Luckily for Hunt, Braamfontein isn’t like Orlando-land
Gavin Hunt would be in the unemployment line clutching dog-eared copies of his CV against his chest by now if his career prospects were up to the more rabid folks on social media.
Hunt’s club, Bidvest Wits, remains rooted to the foot of the premiership table at the halfway mark and the beleaguered coach’s many critics believe he should have been fired a long time ago given the side’s poor run of results this season.
The reigning premiership champions look nothing like the side that won the league title with a game to spare only eight months ago and they have stumbled from one poor result to the next with the skill of a goat on stilettos.
The Clever Boys have lost eight out of 16 matches (they’ve only won three games all season) and Hunt’s many critics have wet themselves with excitement after each poor result, demanding to see his head on a spike.
They have lashed out at the media in the process, insisting that the coach has been given a free pass by fanboy soccer journalists and spared a harsher fate that would have befallen another coach.
In the midst of all this, there are even some who’ve used the race card in their critique of Hunt’s regime this season and claimed he would have been slow roasted over a bed of hot coals if he was a black coach.
Frankly, these are the dunderheads we should not give the time of day to because they cannot see anything beyond race.
And, finally, there are those who do not believe that sacking Hunt would be the clever thing to do. They say the critics shouldn’t forget that he is the same coach who led Wits to a maiden league title for the first time in almost a century last May and cannot become rubbish overnight.
They have also not forgotten that Hunt led Wits to the Telkom Knockout, and the cheque that goes with the silverware, a short while ago.
All of the above confirms one thing: Gavin Hunt is a hugely polarising figure.
The majority of those desperate to see him guillotined are not even Wits supporters, but some have become so emotionally invested in the daily life in Braamfontein that they’d celebrate his sacking with the zest of a man who has just won the lottery.
Things are not that simple in Braamfontein.
While Kaizer Motaung, Irvin Khoza, Patrice Motsepe and many other chairmen in the PSL suddenly develop bad cases of the heebie-jeebies when their teams lose matches at alarming rates, the folks in Braamfontein have a higher tolerance for disappointment.
Wits chairman Brian Joffe did not build his Bidvest empire through impulsive and nervous decision making. Sacking coaches as soon as things go wrong has never been his way since he took over in 2005.
Hell, they stuck with Roger de Sa until the club was relegated in 2005.
But instead of going down with his ship, De Sa made a beeline to Santos and it was Boebie Solomons who assumed the reins and eventually helped the club regain promotion to the top flight after only one season in the quicksand.
And guess what, the selfsame De Sa who’d abandoned ship at the first sign of trouble was actually rehired two years later when management seemingly elected to let bygones be bygones.
Wits officials were very emotional when the club won a rare game last week, comfortably beating SuperSport 2-0 at home in a result that finally moved the side off the foot of the table after months of crawling in the cellar.
Officials did not even want to talk about Hunt’s future and it is not clear what the club is thinking at the moment.
But if the club’s past is anything go by, it will take a lot for Joffe to sack a coach who won the club’s first title in 96 years.
FRANKLY, THESE ARE THE DUNDERHEADS WE SHOULD NOT GIVE TIME OF DAY BECAUSE THEY CANNOT SEE ANYTHING BEYOND RACE.