Sport Matters

Bring it back home . . . a competitor speeds past a homestead in the Sahel during the Dakar rally in Africa. The excitement the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea has generated on the continent and the attention it is receiving overseas have reiterated the importance of Africa to host big sports event. From the football point of view Africa has really stepped up in recent years, hosting World Cup tournaments in Egypt (under-20), Nigeria (under-17) and South Africa (senior).   Morocco has been confirmed to host two world events in football and athletics in the next two years. Next year Morocco will become the first African country to host the annual Fifa Club World Cup, and also do so in 2014. Japan are the host again this year, after hosting the 2011 edition which was won by Barcelona who beat Brazilian champions Santos in the final match. Also in 2014 the north African of country will host the World Cup in athletics, a prestigious internationa

Big moment. . . Zebras of Botswana make their Africa Cup of Nations debut. Their captain Dispy Selolwane is first from left in the squatting row. After Mali confirmed last minute selection of Jomos Cosmos' defender Ousmane Berthe on Wednesday, South Africa's horror for not qualifying for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nation was hugely intensified. Cosmos are a struggling club in SA's premier league, PSL, and has been sitting at the bottom of the table for the entire first half programme of the league. However, Berthe is good enough for the Afcon, while Cosmos, PSL and the rest of the country are left pondering what had become of South African football. The pain of not being in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon will intensify tomorrow for SA when the Afcon kicks off. It is a great pity that after having his tactics exposed for their ineffectiveness during the qualifying tournament, SA's coach Pitso Mosimane chose the week of the big kickoff to blow his trumpet about his coach

Brothers in arms. . . Dale Steyn, left, congratulates Limpopo homeboy Marchant de Lange for a job well done in his debut Test match for SA. Marula, Mopani and cricket. Clearly no link on face value. But a more determined probe points to rising talent from two Limpopo towns from the same district – Dale Steyn and very lately Marchant de Lange, from Phalaborwa and Tzaneen respectively. The two scenic tows are major centres in a largely rural Mopani District, in north-eastern Limpopo. The fertile region is better known for its rich agricultural yields than cricket prowess. But the two fast bowlers are about to change that, quickly. First off the mark was Dale Steyn, who ended the year 2011 as the No. Test bowler in the world, the status which was cemented by his top classes performance against the recent series against Australia and Sri Lanka. This is a great honour by any measure for a regional town, and Phalaborwans should be shouting from the top of all their Mopani and marula trees

PSL players Reneilwe Letsholonyane (left, Kaizer Chiefs) and Ayanda Gcaba (Free State Stars) put club rivalry aside to do it for new-look Bafana Bafana.   My last column on Bafana Bafana in December had raised hopes that South African football authorities would treat the start of 2012 as “Year Zero” – a year in which all previous successes and failures are forgotten in favour of approaching the affairs of the national affair with a new, positive attitude. How mistaken I and other commentators were as the football leaders welcomed the new year with the same destructive spirit that has reduced SA football to a laughing stock. By the end of 2011 plans had been secured to play three international friendlies with countries which would be participating in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. The first game was against Equatorial Guinea on January 6. But even before the national team could fly to the central African country, which will co-host the Afcon, the cancer that has eroded all logic in

Legends. . . Zithulele Sinqe runs ahead of another roadrunning super star Willie Mtolo in 1986 Each time when I drive past ERPM in Boksburg, along Rondebult Road, one name springs to mind: Ernest Seleke. The association comes from the memory of Seleke running in a vest with ERPM emblazoned across the chest area. Back then, in the 1980s, I did not even know that ERPM was an abbreviation for a mine, and that the initials stood for East Rand Propriety Mine. To me ERPM was Seleke, not the gold mine it actually was. Stock, as the lithe running machine was known, was a marvel to watch on TV during that time of my schooldays. However, he was not alone among the crop of SA runners who were nurtured and sponsored by the mines to excel in their sport – both on track and on the road – at that time. There were many products of the mines and parastatals but I can immediately single out Xolile Yawa, Matthew Temane, Gibeon Moshaba, Matthew Batswadi, Ben Choeu and much later Zithulele Sin