The soccer club West End in Athlone is celebrating their 50th anniversary and kicked it off with a thanksgiving service on Sunday 2 October in the Gleemoor Baptist Church in Athlone.
Present were the three founder members of the club, Brian Petersen, Fred Norman and Gerald Paulse.
“Through the years we were not only focussing on the club but made an effort to involve the community as well. We are known for our interaction with the community of Gleemoor and Athlone and can proudly say that we are a community club,” says Brian Petersen, one of the founder members.
The thanksgiving service is one of many other celebrations planned for until December.
“We had to give thanks for the longevity of the club and the founder members that are still around. Nowadays we focus more on our junior teams and I am proud to say that the junior teams did exceptionally well this year. We will be competing in the Premier Competition of the Cape Town/Tygerberg LFA and can expect tough opposition in 2023,” he says.
The club was founded in 1972 and played as a semi-professional club at Turfhall in Athlone and is affiliated to the Western Province Soccer Association (WPSA). Currently there are 50 other clubs in the Peninsula affialited to WPSA.
“We are very proud of our juniors and we train at West End Park in Belgravia Road. We have teams from u-7 op to u-18. Our u-12, u-14, u-16 and u-18 teams did very well and we will compete next year against teams such as Meadowridge, Edgemead and Camps Bay. Besides the junior we have two senior teams as well as two over 50 teams,” Petersen says.
Up until now the only professional soccer player from the club is Nathan Paulse, the striker of the former Ajax Cape Town, now Cape Town Spurs.
“Paulse is the son of one of our founder members and we are very proud of Nathan’s achievements on the soccer pitch locally and internationally. As you know, he was a key player at Ajax Cape Town with players like Terror Fanteni, Brett Evans, Bryce Moon, Sahmeeg Doutie and Kharma Billiatt when Ajax was one of the top teams in the Premier Soccer League in 2007 until 2009.
“He left Cape Town to pursue his career in Sweden at Hammerby and has one Bafana Bafana cap. He is back in Cape Town and is with the juniors,” Petersen says.
