OTHER CLUB COACHES
• ALEC BELL was born and grew up in the Cape Colony but moved with his Scottish parents when they returned to their homeland and began his career in Ayr at the turn of the 20th century.
From 1903 to 1913 he played 278 times for Manchester United, winning two titles and an FA Cup, and won a single cap for Scotland.
He went into coaching at Coventry City and then Manchester City, where he was the trainer from 1925 until his death aged 52 in November 1934.
• Jo’burg-born GORDON HODGSON is still recognised as one of Liverpool’s greatest players and his 241 goals for the Reds sees him third on the list of the club’s all-time greatest goal scorers.
He was signed after he toured Britain and Ireland with the 1924 Springboks when he was just 20 years old and spent 10 years at Anfield. He later signed at Aston Villa and Leeds United, and also played 56 first-class cricket matches as a fast bowler for Lancashire.
But football was his first love and when he progressed from player to manager it was at Port Vale just after World War II. They played in the Third Division South. He was there for over four years, during which time their highest finish was eighth place, before coming close to managing Liverpool.
Following George Kay’s resignation in early 1951 due to health reasons, Hodgson was among the hopefuls who were interviewed for the manager’s job but lost out to Don Welsh. Hodgson was admitted to hospital a couple of months later and, with a promising managerial career still in its infancy, died of throat cancer in mid-1951 at the early age of 47.
• EDWIN STEIN left Cape Town while still a toddler when his anti-Apartheid activist father went into exile in Britain. He was signed at Luton but never got to play and only ever made a single appearance in England’s Football League with Barnet, while his younger brother Brian won caps for England and even younger brother Mark played at Chelsea.
Edwin was one of the first black managers in the English league when he took over from Barry Fry and saw Barnet to promotion from Division Three to Division Two. But when the club ran into money problems, he left to rejoin Fry as his assistant at Southend United and never got a chance to coach in the Football League again.
• CHRIS O’LOUGHLIN was brought up in Cape Town but born in Belfast and used his Irish connections to play overseas and earn his coaching badges, including a UEFA B license.
But his first job on the bench was in the Premier Soccer League as Bibey Mutombo’s assistant at Orlando Pirates in 2007 and then an academy coach at SuperSport United before going to AS Vita Club in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a baptism of fire as a head coach.
That move allowed him to make connections in the former colonial power Belgium and, after a four-month sabbatical at Melbourne Victory in Australia, he went to St Truiden, first as assistant coach and then in September 2015 promoted to the top post, aged only 37, when Yannick Ferrara was poached by Standard Liege. O’Loughlin brought Benni McCarthy to Belgium as his assistant.
St Truiden are owned by businessman and politician Roland Duchatelet, who also owned Charlton Athletic in England, which is where O’Loughlin went next as first team coach. Since mid-2017, however, he has been back in Belgium, first at St Truiden but as assistant coach once more, then Kortrijk, and from May 2019, working as the sports director at Royale Union Saint Gilloise, where Percy Tau played when he first went across from Mamelodi Sundowns.
• MICH D’AVRAY hails from Johannesburg and as a 15-year-old starlet went across to England on trial and was signed by Bobby Robson for Ipswich Town.
He spent 13 years at Ipswich as a free scoring striker, got capped by England at Under-21 level and was finishing his career at NEC Nijmegen when the opportunity to come home saw him join Moroka Swallows.
The legs had gone for playing upfront but he proved a very adept centre back and chairman David Chabedi spotted the leadership potential. In 1992 he was appointed for the last three months of the season after the firing of Yugoslav Miloslav Bjelica.
The next season Swallows finished runners-up and D’Avray was poached away by Cape Town Spurs’ millionaire owner David Rodwell. They should have won the league in 1994 but Pirates were given a spurious point by the National Soccer League’s disciplinary committee when Vaal Professionals failed to produce ID cards and crowned champions, by one point, instead.
But there was no stopping D’Avray in 1995 as Spurs swept the league and won the BoB Save Super Bowl. D’Avray then became the first South African Under-23 coach with the idea being he would move onto the Bafana Bafana job after Clive Barker, but was foiled again, this time by populist politicking.
When Rodwell moved to Australia and bought a share in Perth Glory, he persuaded the A-League club to hire D’Avray. He was an assistant for three years to Bernd Stange and then head coach from 2001-04 as they swept the board.
They were champions in 2003 and 2004, and D’Avray named Coach of the Year. He is still known as the most successful coach in the Australian club’s history. He was moved up to technical director of the club in 2005 and in 2008 returned home to work at Bloemfontein Celtic, Chippa United and Ajax Cape Town.
• BRADLEY CARNELL has just completed a one month, six match stint as caretaker coach of New York Red Bulls, following in the footsteps of Firmani, and guiding the club to the end of the season playoffs.
The 43-year-old broke the record when he was 16 as the youngest ever debutant in professional football in South Africa and went onto an extensive Bundesliga career while also competing for Bafana at the 2002 World Cup. He was back home to finish his playing days at SuperSport and then moved in coaching at the University of Johannesburg, followed by stint as an assistant at Free State Stars and Pirates.
The chance to go to Major League soccer came through his German connection and Carnell moved in March 2017 to the ‘Big Apple’.
He worked first under Jesse Marsh, who is now at Salzburg, then Chris Armas and now the Austrian Gerhard Struber, and will remain as an assistant coach next year.
• ALAN KOCH is another South African to have coached in the United States top-flight after guiding FC Cincinnati in their debut in the competition in 2019.
He had been the coach the previous year in the second tier and led them to numerous records, including for wins (23) and points (77).
He was axed 11 games into the 2019 season though, despite only losing two matches, and would later coach the Colorado Switchbacks in the United Soccer League, where he was instrumental in signing George Lebese. He left the Switchbacks after the 2020 season and was recently appoints as head coach and director of football operations of Canadian Premier League side FC Edmonton.
It means he comes full circle after making his name at the Simon Fraser University in Canada, where he is still revered for his achievements.
Born in Durban, he played in the lower leagues in Germany and then for top-fight Irish side Limerick before injury ended his career early.