OFF THE RECORD #136

Racing Folk Show Their Football Colours

There is one sport South Africa’s racing personalities seem to love almost as much as racing – and, surprisingly, it’s not rugby! With the English Premier League season now underway, racing fans are throwing their support behind their favourite teams for the 2026/27 campaign.

Many are every bit as passionate about their football clubs and star players as they are about their favourite stables and thoroughbreds, while plenty are also happy to put their knowledge to the test with TAB’s array of boutique soccer bets.

We asked some familiar faces from the racing world where their football loyalties lie, and, if we hadn’t cut short their enthusiasm, Off The Record would have been late this week!

The second surprise was that the majority of the racing aficionados interviewed, support North London club Tottenham Hotspur – the outfit that provides conclusive proof that you can have a world-class stadium without a world-class trophy cabinet.

Trainer Paul Lafferty is proud to call himself the ‘biggest Spurs supporter in South Africa’, and has supported Spurs through thick and thin – mostly thin – all his life.

Everyone knows that ‘Laff’ played professional soccer for Durban City early in his career, when they won the league two years in a row. These days, however, he is hoping to see his English favourites get just a rare sniff of a league title, and said: “They’ve started at the bottom of the log, but things will improve. Our striker Richarlison needs to be replaced. If he jumps off a boat, he won’t hit the water!”

Laff has a long-standing friendship with Spurs-connected Charlie Pegram, a former top-flight goalkeeper. They attend matches at the Spurs stadium a few times a year.

He likes to take fixed-odds soccer doubles and the occasional Soccer 6, and said his weekly online show, OnSide SA, presented alongside renowned expert ‘Budgie’ Byrne on YouTube, is a must-watch for serious soccer punters. The show includes local and international previews, a link to UK expert ‘Stevie B’ and Budgie’s best bets.

Laff said: “Budgie is an ace tipster. He looks at games from all angles and knows every detail about every team. You can’t beat him for expertise, and his advice is unmissable if you play the soccer exotics.”

Another seasoned expert, SuperSport’s Neil Andrews, is a fellow long-time Spurs supporter, as are former Race Coast chair Greg Bortz, presenter Deez Dyanand, NHA chair Mark Currie, 4Racing’s Johnny Geroudis, veteran industryman Graeme Hawkins and racehorse owner Mike Wittstock.

Andrews, who runs 4Racing TV’s Play Of The Day show, believes picking the right football teams is even trickier than picking the right horses.

“With horses, you have a fair chance following form factors like course and distance, but soccer brings the human element into play and the results can be erratic.

“That is what makes the exotic soccer bets so special, and if you can go against the grain and select the underdogs in the right places, you can get the cash!”

Andrews enjoys the Soccer 4 and has taken his share of the pools, regularly winning in the R2,000 to R15,000 range, but the massive payday has eluded him. His advice for those seeking the big payouts is simple: “Look for a ‘bogey’ team. Every team has a bogey rival – those mid- and bottom-of-the-log teams who often beat a major contender against the odds. Brighton, for example, have had some great results against Manchester United in recent years.

“It’s like the Pick 6 in racing. If you can bank a 10-1 shot in a race with a 5-10 favourite, you’ll be in the pound seats because 90% of Pick 6 players will be out. If you can find the right ‘bogey’ teams against the big guns, a single ‘bogey’ result in a Soccer 6 or Soccer 10 can contribute to a whopping dividend.”

Deez Dyanand takes his soccer bets seriously and is especially keen on the Soccer 13, where pools are commingled with those of Sweden’s national operator, Svenska Spel, creating the potential for massive jackpots.

“There were respective jackpot payouts of over R21-million and R17-million a few years ago, and just recently there was an R18-million payout and also another day when 24 winners shared over R1-million each. So I try every week and it fascinates me. I’ve considered and played many combinations and done the maths to give myself the best chance possible on my budget.

“I spend R192 using seven bankers and covering with two or three options in the other legs, or maybe R432 for bigger cover. I’ve taken bigger perms on occasion, and once came desperately close to winning R800,000. I was in line for the cash cow until the 96th minute, when a goal went against me in injury time. I couldn’t sleep for four days!”

Dyanand reminded soccer punters that there is a wealth of information available for those who like to compare facts and figures, and this was confirmed by his colleague Devonne Govender, who has Deez’s love for soccer in common, but fortunately not his favourite football team.

Govender, a fiery Manchester United follower alongside the likes of Kevin Shea, Brandon Bailey (who grew up near the Old Trafford stadium), Michel Nairac, Dave Goss, Troy Finch and Budgie Byrne, concedes that his group of supporters are essentially like racing punters who keep backing the same horse because it won three Group 1s 15 years ago.

However, like most of them, Govender has remained staunchly loyal to the Red Devils – despite Gary Neville being among the club’s so-called ‘legends’. Now that is loyalty!

Govender said: “You have to study soccer results like you study race form. That will give you an edge. There are excellent sources of information, with plenty of historical data and to-the-minute updates. Flashscore is probably the best around.”

Then, sadly, we come to Liverpool supporters, most of whom are never short of an opinion on refereeing. There is always a decision, somewhere, that requires forensic investigation.

Examples of racing folk who fall in this group are Brett and James Crawford, Rahiel Radhakrishna, Mathew de Kock and Justin Vermaak – the latter a particularly committed example of the breed – fiercely loyal, passionately opinionated and blessed with an uncanny ability to spot refereeing bias.

But even the Liverpool contingent has its redeeming moments. Way back in 2005, Brett Crawford had the singular pleasure of watching Liverpool beat AC Milan in the UEFA Champions League Final – a match famously dubbed the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’. Liverpool were 3-0 down at half-time, fought back to draw 3-3 and then won 3-2 on penalties. That is a sporting memory second to none, and one very few soccer fans ever get to savour.

Crawford’s close friend, Grant Knowles, is one of maybe a handful Newcastle supporters in South Africa – and a handful means ‘five’ – and he puts this unfortunate preference down to having lived in the old coal mining town for two years. Like the true ‘Geordies’, Knowles has spent years developing the most important football skill of all: optimism.

Another in the optimism category is Alistair Cohen, who supports Aston Villa and knows all about backing a horse on historic form – particularly if that form happens to include a European Cup.

Alistair has made two memorable trips to Villa Park. The first, a joyous occasion in 2019, saw ‘Aston Vanilla’ beat Everton 3-0. The second was rather more alarming, as he recalled: “That was almost exactly a year ago, when wife Candice and I attended Villa’s match against Crystal Palace and the visitors went 3-0 up. I saw a stadium full of aggrieved supporters turn against their team with the foulest language we’ve ever heard. They emptied the stadium so fast that we were the only two people left in the seats when the final whistle blew!”

4Racing’s COO Colin Gordon is another who walks a football path not often trodden – and, in his case, a path which is a lot like the roads in Johannesburg at night – covered in darkness. A supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers, he has spent years waiting for the ‘light’ promised by the club’s motto.

Gordon explained his allegiance to ‘Wolves’: “My father is a die-hard supporter and when I was a youngster he brought football magazines home in which the team was prominently featured, so I got hooked and it’s been an interesting ride.”

Wolves’ famous floodlit victory over Budapest Honvéd in 1954 helped inspire the creation of the European Cup – so, technically, Gordon’s club has done more for European football than merely provide him with something to complain about on Saturday afternoons.

Gordon’s choice of Wolves is not entirely without South African precedent. The club has a surprisingly rich connection with this country, dating back to its glory years, when South Africans Eddie Stuart, Des Horne and Cliff Durandt all played at Molineux. More recently, Mark Williams was the first to win a full South African international cap while a Wolves player.

Gordon is a regular Soccer 6 player and he sticks to one method of constructing his bets – three bankers and three fields, with a careful approach to teams considered obvious winners.

For its South African connections, another standout squad is Queen’s Park Rangers, proudly representing the Madina of Shepherd’s Bush in West London. QPR has a sole supporter in Durban (and perhaps the entire country) – Turf Talk’s David Thiselton – who explained: “I became a QPR man when I was staying in nearby Paddington in the early 1990s.

“All the surrounding streets have South African names. The stadium is on South Africa Road and the pub outside used to be called the Springbok Stadium. Other streets are Loftus Road and Bloemfontein Road. The great Roy Wegerle, who was born in Pretoria and played for Arcadia Shepherds, played for QPR between 1989 and 1992, scoring 29 goals.”

We probably have to include Chelsea Football Club, for which we found only one supporter – Nico Kritsiotis. One other, Darryl Maree, vehemently denied any allegiance and this is understood, because the club has had so many managers that their supporters need a programme just to remember who’s in charge.

Next, it’s on to the two big guns – Arsenal and Manchester City, both with their fair share of racing supporters and not easy targets for mockery, given their lofty positions at the top of the log.

Laurence Wernars heads the Arsenal support group, whose clan of followers, including Wernars’ trainer Johan Janse van Vuuren, are currently enjoying the unfamiliar sensation of defending a league title rather than explaining why they haven’t won one.

Champion jockey Craig Zackey and Kabelo Matsunyane are flagbearers for Manchester City, which requires remarkable faith – particularly when explaining the difference between a football club and a financial project.

Zackey is not flustered by the banter. He continues to sing ‘Blue Moon’ – mostly because the song is easier to remember than the club’s financial regulations – and says a visit to the Etihad is high on his bucket list.