21 June 2019 – Inspirational KwaZulu-Natal club, Summerfield Dynamos, who cruised to the ABC Motsepe League title in only their second season in the nation’s third tier competition (finishing seventh in their debut season), had high expectations going into the recent national play-offs in Cape Town.
The plan was to bring professional football well and truly back to the heart of Chatsworth with National First Division (NFD) promotion and reignite the game among the communities in Durban.
However this wasn’t to be as the club bowed out in the group, albeit not without a fight. In what was termed as the ‘group of death’, Dynamos punched above their weight against both finalists, Steenberg United and JDR Stars.
Safa.net managed to get the thoughts of club chairman Mr Collin Naidoo who also shed some light on the plans for the future and a message for the faithful fans.
“We began the season aiming to merely compete for top four honours and go all out for the title next year. We then started to see one win after the other and were on a solid run and started to believe. Towards the end we pushed hard,” said Naidoo.
Chatting about the actual play-offs, Naidoo was proud of the fight showed by his team in spite of many challenges.
“I really enjoyed the play-offs. The people of Cape Town were very welcoming. We had high hopes of winning our first game against Steenberg, who were basically playing at their home ground. We had many chances and then let it slip in the final three minutes and we lost by solitary goal. Conditions were harsh with rain and wind but we tried hard and can’t use that as an excuse really. We did feel unlucky too as in the second game after leading, the opposition equalized via a freak deflection,” he said.
Naidoo was pleased that many had afterwards compared the Steenberg game to a cup final but vows to go one better next time around.
“We plan on winning the league yet again and also winning the play-offs. Our aim is to compete in the NFD and then the Premier Soccer League (PSL) obviously. We have the experience now and know how things work. We have a set of disciplined boys but are roping in new players to assist in this goal and we are very confident,” said the owner.
Naidoo also had a quick message for the adoring fans.
“I wish to firstly apologise to the fans. They expected us to win the play-offs and get promoted. However, we urge them to keep the faith and remain hopeful. We are grateful to them as well as to our local sponsors who go out of their way for us,” concluded Naidoo.
With former Uthongathi coach Ronnie Gabriel at the helm and with enthusiastic owners such as Naidoo, it is only a matter of time until Dynamos are duking it out with the big boys of the NFD and PSL.