace Stadium, where the surface is like a billiard table and the 8.30pm (7.30pm) kick off will take place after sunset with cold conditions arguably favouring Fabio Capello’s men despite the altitude.

The US, based a mile from my base at the Irene Lodge in Centurion, go on to play dark horses Slovenia in Johannesburg on 18 July before their final group game against Algeria – who put out African champions Egypt - in Pretoria five days later.

Drawing on their impressive form when they reached the Confederations Cup final in South Africa last year (and beat Euro champions Spain), confidence is extraordinarily high in a nation famous for shocking England at the Brazilian World Cup in 1950.

Defender Oguchi Onyewu got in on the Spector act, ignoring England’s world ranking of eight, six ahead of the US in 14. After impressive friendly wins over Turkey in Philadelphia and Australia at the Ruimsig Stadium near Johannesburg, he said: “With our performances and results last summer, we gained a little bit more respect in the world. It gives you a confidence and the realisation we are playing at the highest level and can compete with the best teams in the world.

"The Confederations Cup was last year. This Saturday is the World Cup and it is a completely different monster.

"It is a different entity. But the experience we picked up can only help us going into this tournament.

"England are a very good team with very good players but it is about how those players play together and that is going to be the important deciding factor. Our expectations are to get a win."

Follow me on Twitter: nealcol

Rustenburg for England. Put your shirt on it.

STOP PRESS: England are, indeed, drawn as C1 in Rustenburg. It's a fix!

What I wrote three hours before: YOU may not have heard of Rustenburg. You will soon, that's where England are headed next summer to prepare for the World Cup. Sadly, they won't be based in surfers' paradise Durban or cosmopolitan Cape Town.

The wives and girlfriends, not to mention an estimated 25,000 England fans, might have hoped for bigger shopping malls, beaches and nightclubs. But it should be okay for the players, once the final details have been sorted out.

So what can I tell you about the town locally known as "Rusties", population 400,000, altitude 1500m (around the same as most ski resorts in Europe) with an average winter daytime temperature of 17C?

It's the fastest-growing South African town in the middle of the platinum belt about 60 miles from Johannesburg. A bit like Luton compared to London, it's not the place you'd really want to spend that much time as a tourist, though Las Vegas-lookalike Sun City is just 13 miles down the road. It boasts churches, monuments and battle fields as its major attractions, apart from the game parks.

But Rustenburg is where England will be based when, as I suspect, Fabio Capello's men get drawn in position C1 in Cape Town tonight with their first game scheduled for the nearby 42,000-capacity Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace (pictured) at 7.30pm on June 12. Great name for a stadium isn't it? It's in the North West Province of South Africa, close to Mafeking where Lord Baden-Powell and the British held out under siege around the turn of the 20th century. One of the great victories of the Boer War. Great history. Stubborn types around these parts. The locals insisted on a large slice of the precious minerals in their once-volcanic area and have pumped their money into football and tourism to offset to bleak mines which loom large on the road to Sun City.

And that kind of money can also influence World Cup draws, or so it appears. Why else would Capello keep worrying about the state of the training pitches in a town most Italian tourists wouldn't offer a second glance?

He was there again this week, complaining: "The facilities are OK but some things are not. The pitches are not great. We are working a lot. I think we will find the solution. The problem is the pitches. But we have time. The problem is the grass."

Capello is worried about what he calls "jungle grass" but in fact the 14 training pitches at the Sports Palace Training Complex are typical of the best surfaces around the high-altitude stadiums nearby. A mixture of rye grass and the local kikuyu, a hardly, deep-rooted, patchy plant which can withstand frost and heat, hail and drought, which is what the Highveld climate can throw at you.

And if England hoped to move their pre-tournament training camp to Pretoria University, where the metrosexual world champion 800m runner Caster Semanya was carefully developed,

they're stymied. Argentina booked their complex last week. Typical!

Bafokeng today joined the pitch battle with spokesman Martin Bekker telling Capello: "The pitches are looking pristine. We know all the hard work that has gone in there and everyone has trust in the guys who made the stadium. If anything the pressure is to make sure that the hotel is on schedule. For the pitches it is not a great fear."

But all this is mere detail. Though Capello says a final decision isn't expected until February, expect England to be based in Rustenburg for two weeks before the finals kick off on June 11. He will be able to keep the WAGs at arms' length, the fans will stay in the bigger cities (if they are drawn in group C, game two will be in Cape Town on June 18 and game three in Port Elizabeth on June 23).

England will return to Rustenburg if they win the group for the first knock-out round on June 26. Perfect. They will fly in and out with Rustenburg as their base and remain acclimatised for high altitude, which gives you more red blood corpuscles and more puff at sea level. How do I know? Because I've lived there, and like Capello, I've seen the progress of our cricket and rugby sides when they go over. Apparently the England and Lions rugby medics have been advising the FA on what to do in South Africa with such contrasts in climate, altitude and temperature.

Oh, and if it is all as I say, the really clever fans will immediately google Pilanesburg Game Reserve and book themselves in for a couple of weeks in one of the plush game lodges there, right next to Sun City and 15 minutes from Rustenburg.

You read it hear first!