City Lads TD disheartened by Eastern Cape's lack of support for women's team

Klassen, who signed as TD in May, hails from the same New Brighton community just outside Gqeberha that the club is from, and is driven to see them succeed. 

But more than that, and similar to Chippa United, the Gunners carry the hopes of many people from the region, yet lack basic funding to compete like their Premier Soccer League counterparts.

"It's one of the reasons that I'm there [at City Lads], even though I didn't mention this – remember, this is the PSL level from the female side, so if they can funding, it can help a lot of people," Klaasen told SABC Sport.

"When you are playing home games, the people who are coming and selling some stuff [vendors], and those who can help – you'll notice we are only a few here because we don't have funding to beef up our team.

"It makes me emotional to talk about this, it's [personal] because I fail to understand why they are struggling to get funding, and why [for] the male side it's easy for them to get funding.

"I won't even mention PSL teams [by name], but me and you know that PSL teams are getting funding."

Despite having a previous working relationship with the Chilli Boys, Klaasen is reluctant to call on Siviwe ‘Chippa’ Mpengesi for support.

"That is administration's side, I'm just a coach, so I don't want to involve myself in those talks. I've never even raised that topic [of funding] because it's not for me," he added.