Coach: The life and times of Clive Barker
The following is an extract from Coach The Life and Soccer Times of Clive Barker published by Jacana Media.
“Football has been my life, my passion.” – Clive Barker
‘When I started, I couldn’t afford the balls and equipment required, and so, fairly deviously I must admit, I watched as parents dropped their children off at school and would then, in my most charming way, mercilessly harass those driving the best cars to get them to assist with buying a football or two.
It was a wonderful start to my coaching career and we had a few very talented players there, but I decided that I needed to get paid – and then the coaching job at Fynnlands came up. Fynnlands was my first coaching job at an amateur club and it proved an absolute disaster.
I worked them really hard; in those days, you only ever trained on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then played on the weekend, but I tormented that team. We added a Friday training session in which we focused on dead-ball situations, an area that wasn’t my strength. But the harder I trained them, the worse they performed and we were relegated.
A terrible start for any football coach, but perhaps a good lesson to learn because the following year we were able to take the foot off the pedal, were more sensible with our approach, more relaxed, and went on to win the league and make our way back into the top amateur league again.
A lot of people felt that the skill levels of amateur football weren’t as high as the professional league, but the amateurs were the feeder players into pro teams such as Durban City and Durban United. The Durban City team that won the Pro league twice (in 1981 and 1982) and came third the following year was successful precisely because of the strength of the local amateur league.
I remember Durban City’s chairman Norman Elliott asking: “Why is it necessary for Durban City to have a nursery when the whole of KZN is my nursery?”
He was completely right. I stayed with Fynnlands for a couple of years, right up until the start of the first football tournament that featured sides from all the race groups, including a side named the Continentals, made up of Lebanese, Greek and Portuguese players.
The Benson & Hedges Tournament was an exciting and groundbreaking competition, and also the first time that white teams played against black teams. Held in 1974 and also known as the Embassy Multinational Series, I was given the role of coaching the Indian team and I truly loved my time spent with these great players.
Our first game was against the black side, in Cape Town, and although my team wasn’t exceptionally talented, I tried to get them super fit because I felt that this would be our only hope. I believed we could be really competitive if we were fitter than our opposition and if we could get into the faces of our opponents, we could make it as difficult as possible for them.
We trained at Hartleyvale, and the next thing a group of reporters and photographers started running towards us. I thought to myself, Wow, I can’t believe we’ve made such a stir in Cape Town, but they ran right past us, towards a huge luxury bus that had pulled in behind us carrying the black team, featuring the likes of Shakes Mashaba, Sugar Ray Xulu, Jomo Sono – legendary players – and everyone made a beeline towards them.
We realised how up against it we were. Jacob Meer was the chairman of my side and he doubled as team selector, making sure that every player who was picked had some connection to a father, uncle or cousin he had played with. Although there was more than a hint of favouritism, the team nevertheless performed with distinction.
Our training regime was tough. After each morning session, I would make the players run a couple of kilometres up a hill where they would have lunch and I’d give them a few hours off. Then I’d make them run back down the hill. At the end of the day’s second training session, I’d make them run back up the hill again.
And so they got fitter and fitter, better and better, and with that, their confidence grew. I remember looking at the clock with a few minutes to go, with the South African Black XI leading 3-2. We were on top of them and the black side were just hanging on. If we had won that match, the white team would have taken the tournament.
We hung on, played good-quality football and it was incredible to have 40000 people supporting us. Every time we touched the ball, everyone cheered us on. We ran them close. But to hear the crowds… The only other time I ever felt that passion was the dawn of democracy when Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison.
Then, in the final match between the black and white teams, played at the Rand Stadium, things turned sour. There was an incredible amount of hype and emotion because for the first time it was black players versus white players. It was a supercharged evening.
During the game against the white team, coached by Roy Bailey, the black team’s Chilean coach Mario Tuani objected to a decision on an offside goal against his team. He thought that racial bias had come into the referee’s decision.
The half-time break came, and in those days it was 10 minutes long, but 10 minutes became 15, then 20, and still the black team hadn’t emerged from the changing rooms. Because of the importance of the occasion – no one wanted anything to go wrong – this was a tense situation and Les Salton, who was sitting next to me, remarked what an inordinately long break this was.
We then discovered that the door to the black changing room had been locked – with them inside. Mario had refused to let them out, claiming that his team wasn’t getting a fair chance; in those days, the calls went the way of the team with the most vocal support. It was like a pressure cooker and the last thing we needed was for football to be set back even further.
But sanity prevailed; the game did continue and the white side went on to beat the black side 2-0 that day, with the Continentals, ably coached by Kai Johansen, winning the overall tournament. Mario was never given another team in the tournament to manage. Aside from the final, we had a wonderful time because the Indian side was under no pressure.
No one expected us to do well, and yet the players played above themselves. In our curtain-raiser to the final that evening, we had a couple of good players who really turned it on.
Another extract from the book will be published in next week’s edition.
The book is available at all major book stores at a recommended retail price of R240.
COACH: The life and soccer times of Clive Barker is the insightful biography of Clive Barker, South Africa’s longest-serving national football coach – and arguably the most successful following Bafana Bafana’s win in 1996 at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations.
With the help of writer Michael Marnewick, Barker reveals himself as a modest man, a dedicated husband and father, and a force to be reckoned with in the football fraternity, both in Mzansi and in the rest of the continent.
Coach examines Barker’s life from his pre-coaching days and how he avoided bankruptcy by driving taxis, to his early coaching jobs at amateur level, into the professional ranks with Durban City, then Bush Bucks, to AmaZulu and ultimately to the position as national coach.
Delving back into his early pre-coaching days, the book gives the reader a glimpse of the man himself, while anecdotes from former players, at both club and international level, provide an in-depth but entertaining look into his coaching style and ability.
In between, the book explores the politics of the time, including Clive’s opposition to apartheid; his take on witchcraft practices in local football; the success at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations; and the positive and powerful influence of Nelson Mandela, the national football team’s talisman.
Barker’s journey was not always smooth sailing, and he had his detractors, who felt he was too chummy with his players, and that he was not technically savvy or tactical enough, or who disagreed with his relaxed but focused methods, which were proven over and again to yield results. What comes across so clearly in this book is the love and respect Barker had for his players and that they, in turn, had for him.
He treated them as adults and they never faltered in their desire to please him, although Mark Fish may have crossed the line a few times.
Clive Barker is South Africa’s most successful national football coach post-1994. He led the national football team in its first and only African Cup of Nations victory in 1996, before coaching Bafana Bafana to World Cup qualification in 1998.
He also enjoyed great success with football teams Durban City, Bushbucks and AmaZulu in league and cup competitions.