Former SuperSport United defender Gareth Orritt was killed in a car accident in the Western Cape late last week, with many former footballing colleagues paying tribute on social media.
The 52-year-old also played for Wits University and Pretoria City in a 10-year professional career, making 134 top flight starts and scoring nine goals, the last one of his career against Kaizer Chiefs.
He was a Bob Save Super Bowl winner with SuperSport in 1999, which was the club’s first trophy success.
Orritt made his debut at Wits University, where Terry Paine was coach, not long after his 19th birthday, in a 1-0 home win over Vaal Professionals in March 1993, and the next season signed for Pretoria City, who were relegated at the end of the 1994 campaign.
He came back up with the club to the top flight after a single campaign in the second tier in 1995 and was reunited with Paine when Pretoria City’s franchise was bought by SuperSport.
While Pretoria City were back down in the second division, they reached the Bob Save Super Bowl final with Orritt in the team coached by Shane MacGregor that lost 3-2 to league champions Cape Town Spurs, who completed the league and cup double.
Orritt had his best years under Roy Matthews at SuperSport United, notably the 1998/99 and 1999/2000 campaigns where he rarely missed a game and scored eight goals, several of them from the penalty spot.
The 1999 Super Bowl (now Nedbank Cup) win was a 2-1 success over the Chiefs at Soccer City with Thomas Madigage and Glen Salmon scoring for SuperSport, who also had Linda Buthelezi and Rudolph Seale in their line-up.
In 2001, Orritt left SuperSport and went briefly to Tembisa-based Classic but then retired, still in his late 20s.
In his younger years, he was also on trial at Burnley in England and NAC Breda in the Netherlands.
He was the son of Bryan Orritt, one of the many British footballers who came out to South Africa to play professional soccer. Bryan Orritt was first at Southern Suburbs and was named Foreign Footballer of the Year in 1967. He also played at Durban United, Rangers, and Berea Park, where he was later coach before running a sports store in Johannesburg.
Gareth Orritt leaves behind his wife Lauren and sons Ethan and Noah.