What Seaside Spurs wants, Seaside Spurs gets!
Therefore, it should come as no surprise if Seaside secures the services of Greenwood Athletic’s beloved son Shaun Sopio (pictured) for Safa Cape Town’s upcoming Hollywoodbets Third Division campaign.
This comes after Seaside’s coach Gerald Stober confirmed that Sopio is training with the club and the move looks to be a formality.
”He’s had one training session with us.” Stober stated to No Bones with Jones.
The 34-year-old Sopio, born and bred a ‘Green Machine’ as Greenwood is known, will obviously be a big loss for the Retreat-based club and a massive coup for Stober who is strategically aiming to complete his “puzzle.”
With PSL-veteran Franklin Cale moving into a more coaching role as assistant to Stober, the latter needs to plug a few holes on attack to go one better this season.
The region confirmed last week that the Nedbank prelims will commence late in October while the league officially kicks off on 9 November.
“I’ll be straight up and admit that I am keen on securing his services,” Stober tadded. “He’ll bring a lot of experience and add immense value to Seaside. He fits into our culture perfectly but let’s wait and see,” Stober continued.
Seaside has in the past shown their buying power with the capture of other seasoned and experienced campaigners such as Damian Basadien, Cody August and Dean Philander last season to show that they did not win promotion just to make up the numbers.
It has been clear from the outset that Stober’s coastal outfit means business following an impressive debut campaign last season when they ended an admirable sixth.
The club’s Chairman Earl Cloete and his Executive are constantly raising the bar and showing how progressive they are since making the step-up last season.
And with founder members such as Cale and Diego Brown assisting Stober, the coastal side will be in a position to stake a claim for honours this season.
It is clear that Stober, who officially started with his pre-season on Monday (10 September), is aware that he needs to box clever in terms of strengthening the team following the departure of Ashley Wyngaard, Lyle Barnes and Cole Collier who’ll be playing their trade in the Motsepe League now.
“These three players moved on to ABC which in a way set us back in terms of our goals, but I will not stand in any player’s way to move,” Stober further added.”I’ve been looking around in the winter league trying to find ways to keep the squad as strong as possible.
“Fortunately we held probably 90 percent of what we had last year which is good for me. There’s no new learning for everybody as everybody understands how we play.
”We are looking at certain individuals that can add value in certain areas that we require. I must add that I’m in a very fortunate position to have lots of quality players in the squad,” Stober concluded.
