Cape Town Spurs coach Shaun Bartlett is relieved that he will not need to be travelling to Venda anytime soon after securing promotion to the DStv Premiership.
Bartlett led Spurs to promotion after drawing 0-0 with Maritzburg United in the last game of the PSL playoffs at the Harry Gwala Stadium on Wednesday night.
The former Kaizer Chiefs assistant coach also took time to dedicate the promotion to club’s late kit manager, Albert Hendricks, who passed away in January after serving the same position for 37 years.
Hendricks was at Spurs when Bartlett was a player when they won the double after lifting the league and also Bob Save Super Bowl in 1995, beating Pretoria City (now SuperSport United) 3-2 in the final.
For Spurs, the equation was simple after they won three consecutive matches into heading to the game against Maritzburg, and the draw was enough to gain promotion for the first time since they were relegated in the 2017/18 season.
“I have got no more trips to Venda, and thanks Mr Ronnie Schloss [PSL COO] and we can play in good stadiums now,” said Bartlett after the game with a smile.
“And that is the reward from these players. I said to them I want to go to the New Peter Mokaba Stadium, I don’t want to go to the old Peter Mokaba. It is small things like that and I have got to say, I can’t forget this.
“When Albert Hendricks passed on I made the promise to his family that we will take this team to promotion. Albert Hendricks was a big part of this club and he was a kit man when I played for this club and for me it was really emotional coming back.
“He was always giving me advice and when he passed on I said ‘let’s do this for him and see how far we can take it’.”
This was the second time Bartlett has promoted a club to the DStv Premiership, having done so with Golden Arrows in the 2014/15 season. However, that time he didn’t stay on for the next season, as Arrows had other ideas, replacing him with Serame Letsoaka.
This time it won’t be the case and Spurs boss Ari Efstathiou said Bartlett will remain in the side alongside Nasief Morris and Calvin Marlin.
Bartlett said there is a lot of work that needs to be done to align themselves to the DStv Premiership but the operation of the game has been of top flight football, which was echoed by Efstathiou.
“I have been in the top division before and for me it is not that difficult to adapt and obviously a lot of work will have to be done off the field,” said Bartlett.
“Maybe get extra stuff involved as well because that will also be needed. I think all those things will be discussed in the next two weeks because we will need to have a DStv Diski Challenge team.”
