Sport Matters

Magangeni Primary School in Malamulele, Limpopo, is a rural school with not so much to write about in terms of rescources and facilities. The school is well run and taken care of by its management, a fact which should be the standard for all schools. However, for a rural school in a community where girls come against great odds to get ahead in life, Magangeni has been doing great over the years. In November 2018, then 13-year-old Hlulani Baloyi was in the news for having earnt the right to represent South Africa in the spelling competition in Kenya. The following year a teacher from Magangeni, Florence Bekwa, received an award at the National Teachers’ Awards. In 2020 Bekwa clinched another national gong, with a brand new car as part of her prizes, for winning the excellence in primary school teaching prize award. Other female teachers at Magangeni Primary also excelled in the national teaching awards in 2015 and 2016. In 2021, a former Magangani pupil and agriculture academic, Hl...

Earlier today I settled down to a highlights package of major sports events which took place the previous day and I saw an interesting headline at the bottom of the screen: "Higuita claims Stage 5 in the Basque tour." Tour of the Basque Country is a major cycling event taking place right now, in the northern Spain region in the name of the contest. I'm not a cycling enthuiast even though I admire the athleticism of the cyclists making a career out of this sport. So what hooked me about Sergio Higuita, a name previously unknown to me, winning a stage in the Basque tour, is his last name. Before today, the only Higuita I knew about is the former Colombia goalkeeper René Higuita - or José René Higuita Zapata to go the full hog. He was not just a keeper in the conventional sense but a lot more - more on the crazy, hence the nickname El Loco. Higuita was not mad in a true sense of the word but kept the world of football and his Colombian national team on tenterhooks with...

On January 2 2023, ahead of the burial of football great Pele, Fifa president Giovanni Infantino, who was in the city of Santos in Brazil to pay his final respects, spoke openly with the told local media about his wish for every Fifa-member country to name a stadium after Pele. True to form, the response by the leader of the South African FA Danny Jordaan was erratic to say the least. Seemingly overwhelmed by what should be a reasonable request especially for the developing world which produced Pele, Jordaan said Infantino's proposal was "a tricky thing for South Africa". “We will have to wait and see what he [Infantino] is proposing because... I mean Pele was very supportive of us as SA. What’s best for now is to wait for Fifa’s full proposal and then we will have to discuss it. The tricky thing in SA is that stadiums are owned by different entities, including local governments, so a lot of people need to be consulted if this is to be a reality in this country.” ...

  Algeria players celebrate the penalty goal by striker Aymen Mahious as CHAN 2023 hosts beat Libya 1-0 in the opening match of the tournament.  The 2023 edition of the African Nations Championship, better known as CHAN, started as scheduled on Friday 13 January in front of a strong crowd at the Nelson Mandela Stadium with hosts Algeria overcoming Libya by 1-0. The new state-of-the-art stadium in the Algiers suburb of Baraki was opened exactly ahead of CHAN 2023, as the key venue for the tournament. Subsequent matches offered a fair share of entertainment, with Saturday's Ivory Coast v Senegal providing a display of West Africa power until the Elephants emerged 1-0 victorious. But it was the six-goal thriller yesterday, between Mali and Angola, which offered a lot more as the two countries shared the spoils. However, the tournament could not avoid any controversy in its early stages when Morocco failed to pitch against Sudan on Monday evening in Constantine. It boils dow...

For the longest time the so-called Cinderella sports codes had been receiving the shorter end of the stick as far as media coverage is concerned. In the past, the argument used by newspapers to shut out the "minor" sports such as table tennis, volleyball, karate and judo, just to mention a few example, was that the space in the sports section was limited.  The editors would also claim that the heavyweights which enjoy commercial backing, such as football, rugby and cricket for example, carried too much punch power for flyweight codes. The sports editors were bluffing of course. Firstly, many of them simply did not have interest or understood the "smaller" sports, so they despised them. Secondly, the editors hobnobbed with the bossed of the big sports for opportunities of international travel and other favours, so they did their damnedest to cover those sports in the name of "that's what the readers" want. Today, newspapers have active online platforms ...

Quo Vadis Proteas... losing to the Netherland in a decider for a place in the semifinals of the T20 Cricket World Cup was damaging for South Africa. It was a weekend to forget for South Africa as far as international sport is concerned. First on the chopping block on Saturday were the rugby side the Springboks losing 19-16 to Ireland in Dublin. It was intense, high pressure game which the Boks could have won had their goalkicking was on point on the evening. There were two or three clumsy moments by the South Africans and such errors were bound to be punished as the Irish are not just a decent rugby but the No 1 Test team right now. There were times when the Springboks were never unflustered by big occasions far away from home and that's what the characteristic the team must retrace to command respect again.  To say 19-16 loss to the team rated top is no consolation because the current ranking does not make any team invincible. We should have won in Dublin. Sunday was double heartb...

Anatoliy Trubin I was aware of Shakhtar Donetsk qualifying for the group stages of the current Uefa Champions League season. However, I expected the club from the Donbas region to finally throw in the towel and not show up, given the growing intensity of the war in their country.  However, after missing the club's earlier matches in Group F I finally got the chance to watch the "Miners" in action when they met Real Madrid in the Spanish capital on October 5. I was amazed by the youthful outlook of the team, fitness and competitive levels.  Champions Real sweat for their 2-1 win. It did not look like they were playing a team living in the shadow of a devastating war.  After it lost nearly its entire foreign legion who fled the war, the club had to find new ways to survive and honour its fixtures. But Shakhtar are made of a sterner stuff and are used to conflict and adversity more than most of the Ukraine. The club had been living and playing in exile since 2014 after Russi...