Congratulations to Cape Town Spurs, coach Shaun Bartlett, the rest of the technical team, players, management and staff, supporters and everyone associated with the Parow-based club on finally getting their just reward – promotion to the DStv Premiership. Yes, they took the long route, but playoffs finally make sense now with this promotion and, once again, congratulations, guys!
Damn! Did you, The Urban Warriors, have to make it so difficult for yourselves to secure a spot in the elite league? Did you really have to put yourselves and everyone rooting for the club under so much pressure and stress? You could have easily wrapped this thing up on the last day of the season by beating Pretoria University and win automatic promotion, regardless of what happened between Polokwane City and Pretoria Callies – a game that treated us to a lot of talking points and conspiracy theories. Top content for social media, for sure, and it was milked for what it was worth! Rise and Shine beat Urban Warriors to automatic promotion on goal difference, after trouncing Callies 4-0 while Spurs played to a 1-1 draw against their Tshwane-based opponents, to put an end to their Motsepe Foundation Championship campaign. After the final whistle, Athlone Stadium was filled with an air of despondency with the feeling of déjà vu written all over the faces of coach Bartlett's team. This wasn't the first time they had let a golden opportunity to bounce back to the big boys' league slip through their fingers. In fact, they must have started believing that they were cursed and needed some sort of cleansing or divine intervention to finally make it past the last hurdle.
Luckily for the Western Cape football fanatics, Spurs finally crossed the finish line and ensured that there will be three representatives of the province in the Premier division next season. Yes, once again, they did it the hard way, taking the longer route, but the bottom line is that it is all done. This play-offs system has been a bone of contention for years, yet despite the outcry, nothing has changed. The League giving a second chance to the 15th-placed team after failing to make better use of their 30 matches to maintain their place has been lambasted by almost everyone, but alas, nothing seems to change anytime soon. For them to get thrown a lifeline in the promotion/relegation play-offs will continue to be a ridiculous exercise that could be turned into either two teams getting relegated to the Motsepe Foundation Championship or one team gaining promotion with number two, three and four fighting it out for the second spot.
As things stand, the system is flawed as it favours the 15th-placed team ahead of their lower-tier opponents who are forced to play five U23 players throughout the season and only to be allowed 'freedom' to select their own team in the play-offs. That means a team finishing second in the Championship is as good as their 10th-placed opponents and they would have achieved nothing if they failed to win promotion through the play-offs. This also means that it is better to finish 15th in the Premiership than second in the lower tier. In all honesty, the system favours the Premiership sides if you look at experience and resources.
Also, psychologically, the elite league team goes into the play-offs on a second chance while the second and third-placed teams from the Motsepe Championship go into it amid the disappointment of missing out on automatic promotion. For the first time in a while, we saw sanity prevail when Spurs sent Maritzburg United to the lower division. While it is sad to see the Team of Choice going to the 'desert', it must be said that it was long coming! Someone should have seen it and gone out of their way to avoid it, but they continued to ride their luck until the wheels finally came off. You don't flirt with danger for seasons and not think lidoda duvha (the day will come), where you will have to pay.
In other words, it would be safe for anyone to say Maritzburg got what they deserved, terrible as it is to see them disappear from the top league because this is one of the good football-playing teams. We all enjoyed their games and the Friday night matches at Harry Gwala Stadium. So, our Fridays will never be the same, at least for this season! It is sad and unfortunate for those passionate supporters to find their team in the MFC, but everyone will have to take a look in the mirror to see where things went wrong for this incredible team this past season. The chairman, Farook Kadodia, has had his say, blaming everyone but himself and the management, but it will be interesting to hear what's the story from the 'other side' of the shoe because, rest assured, there are always three sides to every story: yours, his and the truth!
As mentioned earlier, you don't fight relegation season after season and think you are safe. It just doesn't work like that, just like you are not going to finish second for too long without finally getting on top. Some of these things need to be seen coming and if you are not doing anything to avoid them, it is inevitable that you will get 'served' sooner or later. No one can be happy to see Maritzburg go down, but unfortunately, the coin didn't land for them, this time around. Their luck ran out and this should be a lesson to others who continue to find themselves in this precarious position, season after season. The difference between the two leagues is astronomical and one should do everything they can to avoid getting the chop because it is a dog-eat-dog world in the lower divisions.
Play-offs finally make sense because sanity prevailed. A more deserving team has now won promotion because if you look at Spurs' season in comparison to both Casric Stars and Maritzburg, they had a better campaign and were more deserving of winning the mini league, let alone winning automatic promotion. So, it would have been unfair for the football gods to allow Maritzburg to maintain their status in the Premiership through the play-offs system, at the expense of Spurs and Stars. The general feeling about this system is well-documented, but as said already, it doesn't look like anything will change anytime soon.
Now the vultures are hovering around chairman Kadodia's team in search of talent, as surely most players will not want to go down with the team. It is only natural for one to feel betrayed by such decisions, but at the end of the day, it is often said football is a short career. Players have to make the most of it while they still can because it is cold on the other side of professional football. While it would be ideal for everyone to remain at the club and fight their way back together just as they ruined things together, the reality is that a lot changes when your team goes down. There are financial implications and a lot of things that come into play.
Welcome back to the DStv Premiership, Urban Warriors! Now is the time to make your presence felt among the big boys and reclaim your spot as one of the top teams in the Western Cape and teams to always keep an eye on in South African football. This augurs well for the Mother City football community and it looks like happy days are back! Can the new campaign start already!
