By Chris Totobela
Local football fans were treated to a feast of football this past weekend with XI Attackers taking on Bathurst-based United Eleven and City Pirates hosting Junior Sundowns from Marcellein the Hollywood Bets Regional League.
In the first game, XI Attackers took the game to United Eleven and had the better of the early exchanges even though United managed to create a number of chances they failed to use.
Attackers opened the scoring via a thunderous long range free kick by Siviwe Mandevu who left the visitors’ goalminder helpless. The home side took that slender lead into the halftime break.
Attackers brought on to the field super-sub Bongani Hashe who made an immediate impact as he scored a quick brace to drive his team to victory. United Eleven pulled one back towards the end of the game but it was too little too late.
In the following game, another local side, City Pirates, absorbed pressure from the opposition very well and collected maximum points courtesy of their first half headed goal, which they managed to protect until the final whistle.
Meanwhile, Maru FC failed to bring home points as they suffered a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Alexandria-based Superstars who are also title contenders.
There was controversy at the start of the first game, which had to be delayed for a while as there were no appointed match officials. This led to young Makana LFA match officials taking charge of the game.
The Hollywood Bets Regional League match officials surfaced just before the second game but were turned away by regional executive member Andile Marasi and he explained this move to Grocott’s Mail.
“I turned the referee away simply because there were already match officials who were ready to take charge of the second game.”
