By Chris Totobela
The recent good run of Banyana Banyana (South Africa’s national women’s football team) has ignited the long lost spark in women’s football in many parts of the country.
Sarah Baartman is one of the few Safa regions that does not have a women’s football league.
However, plans are underway to try and change this situation. The last time that this region had a women’s football league was more than a decade ago, when the league crumbled without any explanation from the authorities.
The South African Football Association (Safa) national office used to allocate R20 000 to each region for women’s football. Some of the people that are spearheading the revival of women’s football in the Sarah Baartman region are Addo-based Bonani Gora, Luyanda Sitwayi from Alicedale, Sithembele Cunge from Jeffrey’s Bay and former Bay United star midfielder, Khayalethu “Cool” Ngangqu, who is based in the Ndlambe Municipality.
All Sarah Baartman women’s teams have been encouraged to start playing in their respective LFAs just to kickstart the whole process.
Speaking to Grocott’s Mail, one of the organisers, Bonani Gora, explained the idea behind this. “Women’s football has been neglected for a very long time and as people who work with these girls on a daily basis, it hurts to see how hard they train without playing any games. After considering all the options, we decided to start small by organising ourselves in our communities and start playing at LFA level first, just to get the girls playing, as it would be very difficult and costly to play regional league for now.”
Sarah Baartman’s secretary, Bongani Jibiliza, told Grocott’s Mail that they are very pleased to see the efforts to revive women’s football, but did not specifically explain how the regional executive will assist in the whole process.
Makana LFA is also hard at work trying to establish a women’s football league as well and the preparations for this great initiative are at an advanced stage. Starting from the bottom (local communities) is the perfect way to go with women’s football as players only improve when they have more game time under their belt.
Makana LFAs women’s football league might start before the end of Women’s Month and all the interested clubs have a full month to prepare their teams.
