PROFILE COOL-HEADED MIDFIELDER ESSENTIAL AT WITS
Granwald Scott had a number of near misses in his bid to win the Absa Premiership during 12 seasons with Ajax Cape Town, but now stands on the brink of completing that ambition with BidVest Wits.
The silky midfielder joined the Clever Boys in January after a year in Slovakia with Slovan Bratislava, and has played a leading role in Wits pushing for league honours in the second half of the campaign.
He made his Premiership debut in the 2004-05 season as a 17-year-old, and was an important part of the Ajax sides that finished runners-up in the league in 2007-08 and 201011.
Both of those second-place finishes were by narrow margins and with the campaign set to go down to the wire this year as well, his experience and guile in the centre of the park is a real asset for Wits coach Gavin Hunt.
Just a year ago Scott would have hoped not to have been part of this Wits title charge, but instead playing regularly in Europe with Slovan. But he admits he found it difficult to settle in Bratislava, a feeling not helped by being in and out of the side.
Having panged for a move to Europe for so long, it was not quite going to plan and he eventually cut ties with the club by mutual consent.
“Leaving Slovakia was not an easy choice, but ultimately one that had to be done,” he said. “It was difficult for me to adapt there after having lived in one city [Cape Town] for 28 years of my life and playing for one club for 12 of those years.
“The main reason I left, though, was because I was not playing regularly and I feel the older you are, the more regular football you should be playing if you want to have a long career.
“I intend to keep on playing until I feel that I can’t anymore. Also, as they say, ‘home is where the heart is’.”
But his decision to return has been a huge boost for Wits and he slipped straight into the midfield, opening his goal-scoring account for the club in the 2-0 home win over Highlands Park late in April, which proved the final game in charge of the latter for his former Ajax coach Gordon Igesund.
Born in Kensington in Cape Town, Scott played for his local junior side of the same name before being snapped up by the Ajax youth academy.
He became a stalwart of the midfield over the next decade and was perhaps unfortunate not to earn more than the single Bafana Bafana cap he managed in an experimental national team line-up against Equatorial Guinea in January 2012.
While not perhaps possessing the dynamism of some midfielders in the PSL, he is arguably among the most consistent and very rarely has a bad game.
It is something that Wits are now profiting from as they look for cool heads in the final games of the season.