Thumbs up for Friday league

ERNEST MABASA

TEN games have been played so far
in the newly formed Atteridgeville
Friday Schools League and there is
great excitement among the participating
schools and community.
The schools are judged not by
how they start, but how they will finish.
This will be after they complete
their allotted 24 games.
Dr WF Nkomo Secondary School
are top of the table with seven
points, closely followed by Bokgoni
Technical High School, whom they
beat 1-0 last Friday to lead the log by
a point.
This league was launched by
SuperSport last month and it has
gained much popularity in the community.
The league’s main aim is to
revive school sports in
Atteridgeville.
The success of it is showing and
Dr Nkomo coach Saki Mogola is
motivated and grateful to the initiators
of the programme.
Mogola believes the initiative
gives coaches and players an opportunity
to participate in something
worthwhile.
“It gives us the power to play. We
were not very happy because we did
not have much to do before they
introduced it. It is for the first time
in this league but the feeling is good.
“It is working because if you look
at last Friday’s match, players were
all happy to be participating in the
match,” said Mogola, who was once
himself a soccer player for the
school.
“We used to have strong squads
in these (Atteridgeville) schools. We
want those to come back so that
these young players can be fit.
Maybe one day they will play for
SuperSport United.”
Hofmeyr Secondary School is
struggling but they believe the initiative
has been a success.
Although the school are second
last on the log, their coach Simon
Tsotesti is confident the team will
feature in time.
“The league is very professional
and it is run well. It is fair. It is also
successful as they know that our
school has the greatest and largest
fan base.
“We keep them (pupils) busy on
Fridays. They stay away from
nyaope and other drugs. It is very
good,” He said.
However, co-ordinator Itu Moloto
feels a need for more suppoters.
The last game had more than 150
supporters from Bokgoni High and
a few from WF Nkomo.
“The league is going well. We
only need to make sure that supporters
come in numbers to support
their respective schools. We will
deal with it after June because now
it’s cold,” he said.
SuperSport manager Coltrane
Munyai is happy with the response
from the Pelindaba community and
says it feels good to see the schools
respond positively.
“We are feeling good because
they are responding well to our initiative.
In the last game we had lot of
supporters. It shows that they
wanted it ( the league) for a long
time,” said Munyai.

                                                           Lambley does it for team

ERNEST MABASA

Saint Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls Hockey left forward Madeleine Lambley walked tall and received compliments, hugs, big smiles and cheek kisses from her mates for her first and winning goal she scored.

Lambley debuted her Hockey Second Division season just a game away from the end of it for her side. She went in as substitute in the second half of the game. The game that showed no hunger for goals went to half time zero at both sides but at the second half the game changer Lambley scored a goal that saw the home side lead Hoërskool Overkruin three minutes before the game ended.

Saint Mary has only one game left and probably the second game for Lambley who was top notch at her last game against Overkruin on Friday. Her school put pressure to the visitors until they managed to score. “I am very delighted but credit should be to the whole team. As a team, everyone wanted to win this game it very important to us to win matches.  We train very hard. I was in for 30 minutes of this game and it feels great,” she said.

Saint Mary’s coach Mathew Pickening was speechless to see his school win the match at the eleventh hour and he trusts that his school was much better and deserved to come out victorious. “We put ourselves under pressure and doing so was putting the opponents under pressure from us as well. We utilised that short corner eventually. We finished off well and we decided to win and a win is a win,” said coach Pickening who was also preparing for the next and last game in the 2014 Hockey second division season.

“in the next game which is the last one we are going to prepare ourselves mentally so that we can stay focused through out the game. We have all the skills to win every game we play,” he said.

Overkruin has finished off their season with a lose and will wait until next year to play in the league. Coach Nadine dames picked the points which she saw her school leaked and led to the goal. “We leaked a bit at the back. We did not use our opportunities that we had and we lost the game in the last three minutes. It is our last game and to end this way is not fun, “she said

But coach promises that next season will be much better since she will have some players from her under sixteen hockey squad to first team “for next year we have seven players coming from grade eleven players who will replace the current grade twelve students,” she said.