The Unfinished Symphony: Gavin Hunt’s Winter of Discontent

Section 1 – The Cone Collector of Durban

At 21:07 on the last Monday of the year, Gavin Hunt’s WhatsApp still pretended he was employed. “Head Coach – Durban City” glowed beneath a profile pic of folded arms and narrowed eyes. Forty-three kilometres away, Farook Kadodia needed only 312 seconds to delete the status forever. No spreadsheets, no lawyers, no awkward small-talk about goal-difference. Just the corporate lullaby every coach knows by heart: “We believe a fresh voice will unlock the next tier.” The next tier already had a face – Ernst Middendorp’s moustache is expected to reclaim the swivel chair he warmed until September – but Hunt was handed a cardboard box and the keys to his Land Rover.

Eighth after 14 matches sounds mediocre until you unfold the footnotes. Fourteen starters were second-division citizens in May. The payroll is the league’s lightest. Downs, Pirates, SuperSport and Cape Town City have already been played twice each, yet the goal column reads minus-one. In any sane universe that is a glittering apprenticeship; in 2024 it is a P45. Hunt packed his cones, smiled the polite smile that has survived nine previous funerals, and pointed the Rover north-west. By midnight the phone was on airplane mode and Durban’s ocean fog was a rear-view memory.

The condolence notes never arrived. All 16 incumbent coaches clutched their personalised seat-belts tighter. Richards Bay, Golden Arrows and TS Galaxy – the relegation red-zone – issued identical 24-hour statements of “full backing”. Chippa United, famous for four coaching changes before the Christmas lights go up, probably has a template with Hunt’s name in the drop-down menu. He keeps the 2020 termination letter from the Chilli Boys framed above his desk: “We have decided to part ways with immediate effect.” Some grudges age like single-malt; this one is still on the distiller’s floor.

Section 2 – The Village Still Smells of Turf and Regret

Naturena’s corridors echo with a familiar drumbeat. Fourth place flatters Kaizer Chiefs; five defeats in ten outings, an MTN8 quarter-final exit, and a 94th-minute penalty to squeeze past Richards Bay tell the truer tale. The dug-out has become a timeshare: Arthur Zwane and Dillon Sheppard pass the headset like a hot potato while Molefi Ntseki hovers as “technical adviser” – a title that translates to “scapegoat on retainer”. Six different XIs in six league rounds suggest roulette more than strategy. The club’s own analytics graph looks like a kiddie’s slide since August, and the dressing-room elders still argue whether 3-4-3 or 4-2-3-1 fits a roster built for neither. The board’s November minutes, leaked to every Sunday rag, list “head-coach recruitment” in bold red.

The spreadsheet, however, keeps whispering. Chiefs have conceded first in eight of their last eleven fixtures – the exact leak Hunt has spent a lifetime sealing. His recipe – compact back-four, shielding double-pivot, early diagonal to a target chest – is the anti-dote to the romantic 3-4-3 Ntseki promised but never brewed. Best of all, Hunt is unshackled: no buy-out, no gardening leave, no Dutch lawyer demanding six-figure compensation. He could pitch up tomorrow, whistle Monday’s session, and still have a fortnight before AFCON pauses the calendar. Pride tastes bitter, but it doesn’t service the bond.

Section 3 – International Shadows and the Waiting Room

Hugo Broos will vacate the Bafana hot-seat after 2026, and at 73 he says so himself. SAFA has already nudged two local candidates; Hunt admitted on SAFM in 2022 that he sat in the lobby before the Belgian got the nod. His portfolio is fatter now: five pieces of silverware, 452 top-flight duels, and the miracle of dragging Supersport from 12th to champions in 18 months. The hurdle remains marketing optics: sponsors crave a “global name”, and Hunt’s passport carries no European stamps. Yet the expanded 48-team World Cup leaves only eight qualifying dates; the technical committee quietly values a man who can recite every left-back at Stellenbosch without notes.

While he waits, the globe spins offers at him. A Tunisian club dangles mid-table security, a Qatari second-tier outfit wants promotion before the Asian Champions League remodel, and an Israeli intermediary tested the water with a “confidential” approach. Hunt deleted the messages. He believes the final paragraph is written where his father blew a whistle in the 1970s, where his grandkids scarf down boerewors rolls in the family section, and where the ghosts at least call him by name.

So the ritual survives the setback. Alarm at 04:45, 8 km through the pre-dawn Johannesburg chill, a mug of black coffee strong enough to etch the inside of the cup, then clip after clip of Durban City set-pieces conceded post-Hunt. Each freeze-frame is scribbled on: which teenager fails to close his hips, which centre-back switches off at the far post, which keeper sets the wall a metre too shallow. The Diski Challenge is next, then the notes app, then the silence. Somewhere between the fourth espresso and the tenth tactical rewind, the phone will vibrate. It could be the Village, could be SAFA, could be a board-chairman who doesn’t yet know December will gut him. The answer is already loaded, the same clipped 1993 vintage: “I’m ready – when do we start?”