New coach for Leopards

The former coach of Gor Mahia in Kenya, Mr Dylan Kerr (51), is the new head coach of Black Leopards. He is a former professional football player from England.

He was appointed after Mr Joel “Muporofita” Masutha resigned last Monday, the day after his team’s 1-3 defeat to Cape Town City.

After their return to the Absa Premiership League this season, Leopards have managed to win only two matches. They beat the other two Limpopo-based teams, Polokwane City and Baroka.

They drew their matches against Highlands Park, Chippa United and Free State Stars, but lost to Orlando Pirates, SuperSport United, Bloemfontein Celtic, Kaizer Chiefs, Golden Arrows and Cape Town City.

Masutha joined Black Leopards as head coach in January, when the team was still playing in the National First Division. He then guided the Thohoyandou side to gain promotion to the Absa league after they had won the promotional play-offs in July.

Kerr’s appointment came into effect on Tuesday this week. This was confirmed by Black Leopards’ manager, Mr Elijah Mulaudzi. He revealed that the decision to appoint Kerr was reached after analysing the team’s poor record in the previous matches. Leopards are currently in the 14^th position of the 16-team league after 11 matches.

Mulaudzi said they wanted to get the right person for the job, “rather than appoint a person for the sake of pleasing the supporters and who could not deliver the goods”.

In a telephonic interview on Tuesday, Kerr revealed that his aim was to see Leopards win matches and become a force to be reckoned with. He stated that he had been following Black Leopards from afar for some time and that he was convinced that Leopards could be a winning team again. According to him, no reason existed why a good team such as Black Leopards should not score goals to win matches.

He said that the quality football Leopards were playing impressed him. He added that he would make Leopards reclaim their lost pride.

When asked which departments would be the first to be reinforced, Kerr said that he still needed more time to see the team before he could make any recommendation to the management.

Date:24 November 2018

By: Kaizer Nengovhela

Kaizer Nengovhela started writing stories for Limpopo Mirror in 2000. Prior to that he had a five year stint at Phala-Phala FM as sports presenter. In 2005 Kaizer received an award from the province's premier as Best Sports Presenter. The same year he was also nominated as Best Sports Reporter by the Makhado Municipality. Kaizer was awarded the Mathatha Tsedu award in 2014.

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