Milford will make their Betway Premiership debut on Saturday with an away game against defending champions Orlando Pirates in a tough start for the new boys from Richards Bay.
The owner, Xanti Pupuma, divides his time between steering the club, coaching the team and and running a medical practice in the town.
He spoke to SuperSport.com ahead of the weekend’s kick off of the new campaign
Firstly, how exciting, or alternately how daunting, is it that you play the champions away in your first Betway Premiership clash on Saturday?
“Some days I’ve seen it as okay, some days it’s a bit of a stress. But all in all, I've decided to look at it positively because we are going to have to play them at some point. Maybe it's better to get them now. Hopefully they're slightly, you know, rusty or tired from their trip (to Spain). I'm trying to find the positives, but it's a very, very tough start. To play the champions in their own backyard in our first ever Premiershiup game. It doesn't get any tougher than that.”
How's your pre-season gone?
“So far, it's been all right. I think we had a good session in Polokwane. We had a chance to bring everybody together and that went well. Fortunately for us, most of the guys already know our work, so it’s proven easy to incorporate the new guys into the structure.
You haven't done a lot of shopping in the pre-season transfer window …
“Yeah, no, we've still had a lot of contracted players, and it was just a matter of upgrading the contracts a little bit, and being loyal to the guys you’ve given everything to get the team to where it is now. We had already identified the areas we needed reinforcing and the players that would recruit if we should make it some time ago. We were on top of the (Motsepe Foundation Championship) log for quite some time, so we started making our plans. Fortunately for us, most of those guys we earmarked, we managed to get.”
You were quite adamant some time ago that you weren't going to stock up with more experienced players for this new season but has there been any stage where you've thought to yourself, ‘maybe I should reinforce with some experienced ex-PSL players’?
“I’m not a fan of that school of thought. There are players I've been following that I’ve managed to sign, and I think they’ll really give a lot. And it also gives an opportunity to develop them in the way that we want them. I don’t like getting a 35-year-old who has been through 10 teams and is going to come and change attitudes and stuff like that.
"I've got nothing against good players that will come and bring energy. But fortunately for us, we have that. I’ve got players who’ve been in the team for almost 10 years. What sort of experience am I looking for?
"These are the guys that know everything about the team. They know everything about me as a person. They know when I'm sad. They know when I'm happy. They know what's going to make me sad. And I think they’ll give everything for the team. They wanted to be here. So now, suddenly, when they're here, should I go and find somebody else?”
How have you felt a palpable sense of excitement about the club and around the town? I mean, you've had a lot of excitement over the last year but do you feel an increased sense of anticipation?
“Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's amazing what is happening to us. I think that game against Kaizer Chiefs (shock penalty shootout win in the first round of the 2024 Nedbank Cup) developed for us that season to really give us belief and saved our season actually. And from there onwards, it's been up and up.
"We're growing as a brand as well, the number of supporters have increased and generally I think we've got a brand that is really good, doing some really positive things with the community. I’m trying to expand ourselves to engage people in the Transkei, too, because that's where I'm from, and we're trying to get them into the loop, and hopefully we get to a point where we can take one or two games to that region and share with them the excitement. So, definitely it's been very positive, exciting vibes around the team.”
What kind of football can we expect you to play this season?
“We’re not going to change, but I can tell you probably we're going to increase the intensity a little bit. We're working on that. It's not going to happen overnight. So my assessment is that if I compare the (Betway Premiership) games or what I've seen to where we're coming from, you have a little bit more time or space in the Premiership.
"So we're going to use that to our advantage to try and manipulate those extra seconds that you get. In the NFD, they really put pressure on you, and they press very quickly, very hard. It's just my assessment. So we definitely going to play our ball, try and progress with lots and lots of possession for as long as we can.
"Obviously, some games will be influenced by the situation depending on what time of game and so on. So we will see. But we're going to try by all means to play our game because that's how we train. That's what we know.”