Birmingham trials to beef up side

ABC Motsepe League newcomers Birmingham City will look to bolster its squad for the 201819 season when they host trials on June 30 at the Gompo Stadium in East London.

City got promoted at the SAB League playoffs held at the Army Base in Grahamstown last weekend, and club chairman Vusi Khumalo said getting promoted to the third-tier was overwhelming and they had to start preparing for their pre-season.

“We’ve been searching for this position for a long time now, and we’ve planned for it, and it feels good to have finally made it a reality,” said Khumalo.

“It was very difficult, especially the first game we played, because we were under pressure as we knew that last time we failed to qualify for a promotion because we lost the first game of the tournament in Alice last year.

“So that was a bit stressful for us because we knew if we failed to win the first game it might be game over for us.

“But with the second game we started being more comfortable, and in day two we could make more substitutes, so that helped us plan more broadly,” he said.

Khumalo said they were looking to bolster their squad according to the quota of the thirdtier league, which is U23 players.

“We have U21 players that we’ve been playing with, and they did well throughout the season and in the playoffs. But we need new players because this is a different ballgame altogether, and a reshuffle is needed.

“We want to have three players in each position, and we are intending to sign more players so that we can have 33 good players which has been our standard number.

“And each and every position we need three players – two experienced players in the same position.

“Because we went to the playoffs with one goalkeeper, so we need to strengthen that department, and our attacking force, the midfield, our wings and our back four in order to compete in this league.”

Khumalo said he was hoping to engage Buffalo City Municipality Metro in terms of working out a plan of how to renovate their base of operation, Gompo Stadium.

“We are in a process of meeting with the municipality to try and sort the stadium out, because there’s not much to be done there.

“It’s just to fix up the pitch there and there, the goalposts, put some new stands and dressing rooms, and we’d be delighted if we’d have Gompo as a our official homeground.”