INTO THE BIG TIME

CLINTON LARSEN HAS LED LITTLE KNOWN LIMPOPO CLUB MAGESI FC TO THE ELITE LEAGUE OF SOUTH AFRICAN FOOTBALL

- Mogamad Allie

When they finished in a lowly 12th position in last year's Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC) table, few would have bet on modest Magesi winning promotion to the DStv Premiership a year later.

Not only did the club from Moletjie, a small town 55km north west of Polokwane - better known as being the birthplace of former world and Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya - book themselves a place in the top flight, they also did so as champions of the MFC.

After securing promotion with a 3-1 win over Milford on 5 May, coach Clinton Larsen told the media: "It has been a lot of hard work. It has been 15 months since I came here to the club from last season and since day one, we had a lot of work to do.

"We had to change the structure to make sure the club works as a professional outfit. I want to thank the management for that trust and support. There was not a single day of interference from the club."

The 2023/24 season was only Magesi's third in the MFC following their promotion from SAFA's ABC Motsepe League, the third tier of South African football. It was the Limpopo side's second spell in the MFC, also commonly referred to as the National First Division (NFD), after suffering the ignominy of immediate relegation in 2017.

While the club's rapid rise has been attributed to several factors, even Larsen admits he didn't expect things to go as well and swiftly as they did.

"Winning promotion with Magesi ranks right up there with winning the Telkom Knockout with Bloemfontein Celtic in 2012," the 53-year-old coach told the Newzroom Africa television channel.