As a boy, Andrew  Herman was  timid and slow, and stood no chance to make it onto the field of play for his Under 12 football team. Today he’s the coach whose teams dominate the Coke Cup, the Bayhill Premier Cup, and more. Here’s how he did it.

In April, Coach Andrew was the assistant coach of the Cape Town Spurs side that won the prestigious Bayhill Premier Cup, often dubbed the biggest amateur football tournament in the land. He’s come a long way from the hopeful kid who used to keep the bench warm every week.

“As a hopeful eight-year-old footballer, I was timid and slow, and stood no chance to make it onto the field of play for the Young Ideas Football Club’s Under 12 team,” Herman recalls. “So, knowing that one of our opponents would not pitch up for our next game, I begged my older brother – the captain of the team – for weeks to allow me to score the goal that would give his side a win on default.”

It would have been a great moment for Herman, who had moved to Retreat from Hanover Park just a year before…only he missed the open goal to draw the game – to his deep disappointment, and the laughter of (seemingly) everyone on the field.

It was a heartache that could have easily led him to just forget about football, but Herman wasn’t so easily discouraged – thanks in large part to his supportive mother. She pushed him to continue with his involvement in football, both as a player and, ultimately, a coach –  something that made it possible to escape the many social ills that boys his age can fall prey to the Cape Flats.

“My mother pushed me to play football, and to do sport in general,” Herman says. “Even when we had no money at home, my mother would make sure to buy anything I needed so that I could play football. That helped me to believe I can become something, achieve something, in sport one day.”

He went on to play various positions for various clubs, including Ideas and Burnley, as well as for schools and church leagues in his youth days. He was also a decent long-distance runner and a squash player – but football was always his first love. 

And achieve something he has.

The Bayhill victory came after he won the Coke Cup Under 18 division with Vasco Da Gama a few years ago, among a slew of other trophies – all of which has helped make Herman one of the most promising football coaching prospects in the Mother City.

So what’s the secret to his success?

“I think it’s just the belief, the confidence you have in the players and in yourself as a coach, that makes a difference. You get nervous sometimes, but you never doubt yourself, and you never doubt your team. You just work hard every day, and keep on pushing the team to the next level.”

And like any up-and-coming sportsperson, Herman has ambitions of getting as far as he could in coaching. 

“It just looks as if doors are just opening anytime anywhere and I’m just happy to go through those doors. I just want to see what is the next thing but I always just want to push myself to be the best that I can be.”

The Accidental Coach

Herman started his coaching career by chance. He was still enjoying playing football when his son had to join the Under 7s team at Vasco, and was asked to lend a helping hand. 

“I never really wanted to get into coaching because I really loved playing. So I coached and helped out until Under 10, and then I was asked to take the Under 12 team at Vasco.” 

It wasn’t exactly an instant success.

“It was a struggle for me because it was my first time being with this type of age group. Even the boys came from Under 11s that were playing on the smaller fields. Now they had to play on the bigger field, so they had to adapt to this, and so did I. It was a steep learning curve for all of us.” 

As a result,  in the first round, they lost against every other team. But that prompted Herman to come up with a different strategy. He converted one tall boy who was a striker to become a goalkeeper in the middle of the season and he became the player of the tournament in one competition. 

“That tournament gave me enough time to play around with the team formation and which players should play where. When we came back the team was totally transformed, and beat everyone in the second round.”

His interest in the game continued to grow, and he went on to coach Under 15s (won the Kensington Cup against all academy teams of this era), U16s and U18s. He complemented his innate creativity and hard-earned knowledge with coaching courses, earning D- and C-Licences.

Herman looks up to Liverpool mentor Jurgen Klopp, as well as Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola. 

“You want to see what these guys are doing and how they are doing it.  Even your players want to know that what they are doing is what the Liverpool and Manchester City players are doing.”

That has also shaped Herman’s philosophy to be more on ball possession. 

“To be in control of the game is to be in control of the ball, that’s my philosophy. Even if it comes to making 200 passes before you score a goal I don’t mind, just knowing that you are in control of the game.”

And playing sport really has given Herman a different perception of the role of sport in society.

“I surely believe that football has the power to change the world. What happened to me was due to holding on to the sport,  pushing myself and staying out of all the mischiefs around me like gangsterism. 

That’s something he hopes to instil in his players.

“Now my focus is to pass on that belief to the next generation and help the boys before they get to the professional level to believe in what they can achieve in football and in life and getting them away from these things. And to have purpose in life.”

Edited by Nicklaus Kruger