After clinching the inaugural PSL championship in the 1996-97 season, goalkeeper Grant Johnson, midfielder Clinton Larsen, left back Innocent Chikoya and coach Gordon Igesund went on to scale dizzier heights.
The quartet moved to Orlando Pirates, where they savoured the league and BP Top 8 double in 2000.
Chikoya is now a talent scout and Larsen is the Bloemfontein Celtic head coach. Igesund, his Moroka Swallows counterpart, is chasing a record fifth league championship with as many teams.
What is Johnson, the man who last kept goal for SuperSport United, up to nowadays?
After calling time on his career in 2006, Johnson became one half of JohnBak, a Centurion-based IT company.
"I started the company with Deshi Bhaktawer [hence the company name] in 2003. But Deshi also had hair salons to look after. So he left."
As if to accentuate its unofficial status as a retirement home for former football heroes, Johnson was joined by Shakes Kungoane in 2005. They've recently added a security division to supply CCTV cameras headed by Shaun Dafel, who starred for AmaZulu in his heyday.
"We rope in former players like Rudolph Seale, Bricks Mudau and Raymond Seopa to install the equipment."
"Great buddies" is how the golf enthusiast with a handicap of 14 describes his relationship with Kungoane, the ex-Chiefs legend and current SABC soccer analyst whom he met when the latter joined Rangers in 1997.
This week, the younger brother of AmaZulu goalkeeper coach Graham was converting his old video tapes to DVD mode. One of those recordings would have revealed a free kick Kungoane sent past Johnson with his educated left foot.
"He never stops mocking me about that. I stick to my story that I let it in 'cos he was going through a bad patch. But we [Pirates] still won the game 4-2 and I was man of the match."
Married to Lynne for 19 years, the father of two daughters has an unbreakable bond with Igesund, who brought him to D'Alberton Callies.
The duo then moved to African Wanderers, Rangers and Pirates.
"I was a striker when he first saw me but he had also seen me play as keeper. When he signed me I told him I wanted to play striker but he played me in goal. It wasn't such a bad decision after all."
This was especially as his keeping prowess saw him graduate to goalkeeper coach, winning the SAA Supa8 and Coca-Cola Cup under Pitso Mosimane. He also worked in this role for the under-23s and Bafana in Joel Santana's time during the Confed Cup, and has performed similar duties on a call-per-match basis during Mosimane's reign.
"Confed Cup was a huge highlight and an amazing experience, while missing out on the World Cup ranks as my biggest disappointment."
Johnson says South Africans should shed their inferiority complex.
"We think everybody, especially people from Europe, are better than us because we don't believe in each other.
"We struggle to work together and don't know how to look after one another."
He believes Igesund has a chance to bag his fifth title with Swallows because: "if anybody can handle the pressure and knows how to win titles, he does".
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