We, young and not so young, all have sports heroes, and can only dream of meeting them one day.
If you are soccer mad like most of the children in Mitchell’s Plain, you imagine yourself holding your hero’s hand and escorting him onto the soccer pitch.
Well, young players of Tafelzucht soccer club in Tafelsig had the privilege on Friday 20 January to do just that when the Premier Soccer League team Cape Town City played against TS Galaxy at Cape Town Stadium in Green Point.
“Cape Town City invited local soccer clubs to attend their match versus TS Galaxy and offered 30 tickets to each club. This opportunity was pure luck and good timing because I asked one of the marketing members what the criteria was for your juniors to walk onto the pitch with the players.
“He told me the club had their meeting on the day we collected our tickets and agreed that the club who is next to collect their tickets will have the opportunity to escort the players onto the field and voila, Tafelzucht was the lucky club,” says Kenny Hendricks, chair of the club.
The club is celebrating its 10th anniversary and this opportunity for the players is a good start for their bash.
To escort the team onto the pitch is a once-off thing but it would be nice to be invited again to give other boys also an opportunity. Other clubs will get a chance to escort Cape Town City onto the pitch again but for his boys, it was a huge occasion, Hendricks says.
Tafelzucht soccer club was established in 2013 and currently has a membership of 350. 207 are juniors with nine boys’ teams and one girl’s team whose age group varies from 11 to 15 years.
“Our boys’ divisions are as follows:
Juniors u-6, u-8, two u-10, u-12, u-14, two u- 16 and two u-18 teams.
A seniors team, a second team, a premier, a champions league side, over 35 and over 40 teams. We are affiliated with Mitchell’s Plain Local Football Association and have had a few memorable moments. I would say the highlight is definitely our boys escorting the players onto the field against TS Galaxy,” he says.
This was the first time most of these boys and a girl, Alycia Cloete, had the opportunity to watch a match in Cape Town Stadium.
“We actually filled a bus to go and support the home team and our boys. Aiden Booysen, one of our boys, recognised Taahir Goedeman aka Baala and was so excited to meet him. I can assure you Cape Town City has a busload of new supporters now in Tafelsig. They even drove out to Stellenbosch on Friday 27 January for the fixture against Stellenbosch FC in the Danie Craven Stadium, which Stellenbosch won 3-2. Tafelzucht wished Cape Town City all the best for the rest of the season,” Hendricks says.
