SuperSport United's DStv Diski Challenge coach Thabo September is leading his team in London for a UK tour, which will see them playing against Bristol City and Queens Park Rangers. Check out day one of his daily diary.
SuperSport won the 2022/23 season of the Diski Challenge and are now currently on a nine-day trip in London, which will see them getting to visit the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Thursday, as well as attend the Community Shield between Manchester City and Arsenal on Sunday. Here, September, a club legend, takes us through the trip from South Africa to London, which started at OR Tambo International Airport with a flight, via Dubai, that left just after 2pm.
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SUNDAY (July 30)
When we left for London on Sunday, I'd say the boys were a little bit conservative. They didn't want to show too much excitement and it was as if it was something we normally do. But we all got to relax once we were on the plane. You could see that when we had our stop in Dubai that the vibe had changed a bit from the first plane we got onto in South Africa. The boys were a bit more excited. I was happy that, as much as they were tired, they were themselves. They showed the part of enjoying the moment and that is important to see my players being happy and not worrying about other things.
MONDAY (July 31)
Morning: Officially the first day in London. I spoke to a few of the players when we landed on Monday and it's a lifetime opportunity. You can see and hear a lot of appreciation for being selected to be in a trip like this. This is a great reward for what they have done in the academy. After the long flight, and the long wait at the airport when we landed in London, I was impressed with the patience the players showed. It was a relief when we got to the hotel and getting to see them having their breakfast. The relief was that we all made it safe to England. I guess the only sad thing is our physical trainer losing his bag and one of our players lost his wallet. So, those are the things we had to deal with, but to have everyone in good health is great. It can only get better.
Afternoon: After getting a bit of a rest in the hotel rooms, we got to train at the Queens Park Rangers training grounds and the welcome was great. We had Alex (Carrol), who was previously part of Tottenham Hotspur back in my playing days, coming through to seeing our players and showing us the facilities at QPR. We shared some good laughs with him. Seeing what they are doing with their facilities and the changes they are making as QPR are huge. It's something that's inspiring for us, coming from a country where not many clubs have their own training facilities. It was really good for us to train at those facilities. It was one of the highlights.
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Evening: We got back to the hotel and it was good to have dinner with the team (at an Italian restaurant) and for the boys to relax a bit after a long trip.
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