Barker was the best football manager SA ever produced

Clive Barker’s genius as a football coach was rooted in something that came naturally to him – his love of South African football and ability to understand and use the country’s diverse culture.

Genius is a word not often used to describe Barker, who died aged 78 in Durban on Saturday morning. That he was seen as a spectacular man-manager and motivator, but not tactically astute, irritated the coach who won the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) on home soil and qualified Bafana Bafana for their first Fifa World Cup in 1998.

What not everyone has grasped is that Barker’s genius lay in fusing motivation – and how he understood South African football culture and Zulu culture in particular, as KwaZulu-Natal is where he enjoyed most of his success – with tactics.

Barker also won with unfancied teams. He took league titles at Durban City in 1982 and 1983 and Durban Bush Bucks in 1985, and won the Coca-Cola cup with AmaZulu in 1992 and the Nations cup with Bafana. He won the 2001 BobSave SuperBowl with Santos, beating Sundowns in the final. His success continued into the 2010s as he steered Bidvest Wits to third in the Premiership in 2012-2013 and Mpumalanga Black Aces to seventh in 2013-2014.

Barker shocked the establishment as a young coach with fresh ideas that brought a tough fitness regime and impeccable man-management to a talented Durban City. They gained confidence from each win, snowballing into back-to-back titles.

Mark Tovey said what set Barker apart at such a young age was “he kept everything simple. He stressed two areas. One, [the] team being the most important. And second, you needed to be fit”.

“Clive’s biggest asset was his man-management, so we had a great camaraderie. He didn’t just go much into the intricacies of 4-2-3-1. Just get on the pitch, play as a unit.”

It was a familiar sight at Bush Bucks and AmaZulu to see Barker animatedly spraying a water bottle on the touchline when things weren’t going their way.

Barker would go to the room of a player who wasn’t performing and tell them “when you’re not performing, this team doesn’t perform”, Mlungisi Ngubane said. “To me it was, ‘Prof, if you don’t jive, nothing happens.’ But he’d tell you separate from the others, then you’d go in there knowing, I don’t want to let Clive down.”

If there was a club Barker had a love affair with, it was AmaZulu. George Dearnaley was a full-of-himself, prolific rhino of a striker for AmaZulu – one of those big-headed players Barker delighted in berating – who shocked Chiefs 3-1 at FNB stadium in the 1992 Coca-Cola cup final.

“He hated that his former players first mentioned man-management, because he says he also wanted to be remembered for great coaching,” said the ex-striker.

Dearnaley says Barker simply read the situation. “He knew the landscape, understood the importance of muti for and against you, and for the supporters. That is not just experience, that’s a pure understanding of what’s happening in and around the entire game.”

Barker “loved the stage”, says Dearnaley. AmaZulu came 15th in the league in 1992 but would attract 40,000 spectators at Kings Park stadium because of the way they played.

“I think Clive is No.1, because he’s the only South African coach to have won the Nations cup,” said Ngubane. “He was the first to win leagues twice in a row, and added a third, with different teams. Pitso, because he’s now in Egypt, and because he won the Champions League, is big. But the Nations cup was more than the Champions League.”

“But he definitely had a winning formula in his head about the kind of personalities he wanted down the spine. If you looked at his teams: a goalkeeper, a central defender who was a leader and an organiser, a hard-working central midfielder to dominate that space, and someone who could put the ball in the net.”

* This story first appeared in New Frame on February 22 2022

— Newframe.com