Gavin Hunt, in his first column for Hollywoodbets Sports gives his thoughts on the game while reflecting on his trophy-laden managerial career spanning over 35 years in the football industry.
The game has changed quite considerably, but the essence of the game remains the same...
I was at a recent function attended by Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, and a question was posed to him… What has Arne Slot done differently at Liverpool?
He said he’s changed nothing, but at the same time, he’s changed everything.
In football, there’s often the copying of fashionable trends, where for instance in a World Cup a team will utilise a back-three, then the next season you’ll find a lot of teams will try to then also play with a back-three.
But what I know is the essence of the game, things such as having good technique, having good people with good attitudes in a team, those attributes will never move out of the game.
I think that football, as much as it’s changed, has stayed the same.
What changes is the people, the younger players of today have changed. Where their mentality is far different than in years gone by.
I think with the advent of social media, there’s a lot more access to information such as training sessions, and nutrition but the good old training methods we grew up on, still to this day will stand you in good stead.
I’m not saying that the new way is not the best way, but I still feel that a lot of the old values are still key to producing good football teams and players.
I was a centre-back, played at fullback, but scored against Kaizer Chiefs playing left-wing!
Many people may not be aware but as a player, I was signed as a 17-year-old centre-back but was a bit short so ended up playing at full-back. Although I also featured in midfield a lot.
In our day, back in the eighties, you were forced to be pretty versatile. I mean I scored a goal against Kaizer Chiefs playing at left wing!
You got jerseys put out in the dressing room before games going from 1 to 11 and you sort of just put on the jersey in which position you were about to play.
That’s how it was dictated to you in those days. In my opinion, It produced better players because you understood the game a bit better.
From player to an unprecedented trophy-laden managerial career
At Seven Stars we went 78 games unbeaten
At Seven Stars I had the Sundowns of the first division.
Don’t let anyone ever, ever claim that this person is a bad coach or a good coach.
Yes, you get bad coaches who make bad players and bad teams, but if you’re a half-decent coach and you’ve got good players you can make a successful team.
So, I had the Sundowns of the first division at Seven Stars and we went I think an incredible 78 games unbeaten.
It was crazy, we drew a lot of games in our first season where we finished second, and then finished second again before winning the league.
But we had the crème of the crop and like I say, you should be winning when you’ve got the best players.
When you see the Pep Guardiolas of the world and the Jurgen Klopps, they’ve got very good players.
These coaches should then be successful and should be challenging. They’re not guaranteed to win every year but should always be closer to challenging.
It was a crazy, crazy situation
At Black Leopards, it was a crazy, crazy situation because I was living in Cape Town and I’d played all my life for one club, and then went to a place like Black Leopards that was a complete 360-degree change in how you think the game should be played.
It was two-and-a-half weeks before the start of the season and we hadn’t had a player signed.
We had open trials where we had it seemed like thousands of players where you’re going into a professional league and you don’t have a team ready.
We formed a team there in two-and-a-half weeks and halfway into the season after 17 games we were second.
It was a fantastic time, because my players bought into my methods, and we had a great spirit and real togetherness with a small tight squad.
We finished in the top eight and Leopards have never finished in the top eight since then.
The supporters wanted to kill me
I then went to Swallows and it was a great eye-opener where for the first time I experienced proper pressure from a demanding fanbase.
The fans even chased me out of the stadium twice with vans, pangas and knives that forced me to get security. I was also put in the boot of a car to smuggle me out of a stadium but later ended up being successful.
In my first year, we lost our first game by 5-0 to Orlando Pirates at Rand Stadium and obviously, I couldn’t get out of the stadium, as the supporters wanted to kill me, and we ended up finishing fourth that year, which was unbelievable.
We finished in the top four and then we won the Absa Cup which is the equivalent of the FA Cup and then got to the final of the Top 8 the following year.
I think I was there for five years and was never out of the top six.
We can win the league here
At SuperSport it all kind of came together more. It was funny as I had already signed for SuperSport for the next season, and we played them in the final game of the season.
If we had beaten SuperSport, we would’ve finished second where they had to beat us or clinch a draw to finish in the top eight.
We scored first, and at that moment it meant they were out of the top eight, and I of course didn’t want to go to a new club that isn’t in the top eight. Not that we purposefully conceded but they ended up scoring for the draw and fortunately for me, finished in the top eight.
When I first met with the chairman and looked at the fantastic squad of players, I said we can win the league here.
He looked at me as if to say you’re crazy where after five games we had just four points and they wanted to fire me, they actually called me in.
Also, there was this supporter who held up a banner saying I must go, I’m useless, that same supporter at the end of the season when we lifted the league title wanted to hug me… and I told him exactly where to go.
Wits were the only club that would have challenged Sundowns
People often ask why I left SuperSport, well the main reason is that we were selling players and the team was just getting weaker and weaker whereas at Wits they had an exciting project where they wanted to win the league.
I responded to Wits saying we’re going to need a few players and need to invest in the team.
They said yes, we want to and in the first year we came third, then third again before coming second and then we finally won the league.
One thing I liked about Wits was that we had a nice home support, with the Friday night games. With great training facilities at Sturrock Park and had a club that was really ambitious and wanted to win the league.
Brian Joffe was really adamant about that.
It was a great time and it’s such a pity that a club like that can be sold after being in existence for 100 years.
It’s an absolute disgrace and one year later the club was gone.
That’s the only club that would have challenged Sundowns over these last seven or eight years. Not Chiefs or Pirates, that Wits team. We disrupted Sundowns the one year when we won the league before they obviously went and bought more players and really went for it.
If Wits were still in existence, Sundowns would have never won the league seven years in a row. No chance.
A difficult Kaizer Chiefs period
With my period at Chiefs, you’re going from a controllable situation, like SuperSport United and Wits to a place where you don’t really want to go.
Where you’re going because if I’m being honest you’re basically out of work.
So, when I went to Chiefs the club said to me we’re going to give it a year as we couldn’t sign players.
I agreed and as soon as the end of lockdown occurred, they changed the entire team exactly as they had promised.
We then went on to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League. The bottom line is that I was promised that we were going to change the team and we were going to do it in a good way.
Do you think I don’t want to play like Real Madrid or Barcelona?
As a coach, I’m very meticulous in my preparation and in the way I go about my business. I try to play to the players that I’ve got at my disposal.
I obviously want to play in a certain way. Chiefs are a perfect example. I wanted to play with wingers but we didn’t have a single winger at the club.
I have to adapt to the players we’ve got to try and get results.
Do you think I don’t want to play like Real Madrid or Barcelona? We all want to play like that, but I’ve got to have the players.
Do you think I won’t want to try and play out the back? But in the end, you end up not having the right players.
It’s no use trying to put a square peg in a round hole when the guy can’t tie his own bootlaces, and you want him to play out the back.
Football is about perception, and if you create a certain perception for people where somebody can easily claim on TV to be fielding young players.
To be clear, nobody has played more young players than I have throughout my career.
Don’t let anyone ever tell you that.
I just don’t go out there and profess to say that I play young players, we believe in this philosophy, and we play great football.
We don’t go out there to create perceptions, we go out there and create reality.
