Six-time Premier Soccer League winner and trophy specialist Daine Klate hopes to work his magic at Chippa United this season.

The Chilli Boys have not won a single cup since joining the league and Klate is confident that he will bring some change to the Port Elizabethbased professional camp.

The 33-year-old from Beverly Hills in Gelvandale has a league medal for every team for which he has played in the Premier Soccer League.

Klate, who was awarded the MTN 8’s Last Man Standing at the PSL awards, started his career at Supersport United in 2004 where he spent most of his golden years.

In 2010 he joined Orlando Pirates and spent three seasons there before signing with Bidvest Wits in 2015.

Now the sharp left-footer hopes to bring some luck into the Chippa United stable.

“You are not putting me under pressure,” the experienced player said.

“I have won quite a bit so there is an anticipation, which is a nice thing for me.

“Maybe that is the motivation I need to do the same with Chippa as we go about seeking a trophy.

“My goal is to help and add value as much as I can. We must not forget that Chippa United is a very young club. The team was only established in 2010.

“I think there is a lot to be improved, but I am only here to help improve the club and make the club grow from strength to strength.

“It is already a club with growth and we want to keep working on that.”

Klate, who spent most of his formative years playing for Glenville Celtic in the local soccer leagues while staying in the Bay, said it felt good to be back after 19 years.

The former Gelvandale High School pupil moved from PE when he was only 14 to join the Transnet School of Excellence, where he matriculated in 2002.

“It’s a fantastic feeling to be back. I appreciate PE now more than when I left when I was 14,” he said.

“It is the small things that count, like being able to see the beach every day. That is kind of a big deal for me at the moment. Also being around family that I grew up with. It’s nice to be with them more often.

“Obviously I have learned a lot being in Johannesburg. Hopefully I can use my experience to help with Chippa United, not only to help the club but to help the Nelson Mandela Bay region as well.”

The experienced player said his move back home was not pre-planned.

However, retiring in PE was always on the cards as his wife and two sons had moved to the Bay three years ago.

He said having Chippa around made things a little better as he could come back home and still play football.

Klate says he has not set a retirement age for himself.

Some facts behind the legend

Five things you didn’t know about Daine Klate:

● He is a good cricket player. Growing up, he played soccer and cricket.

● He is a very competitive person and he loves winning.

● He holds three qualifications – diplomas in sport management, information technology and bookkeeping.

● If he was not a footballer he would have become an accountant.

● He is very domesticated.

As long as the passion and desire for the sport is still within him, he will keep going.

He believes the move back to PE has made that feeling stronger.

“I have done everything that I needed and had to do in Johannesburg.

“I can’t really pinpoint an age, but when the passion and desire go, that is the day that I will know I need to call it quits and retire.

“For now, I can definitely still go for at least two seasons. That is what my head is already telling me.

“My contract with Chippa is

one year with an option to renew.

“Even at Wits we took it year by year, so I am just taking things one season at a time from this stage on,” he said.

“In football I have learned that you can never rule anything out and that is the nature of the game. That is how football works.

“It would be ideal for me to keep playing here in PE.”

One would have expected the former Pirates player to have done a stint abroad, but he stayed in South Africa.

However, Klate says not playing abroad does not make him any less of a player than those who have or are playing there.

“I think everybody has their own race and their own plan.

“Me playing locally, that was my purpose.

“It was God’s plan for me, for my career to go that way it has gone. All of us have different career paths, but I don’t have any regrets.

“I have been successful I have won every single thing there is to be won locally.

“I think my purpose has been fulfilled and my path has been set and I am just following it.”