Hunt leads the way: DStv Prem longest serving coaches

The country’s two longest serving coaches will be pitting their wits up against each other on Friday evening when Moroka Swallows take on SuperSport United in the DStv Premiership (live on SuperSport).

Between them, visiting coach Gavin Hunt, 59, and the home side’s Steve Komphela have taken charge of 1 418 top flight games and both been involved in the game for decades.

In Hunt’s case it is over four decades and for Komphela, who is three years younger, almost 40 years from when he made his top division debut as a centre back at the then Fairway Stars.

Hunt is on course to break the 1 000-match mark as a coach in the top flight of South African football, but will have to wait until next season to do so.

The SuperSport United coach, who turns 60 next July, is in his 26th successive season in the leading division of South African football and started the 2023/24 campaign with a record of 942 games in charge.

He has since added a further 20 games to the tally following Sunday’s African Confederation Cup tussle against Al Hilal Benghazi in Libya where SuperSport were beaten.

So far this season SuperSport have won eight, lost nine and drawn three games and have an overall inferior goal difference of 22 for and 25 against.

That brings Hunt’s overall tally to 405 wins (the away win over Stellenbosch in late August being No 400), 273 draws and 284 losses. His teams have scored 1247 goals and conceded 992.

Hunt reached the 900-game tally during his time at Kaizer Chiefs, which is one of the eight clubs he has coached in the top flight of the domestic game. The season before that at Bidvest Wits, he broken the record for the most games by a coach, surpassing the old record of 816 held by Gordon Igesund.

Hunt has been