Five Clubs in just 15 months

Lovemore Moyo in JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
NEW CAPS United coach Mark Harrison has sparked a lot of controversy with his appointment at the financially-troubled Premiership giants, raising a number of questions from within and outside Zimbabwe.

Harrison was on Wednesday unveiled as the new Green Machine mentor on a three-year deal in which he is to be deputised by the club’s former winger Fungai “Tostao’’ Kwashi and veteran goalkeepers’ coach Brenna Msiska.

Not much is known about Harrison in the Zimbabwean football circles as he is not as popular as such coaches as Gavin Hunt, Gordon Igesund, Pitso Mosimane, Steve Khompela or Clive Barker.

But just who is Mark Harrison?

Harrison has built a shocking nomadic reputation with CAPS United, the fifth club that he has been involved with in just 15 months and the ninth since 2011, demonstrating just how much of a journeyman the Englishman is.

It also raises questions about how long he will last in a financially troubled environment like the one obtaining at Makepekepe.

CAPS United spent a good part of the 2014 season struggling to cater for both their players and former coach Taurai Mangwiro and there is a strong belief among many neutrals that had they not been derailed by strikes, and in some cases poor travel arrangements ahead of some of their key away games like the trips to Bantu Rovers, Shabanie Mine and Triangle, the Green Machine could have won the championship title.

In the end they rallied to finish third behind champions and bitter rivals Dynamos and ZPC Kariba.

With Mangwiro opting for a better package and joining Harare City, CAPS United surprised everyone when they opted to cross the country’s borders and lure Harrison.

Harrison could be justified in arguing that he is looking for a fresh breath of stability that has eluded him in the last four years here in South Africa where he has been changing jobs at the blink of the eye.

But doubts will linger if he will actually last the distance of the three-year contract that he has signed at Makepekepe.

The 54 year-old has developed such a nomadic stigma that CAPS is the fifth club that he is now working with since October 2013 when he was still the Chippa United gaffer as they fought their way back to the PSL from the First Division.

Harrison had joined Chippa in April 2013 with six games remaining during their first PSL campaign (2012-13), after taking over from former Warriors striker Wilfred “Silver Fox’’ Mugeyi, but couldn’t rescue them from sinking down to the First Division again though he completed those half dozen games unbeaten.

Despite failing to escape the drop —comical Chippa boss Siviwe Mpengesi was encouraged by the results under the Englishman and chose to stick with him as they began their fight back to the PSL from the First Division — unaware that Harrison would dump him in October, just four games into the new season after being lured by Golden Arrows — then a PSL club.

At Arrows Harrison didn’t even last four months as he was sacked at the beginning of February last year, after 10 games in charge, during which he won just two and LOST SIX IN A ROW, leaving the Durban club at the base of the standings and on the brink of relegation.

Arrows were eventually relegated under Harrison’s successor Shaun Bartlett.

He then, somehow, swiftly charmed his way to another job at yet another club in danger of relegation — Free State Stars — where he was handed the assistant coach job just a month after being fired at Arrows.

However, after Stars survived they found no reason in retaining his services and for the next four months Harrison was stranded at home until he was handed the Leopards job in November.

At Leopards he was in charge for five games, winning twice and losing the rest, leaving the club in the same 11th position that he had found them when he took over.

Expected to resume training in the New Year after the long mid-season break enforced by the AFCON, Harrison surprised Lidoda Duvha by handing in his resignation earlier this week only to be confirmed as the new CAPS boss less than 48 hours, later topping Makepekepe as his fifth club in just over a year.

Leopards have indicated that they are considering taking legal action against the Derby-born coach.

Actually, before his arrival at Chippa in April, 2013 — Harrison had a stint with third tier league club Bay Stars — who he had joined seven months earlier.

The previous job that Harrison held before Bay Stars — a club based in Port Elizabeth — was as head coach of perennial First Division club African Warriors where he arrived in November 2011 but increasingly grew frustrated with the working conditions in the six months that he spent with the Free State-based club.

Not known to many is that Harrison even had a brief spell coaching the Santos feeder team Mitchell’s Plain United from August 2011 until the time when he moved on to take the Warriors job.

Just like Bay Stars, Mitchell’s United also played in South Africa’s third tier league.

Harrison had made his return to South Africa after years back home in England, just two days into the New Year in 2011, making his entrance via Mpumalanga Black Aces as goalkeeper coach before taking over from Paul Dolezar less than two months later.

Though there were nine games remaining when the former Hellenic goalkeeper took over, he couldn’t save Aces from the drop to the First Division, losing six games.

Aces then agreed to a new deal to keep him at the club in the First Division but then quickly had a change of mind, showing him the door in favour of Craig Rosslee.

Almost a decade earlier Mark Harrison had coached FC Fortune in the First Division after which he had his first stint with Mitchell’s Plain United.

From them on he went to coach in the Indian Ocean island of Maldives before being swallowed by the comforts of his homeland England.

Also worth noting is the fact that he has been at the tail-end of two failed relegation battles with Mpumalanga Black Aces (2010/11) and Chippa United (2012/13) while the ship was already sinking when he was pushed out at Golden Arrows last season.

He eventually finished off last season as assistant coach at another club — Free State Stars — which eventually survived the chop but in essence his experience coaching in the PSL has been more to do with fights at the bottom end rather than at the top — where CAPS belong.

So there is absolutely no need guessing that this will be his first job with a club associated with boxing at the top rather than walking in the mud at the foot of the standings.