Mandla Ncikazi

Lamontville Golden arrows have been excellent in the first half of the 2020-21 DStv Premiership season, with coach Mandla Ncikazi leading the way.

Mandla Ncikazi has awoken the identity of Lamontville Golden Arrows, a reputation built from their revival in the mid-1990s through to their first entry in the PSL at the turn of the new millennium.

The former schoolteacher might still be a distance from becoming an iconic figure at Golden Arrows, but his familiarity with operations at the club and the encouraging start gives reason to believe he is on course to leave a legacy.

“The fact that I have been at Arrows [as an assistant coach] means I understand the philosophy of the club,” he tells KICK OFF.

“I am not a fan of acquiring players that have already been with the big teams, the reason being that it becomes a demotion for them when they come to Arrows. There are those unique ones that understand the shift, but most will destabilise the team.

“I like to give opportunities to those that haven’t had it before because I like the underdog,” he highlights.

His preference of the unknown stems from the fact that his path into coaching had to start right from the bottom.

Just past his retirement from playing, he coached the Southern KwaZulu-Natal Under-12 team before moving to Mount Edgecombe and University of KwaZuluNatal in the fourth tier. He then had lower division spells at African Wanderers, Nathi Lions and Durban Stars.

He joined Arrows in 2007 as an assistant to Manqoba Mngqithi, then deputised at Free State Stars, Polokwane City, the Under-17 national team, Maritzburg United and again at Arrows.

“I am a hard worker by nature. I have always loved watching games but now it is crazy. It is not a normal life and no wonder most coaches are either single or divorced because there is no partner who will stand for this kind of nonsense.

“You need a very understanding partner who will understand that you are in the crazy world. Just check how many coaches are divorced or single because of the nature of the job. If you are successful you are still lonely, and it is even worse when things are not going well.

“I don’t wish to be the one who relegates the team, which is like losing almost R100-million that doesn’t belong to you. But then such jobs have to be done by people,” says the 52-year-old.

‘A coach is either waiting to be fired or already fired’

Ncikazi says he feels lucky that he hasn’t had to deal with club bosses that thrive on irritating and interfering.

“I have been fortunate I have worked with Sis’ Mato [Madlala] for most of my coaching career. Being on the back of coaches is not her area of operation even though she has the interest of the club at heart,” he says.

“Farook [Kadodia] is also not like that, though as owners of the clubs you are still accountable to them and must give them reports of progress. It is not done in a nasty way like I hear happens at other clubs,” he points out.

All the same, he admits that the nature of the coaching industry is thin on job security compared to other employment avenues.

“It happens with all of us because a coach is either waiting to be fired or already fired. Steve [Komphela] would always say if you check into a hotel you will then have to check out and it just depends on the weight of your pocket.

“This relates to the life of a coach as well and being worried about what has not happened yet is not going to assist you.

Cowards die many times before the real death. You can’t be a coward and be a coach, otherwise you are in the wrong space,” he says.

Through his journey, Ncikazi has redefined himself from the player who was coached in the old-fashioned tactics into a man who embraces modern trends with a profound admiration of the club that he now leads.

“I always question the tactics of [Jose] Mourinho that they are too ultra for the human being, but I then think that maybe the fact that he didn’t play the game, he has never had the feel of having such tactics applied on him as a player.

“It is a personal criticism that I have for him and if I was to choose, I would go for coaches who played at the highest level because they have both worlds. The mistake that I always pick up here in South Africa is that a lot of our former players just believe that the fact that they played makes them coaches naturally, which I don’t subscribe to.

“No matter how long you have been in the hospital as a nurse with all the experience, that doesn’t qualify you to be a doctor. You must qualify to be a doctor and it is the same with coaching.

“When I was fired at Maritzburg I was asked what I had learnt, and I said you don’t have to be an expert within the four lines to coach. You still have a lot of work to manage outside the field.

“It is not enough that you are good in managing the tactics and the technical aspects, because you still must deal with the mental aspects of the human beings. As much as 80 percent of the work is out of the field with just 20 percent on it,” he says.

“JUST CHECK HOW MANY COACHES ARE DIVORCED OR SINGLE BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THE JOB.”

Transition from teaching to coaching

A teacher by profession, Ncikazi held chalk and dust in 1992 and by the time he left that field he was a sports officer with the Department of Education. Just how beneficial is that teaching background in football? “It is very important because it gives you the sense of understanding working with human beings, especially the young players here at Arrows. What I have learnt is that the fact that the coach is educated doesn’t mean that your qualification should be taken direct from you to the players.

“You must understand that most players have not had a chance to go to the highest level academically, despite

being gifted in football. So, the question then becomes who comes to who?

“Is it the players who must raise themselves to the coach’s level, or it is the coach that should come down to their level? I choose the latter. With all the knowledge that you have you must still translate it in the level of the players who dropped out, or just didn’t go to school. I don’t think it will work if you bring your university standards to the field of play.

“It is also key to understand that the type of players that a club like Arrows will recruit. Only clubs like Manchester City and Mamelodi Sundowns will recruit what they want, yet in my case I must work with what is in front of me. Therefore, we choose a player-oriented approach over a coach-induced approach, which is my way or the highway,” explains Ncikazi.

Systematic racism in football

The struggles and battles that a black coach must put up with to eventually be referred to as a PSL gaffer is the reason why he talks about the issue of what a difference skin colour makes.

Earning the trust and respect of club owners comes with jumping over a lot of hurdles.

“I don’t want to answer it in terms of coaching. I want to answer it in terms of our societal mindset. It is true that the history of our country did a lot of damage in a lot of us and there is a saying that, ‘if you want to kill a black person then send another black person’. That is the history of apartheid.

“Despite the drastic improvements in our league, the issue of bosses preferring to give jobs in that preferential line is still there just like you will find players not jumping as high when demanded by a local coach compared to when an import of a different skin colour says so.

“This is not in football alone. The problem is in the history of this country but luckily not in our team. Some black people will rather take instructions from someone with a lighter skin colour than another black African.

“It is better now than it was before, there has been a shift compared to what used to happen. We have black Africans dominating the PSL coaching landscape and club bosses must be applauded that club bosses now trust South Africans, especially for top teams that can afford coaches that they want,” he says.

The struggle of rising in the coaching ranks as a black person has been evident in England and the rest of Europe, where black players have struggled to make it into big-time coaching past their playing days.

There has been a notion that blacks can only play but can’t lead, pumping up the belief that this is fed by discrimination, which explains why they end up resorting to punditry, as is the case with Dwight Yorke, John Barnes, and Ian Wright in England.

“There was an article that I read recently about the same issue because it is not only happening here, but all over Europe as well. Check how fast Frank Lampard has moved, check what is happening with Steven Gerard.

“It looks like they are favoured in their preparation to take the top coaching jobs, which is why Dwight Yorke was vocal about it, mentioning that despite both races playing at the same level, the other always gets ahead in coaching.

“It is unfortunate that there is still this feeling that blacks are second-class citizens. It happens all over the world, including South Africa. The

“NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU HAVE BEEN IN THE HOSPITAL AS A NURSE WITH ALL THE EXPERIENCE, THAT DOESN’T QUALIFY YOU TO BE A DOCTOR.”

racism that happens in football is the outcome of the fact that we are still not regarded as real humans, which is very sad,” says Ncikazi can now come out of Komphela’s shadow after having been his second in command at three clubs.

“The blessing and beauty of working with Steve is that he is a good human being. Sometimes the platform that he would give me would be higher than his. Manqoba did the same by allowing me to be the coach and not just the assistant.

“Only the media would refer to me as the assistant but in terms of my role and responsibilities, it would put me at a point where I am only not handling interviews. I was involved in the recruitment of players, training and team selection, so therefore I said whoever I will work with, I will never breed something that I was not taught. Whoever is with me is a coach also.

“I stay outside at times as an assistant when he conducts sessions because I respect and value his input,” he concludes.