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Silver Stars shine brightly in South Africa

"There is no drinking, no smoking, no late nights, no stealing, and no ill discipline at Silver Stars. This is strongly embodied in the club culture."

Owen de Gama, Silver Stars coach

The pacesetters in the South African soccer league, Silver Stars, only train in the mornings to avoid lunch costs.

And some players from the team topping the richest African national championship travel in their cars because the bus cannot accommodate the entire squad, coaches and officials.

Think South African soccer and Kaizer Chiefs, Mamelodi Sundowns and Orlando Pirates spring to mind. They are rich, popular and successful, winning eight of the 10 titles since a 1996 league revamp.

But when the championship resumes this weekend after a two-week festive season break, Stars top the table on 25 points with Chiefs one point behind and Sundowns two off the pace.

Unfashionable Manning Rangers from the Indian Ocean city of Durban won the first new-look championship in 1997 and Cape Town-based Santos struck another blow for the minnows by finishing first five years later.

The other eight first prizes have been presented to Sundowns (four times) and Chiefs and Pirates (twice each) in easily the richest league on the continent with US$350,000 going to the champions this season.

Stars, who train in Johannesburg and play in the northwest mining town of Rustenburg, have already hit an even bigger jackpot though, collecting a US$600,000 cheque last month for lifting the South African League Cup.

It was a timely boost for Stars, who lack a sponsor and have to sell their top players to balance the books.

Coach Owen de Gama played professionally in Belgium, the Republic of Ireland and Spain before returning home and guided Stars into the elite 16-club first division four years ago.

"A lot of teams are built on names, money and personalities, but Silver Stars is built on character," he told a South African football magazine recently.

"There is no drinking, no smoking, no late nights, no stealing, and no ill discipline at Silver Stars. This is strongly embodied in the club culture," stressed last year's South African Coach of the Year. "I get my motivation from the villages, from poor youngsters who become doctors, not rich people with fat chequebooks. There is strictness, but in a good way."

De Gama refuses to single out players but dreadlocked striker Simba Marumo is the man of the moment having scored the first-half hat-trick that stunned Ajax Cape Town in the League Cup decider.

"It is good to maximize his potential and I'm sure he is going to be one of the top scorers at the end of the season," De Gama said of Marumo, who played for Inter Milan as a teenager only to gradually fade into obscurity.

Stars have another 17 league fixtures to fulfil starting with a visit to struggling Golden Arrows today and most observers expect Chiefs and Sundowns, who boast bigger, more experienced squads, to overtake them.

De Gama refuses to speculate, saying only that his team will give a good account of themselves and must work harder than their rivals due to limited resources.

Sundowns, owned by a mining magnate, could be distracted by African Champions League commitments, leaving an in-form Chiefs team under German coach Ernst Middendorf as the greatest threat to De Gama and his unlikely Stars.

Champions League semi-finalists last year, Pirates have struggled under new Serbian coach Milutin Sredojevic, winning just three of 10 matches, and have made a number of mid-season signings in an effort to escape the relegation zone.
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