You cannot expect professionalism from the supporters
The Stuart Baxter’s utterance has raised eye brows in the South African football fraternity. As a matter of fact a professional football coach should not expect any level of professionalism and tolerance from the supporters. The point of departure in this issue is that Kaizer Chiefs enjoys a decent turnout whenever they play outside of Gauteng more especially in Limpopo Province’s Peter Mokaba Stadium. Consequently, the large turnout at Peter Mokaba Stadium has been booing Chiefs’ top striker. Yes, I call Kingston Nkatha a top striker because I understand his role, the man works hard, his work rate is there to been by everyone who cares. However, in the eyes of an ordinary supporter who paid his hard earned money to watch his favourite club, a definition of a quality striker is determined by the number of goals he scores. It is a fact that Nkatha waits clear cut chances in front of goals but the manner in which he rattles the defenders always gives the midfielders spaces to score.
Okay, coming back to the booing – football supporters go to the stadium to be entertained and if a player does not deliver they are likely to give him a hard time. And that is the order of the day across the world football. The worst hostile treatment a footballer can get is being booed and racism chants by his own supporters. In the Chiefs and Amazulu match at Moses Mabhida Stadium – George Lebese was on the receiving end of the boos and Baxter was about to take him off but the man answered the boos with a sterling performance by getting a brace that helped Chiefs to emerge victorious. Lebese’s response made me to visit the history books of SA football to come up with one name Phillimon Masinga.
Phil was always a victim of the boo boys in the Bafana jersey but I never had the then coach Clive Barker lambasting his supporters let alone to call them idiots. Masinga was always scoring important goals for Bafana in the midst of the boo boys. One does not need a qualification to be a football supporter or a follower but he needs a qualification to be a professional football coach. So, football coaches should refrain from insulting football supporters, obviously you cannot expect any level of professionalism from the supporters. In fact, the coaches need to understand frustration from the supporters because the supporters will always expect quality entertainment and positive results from their favourite clubs. Baxter is a professional coach with a decent CV and I do not expect him to go out in the post match interview to call his supporters “Idiots”. Chiefs is the most popular club in the country with overwhelming followership and every team in the PSL.
