It may sound far-fetched to many, but Goolam Allie is confident Santos will one day play in the PSL again.
The People’s Team have not played top-tier football in 14 years. They were relegated from the PSL in 2012 after they lost to Chippa United in the promotion-relegation play-offs at Philippi Stadium.
Since they were dumped out of the top-flight, they suffered another relegation in 2017 from the National First Division (NFD), and they now play in the third-tier ABC Motsepe League in the Western Cape, where they are at mid-table.
Santos won the PSL title and BobSave Super Bowl in 2001, the BP Top 8 in 2002 and the Absa Cup in 2003 in a triumphant period for the famous Cape club.
“It was an amazing period for us in the early 2000s because when we won the league, the BobSave Super Bowl, the Top 8 and the Absa Cup, we had a very good team,” Allie said when the Sowetan sister publication the Sunday Times visited him in Cape Town.
“It was not the youngest team in the league, but it was a well-constructed team.”
Allie rattles off names of players fans will recall, such as André Arendse, Edries Burton, John Mbidzo, Musa Otieno, Tyren Arendse, Jean-Sébastien Bax, Thando Mngomeni and Ricardo Mannetti, who were part of Santos’ dramatic success in those years.
“It’s been a journey of ups and downs throughout the years. Passion is a hell of a thing, and it costs you. At the same time, passion drives people, and if you are passionate, it translates to the people you are dealing with.”
Having been out of the PSL for 14 years, the club is forgotten in football circles, but Allie plans to move it from the third tier and back to the topflight.
“The club is very much alive. We have aspirations, and we always had aspirations to get back to the PSL. We were unfortunate not to get back on one of two occasions.
“It is still a dream, and don’t forget we are the only Cape Town club to have won the PSL title, so there is a legacy we can fight for.
“You can see the facility we have here in Cape Town; we have juniors from under-10 to the ABC Motsepe team and we have two junior women’s teams.
“This club is still very much alive and we will fight until the end.”
Sowetan
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