OCTOBER 2, 2020. The Hilton Hotel’s auditorium in Durban is all filled up with members of the press, some familiar faces in football administration and some not so familiar in football circles but due to their swankiness, one can already tell of their business-class status.
Then AmaZulu FC owner, businessman Dr Patrick Sokhela announces the sale of KwaZulu-Natal’s most elegant football club to current club-president Sandile Zungu, an Umlazi-born businessman.
Likewise, Zungu takes the podium and delivers his first of many addresses as the president of AmaZulu Football Club.
Zungu has the whole auditorium eating from his palm in no time with assurance that the club will remain in Durban and keep its name. AmaZulu former player Ayanda Dlamini is interim coach at the time, and Zungu pledges support for the young gaffer to remain with the club.
The big name players that came to AmaZulu in the following, were clearly going to require an even bigger name coach to manage and so no surprises when Bafana Bafana legend Benni McCarthy is roped in and Dlamini descends to the feeder team (MultiChoice/DSTV Diski Challenge -DDC).
Back to Zungu’s many AmaZulu addresses, he assures that the club will finish in the top four of the Premiership, and whilst at it, he announces that October 1 will from then on be celebrated at the club as “Usuthu Day”.
That, because that is the day the club was founded in 1932. Zungu’s greatest ambition with the club is that “it should be a South African football powerhouse when it celebrates 100 years of existence on October 1, 2032”.
✍️🏾 𝗖𝗟𝗨𝗕 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 🟢
— AmaZulu FC (@AmaZuluFootball) September 30, 2024
RE: The departure of Head Coach Pablo Franco Martin and Assistant Aitor van den Brule.#Isagila#HebeUsuthu#UsuthuTogether pic.twitter.com/LGWjcWgyGX
Zungu’s big talk and ambitions are sprinkled with some glitter in his first season in charge as McCarthy takes the club to their best league-finish in the PSL era – position two.
That gets the club to their first continental football appearance. But when results become hard to come by for McCarthy, he is axed and replaced by Brandon Truter.
He too does not survive long as he is replaced by Frenchman, Romain Folz. The inexperienced Folz consequently leaves the club back in the hands of Dlamini, in his second interim tenure.
Four years on, things are not so much going according to plan for Zungu, even though he remains one of the most accessible club chairpersons along with TS Galaxy’s Tim Sukazi and Cape Town City’s Cape Town City.
Coincidentally, all three clubs have not started well in the 2024/25 PSL season, even though City are better with a win and a draw in three games.
Galaxy and Usuthu are 15th and 16th on the log after losing all three of their opening games. The only other side that has lost three of its opening games this season is Marumo Gallants, who put the final nail in the coffin of Pablo Franco, who took over from Dlamini in the Usuthu hot seat 15 months ago.
The Spaniard becomes the first coach to be sacked in the PSL this season and the fourth in Zungu’s AmaZulu-era. Maybe Zungu should calm down going forward and not give “pet-names” to his coaches before they do any commendable business on the field.
Zungu, dubbed Franco as “Cijimpi (warrior general)” when welcomed and announced him at the airport in July last year to such fanfair. Folz was dubbed “Fohloza (destroyer)”, also even before he even took charge of his first game.
This year, instead of Zulu-dancing drums and hymns, Usuthu Day was marked by the axing of an international coach, maybe it is time let football do the talking with Vusumuzi “Kanu” Vilakazi who is set to take the reigns from “Cijimpi”.
Vilakazi was announced by the club early this season as the head coach of the DDC team.