'The love I get from Milford pushes me': Nedbank Cup hero on what drove him against Kaizer Chiefs

Siphamandla Hleza's career looked to be over when he returned home to Ermelo, Mpumalanga, last year after struggling to make an impact at Steenburg FC in Cape Town.

The Parow-based side that's campaigning in the fourth tier of South Africa football is among the handful of clubs in the lower leagues that Hleza has played for, without making much of a significant impact.

He was also on the books of Mpumalanga side TS Sporting. But a call to relocate to KwaZulu-Natal and join Milford FC would change his life.

He could start making a good living from football, and able to take care of his grandmother who raised him, now that he wasn't playing in the lower leagues, but is in one of the two professional tiers. Hleza also found something he had been longing for, for a long time - a home. 

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Dates to be announced

"I was like, let me try a different province because when I was in Cape Town things didn't work out for me and I wasn't there for a long time," said Hleza at FNB Stadium, moments after producing a Man of the Match performance at the iconic venue to help Milford FC dump Kaizer Chiefs in the first round of the Nedbank Cup," he said.

"When I got to KZN, and went to Milford, I found a home. As a player, you need to understand that if things don't work out for you somewhere, that doesn't mean that you are a bad player. You could be in the right place, at the wrong time - which is what I believe happened to me when I was at Steenburg. I arrived at Milford at the right place, and at the