In the five years they spent in the second tier, Cape Town Spurs flirted with the possibility of relegation and promotion. In addition to that, they had a name change and had to rediscover who they were. The 2022/23 season, it appears, was one in which all the building and finetuning culminated in their return to topflight football, although a noisy hiccup in the form of failing to secure automatic promotion on the last day of the season almost spoiled their grand plans. Fortunately, the Urban Warriors redeemed themselves in gusty fashion in the gruelling relegation/ promotional play-offs. With the Parow-based side back in the big time, Soccer Laduma's Delmain Faver had a moment with the club's CEO, Alexi Efstathiou, who, in this interview, reflects on their journey back to the Promised Land, pays tribute to the players and reveals why coach Shaun Bartlett is staying put.
Delmain Faver: Alexi, congratulations on winning promotion to the DStv Premiership. Has the feeling sunk in yet?
Alexi Efstathiou: To be honest, no. In some ways, yes, because obviously you are doing the work stuff, but you are not really understanding why you are doing it, you know what I'm saying? It's difficult to explain. Basically, we lost three weeks – I think that's the bigger problem. If we had won on the last day of the season, like we should have, then it would probably be a lot easier, but now you basically compacted five weeks into two.
DF: That includes all of your admin getting players ready, sorting out pre-season preparations, etc.
AE: Yeah, and we've obviously still got very few staff because we had cut down. So, we are all doubling up on doing things and stuff until we sort ourselves out.
DF: The team did it the hard way when automatic promotion would have saved you a few grey hairs. Did you, at any point, doubt that it was possible?
AE: No, we were pretty confident for the last game (against University of Pretoria), so I don't think there was any issues. Even the players themselves were confident. But for some or other reason … and you know people can speculate … but we couldn't get a rhythm going, and I think that affected us, otherwise we would have easily won that game. Be that as it may, it didn't work out and the hardest thing was to come back because it was a terrible feeling. Although you didn't want to get ahead of yourself, you knew you were almost on top of the mountain and there was one more little step to go before reaching the top. I think that feeling was a very, very, very, very difficult one. The issue then was we knew we were in the play-offs already, so were we able to get ourselves together and to achieve what we did? And I think that was where the difficulty and the challenge was.
DF: You came close to promotion in recent years, but it wasn't to be. What did it this time?
AE: I think we reflected on the past five seasons and analysed what went wrong and why it went wrong, minimised those areas that we perhaps made mistakes in and identified things we could have done better. Then I think critically was the personnel that you are gonna bring in, whether it was from a technical staff point of view. Shaun (Bartlett) was already here, but we knew that he kept us away from relegation and would continue. Then choosing the personnel, as in the players, was critical. That's really one thing that we did. Then the other thing is make sure that every single person that works here at the club … players, greenkeeper and the tea girl, doesn't matter… everyone knew what the goal was and what the target was, and everyone had to work in tandem to achieve it.
DF: What lessons has the club learnt?
AE: Your first biggest challenge is that you are carrying PSL contracts and because of the type of club that we are, we have to see those contracts through. It was only the ones that were in demand and those players were able to push on. But other than that, I think we may have paid one or two players out of contract. I can't remember that far back, but generally speaking, we kept all our contracts going till the last one, and that was the biggest challenge. We thought if we could bounce back the first year, we could cope with it. The second year became a little bit harder, but we still coped with it. Then the third year, the last of the contracts were probably done by then. But in the meantime, luckily, a lot of youngsters, like Asanele (Velebhayi), came through in the first year. He was 16 and a lot of the youngsters now had had a lot of game-time. That year and the next one we were struggling with relegation, where these players hadn't matured to the level that we would want them to, but this year they already had 50 or 60 games under their belts. So, although they were 20 years old, they were seasoned campaigners in the league and knew their way around that. Then it was a matter of just getting the right mix with the older players and the youngsters, and we managed to do that.
DF: Remarkably, Cape Town Spurs have maintained the same level of professionalism that would have been required in the topflight…
AE: Because I think we've always stood for what we know and stand for – it's in our DNA. You can't suddenly become someone else that you are not. You'd rather work 24 hours a day and keep going with what you know needs to be done than compromising on your quality. It would be far easier if we just cut out everything and just keep the one team. It would have been a piece of cake. Close down all our social media, the entire academy. But that would have been really unprofessional to do that and also because we believe in all of that stuff. It would have been almost impossible for us to live with the fact that we went that way – I'm talking shareholders, directors, everyone.
DF: Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise because a lot of the players come from your development, and now you don't have to scramble and run around looking for a DStv Diski Challenge team.
AE: Yes, thank God for that! Although we've got an ABC (Motsepe League) team as well, so that puts a spanner in the works a little bit. But like you said, we have enough youth and even if they are not enough, I think we've got the ability to bring in players that are on our radar screens anyway. That's gonna be almost the smoothest part of everything. Imagine it was also in the thought process because we did discuss closing the academy, looking at that option and what that would mean. But to restart that whole machine, it would have been impossible because how do you restart that? It's not a car engine that you just switch on. You would have had to start from 12 years old and then maybe build up, and it was just too complicated. But to be fair, even being in the NFD (National First Division, now called Motsepe Foundation Championship), we still produced a lot of national team players, and you can just imagine now with the DDC and playing in the PSL (topflight), and you know attracting maybe even more talent, what we are capable (of). We will aim to be better off than what we ever were before. You know the biggest challenge is obviously getting sponsors on board, but I think the fact that we stuck it out with our DNA, everything is intact, so if a potential sponsor were to walk in here, he wouldn't know anything happened.
DF: Did the thought of purchasing a topflight status ever cross your mind?
AE: Yes, at one stage we looked at that option and that was while we were still Ajax Cape Town and for some other reason it didn't quite materialize. But we were always in two minds about that because we generally believe that we should get promoted through the formal channels of playing football. I think that's the right way and that's how it should be. You know, it's fine to buy and sell franchises, but at least it stays where it is. Buying a Bloemfontein Celtic and then bringing it to Cape Town doesn't go down well and I think nothing can replace the fact that we did it that way. So, whoever has bought a franchise … and I'm not mentioning names … could never feel what this feeling is of being promoted, genuinely.
DF: You've handed coach Shaun Bartlett a new two-year deal.
AE: No, to be frank, when we spoke with Shaun initially, we told him it's a project and what it's about. He knew all the time from day one what the goal was. We were prepared to reward him with the contract in any case if he achieved the target. I mean, we could go back on our word and say, "Okay, we've done it, goodbye. Here's your settlement", and off we go to look for another coach, but it's unnecessary because why would one want to do that? I think he deserves to be a coach in the PSL and head a team. I think he's paid his dues and what better club
for him to be than here?
DF: Can we expect any major changes in terms of playing personnel?
AE: Yeah, I think it's inevitable that you are going to release some players and, as sad as it is, it's a reality of football. So, I'll meet with the coach on Monday (26 June) to make that decision. But it's heartbreaking to have to do that, to be honest. But that's the hard side of football. I don't think it's easy for anyone that's involved in our position to have to release any player, but what I will do, definitely, is make sure that these guys have a job next season as far as I can help them because they know what it's about. They've learned a lot this year (season) and it would be a waste if no one takes them up and uses them because they are talented in their own ways. They've had the experience, they know what it's going to take, so it would be stupid for any of the NFD clubs not to look at these players, for sure. So that's the first thing, and that's our saddest moment in all this. But I think we probably have identified that we need to strengthen between six and 10 positions. I think adding quality that has more PSL experience and that type of thing…
DF: Clayton Daniels, Nazier Allie, Granwald Scott, Michael Morton?
AE: Obviously we've got to chat with them about their side and we would like to keep them. Obviously, we need to discuss the contracts and what we can offer them, but in the true sense of the word 'warrior', if the Oxford dictionary had to redefine it, just put those four names there and then that would define what a warrior is.
DF: Ashley Cupido, Rushwin Dortley and Lincoln Vyver have been the subject of interest.
AE: I'm gonna tell you something and I never thought I would say this, but I think if we were in the NFD, these guys would stick with us until we achieve our target. That's how rooted they are in this club and even now with the promotion, I think… and I'm guessing because I haven't asked them… but I think if you ask them, "Do you wanna go to that club or stay here and at least have one year with the team in PSL?" I think they'll all say they want to stay here, no matter the money they've been offered and that, and that's incredible because it's not something you get nowadays. But it's such a fantastic group of characters as people, it's absolutely amazing. I mean, I've been in football for 28 years and the goodness of these boys, even though they don't all come from great backgrounds, I rate them highly as good, good, good human beings. I can't really express to you. They really value all the staff, the love, the family surrounding, you know. It's all those things that they value. Of course, I'm sure they want to earn a lot of money and do well in their careers for sure, but I think they are well-balanced in knowing that money doesn't always bring you happiness. And it's an amazing thing. I never thought I would see that in football.
