Ernst Middendorp must be some sort of a myth, an enigma and someone who may be in possession for some magical powers.
This past week, the German trainer outdid himself once again when he relegated National First Division (NFD) side Cape Town Spurs to the ranks of amateur football, the ABC
Motsepe League – adding another dubious feather in his cap.
The fascination with a man who has coached close to 30 clubs in his 25-year stint as a coach, or pretending to be one, is still mysterious even to this day. I still cannot put my finger on how the Spurs bosses could not, for the whole 18 months he was in charge, see that the ship was about to strike an iceberg much bigger than the one that sunk the Titanic.
He arrived for his first stint at Kaizer Chiefs in the 2005/06 season with a highly decorated CV, full of promise, but he flopped more like Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana.
He walked into Naturena and found a well-oiled, mean machine that was high on confidence after winning two successive PSL league titles.
The team, boasting the likes of Emmanuel “Scara” Ngobese, John “Shoes” Moshoeu, Thabo “Tsiki Tsiki” Mooki, Collins Mbesuma, Jabu Pule, Jabulani “S-Curl” Mendu, Arthur “10111” Zwane and many other dribbling wizards, had been cooked by the revered Ted Dumitru.
He was keen on stamping his authority and implementing his philosophy. The sad reality is that he did not have much of a tactical and technical acumen. He dismantled the winning combination and alienated some of the favourite players.
Chiefs was never the same. He was sacked, and when he returned for his second spell at Amakhosi in 2018, it turned out to be the most painful for the Chiefs die-hard supporters. He lost the league marathon with only about 15 minutes remaining on the clock, a whole league title ekse jou, after leading for almost the entire campaign.
Chiefs fans have still not forgiven this shyster masquerading as a coach for that.
He then went on a journey that took him to the back of beyond in Thailand, Cyprus, China, Ethiopia, Tanzania and probably even to the moon. And because he was smitten with the beauty, the scenery and the weather, he came back to South Africa, where he has coached just about every team in the PSL.
He took the Spurs job, who were campaigning in the prestigious PSL. And six months later, the team was relegated to the NFD. He was still able to convince the club bosses that he was nonetheless the right man for the job.
Throughout the campaign, Spurs were operating from the basement of the NFD log and yet he remained at the helm until the club was condemned to the abyss of SA football, where they will now play as amateurs.
I don’t think he understands that Spurs is not just your run-of-the-mill football club – it’s an institution steeped in rich tradition.
It’s a club that gave doomed young men hope in the dangerous, God-forsaken Cape Flats, where drugs and gangsterism are a way of life.
That is all gone now and the club will have to start from the bottom. What is it that Middendorp has on SA club bosses?
