By Chris Totobela
The Makana LFA first division league season got underway this past weekend, after a very long break.
Football fans came in numbers to support their respective teams.
However, controversy overshadowed the games on Saturday with most teams allegedly using players that were not properly registered while others were said to have played in the premier division in the same season.
According to Makana LFA secretary, Akhona Heshu, all Saturday’s results have been withheld until further notice. There were only two games on Sunday. Joza Stars were awarded a walk over against Attackers Academy as the latter failed to produce the required documents before the game. In a spirit of sportsmanship, the two teams ended up playing a friendly match, to also give players some game time.
In the second game of the day, Makhanda’s yesteryear cup specialists, Santos FC, came up against Vukani Anchors in a much anticipated season opener. Both teams started slowly but soon found the momentum as they both started stringing some good passes while looking for an opening.
Santos had the better of the early exchanges as they took the game to Anchors, trying to get an early advantage. Anchors absorbed a lot of pressure and played on the backfoot, but broke free on the right wing and caught Santos’s defence napping – a dangerous pin-point cross found their striker unmarked and he tapped home the opener in the 35th minute.
Anchors took their lead into the halftime break.
Rattled by the late first half goal, Santos started spraying around good passes and were finally rewarded when their striker tapped home from close range after the Anchors’ defence failed to deal with a hard and low cross.
The game started opening up nicely and turned into an end-to-end tussle. Poor marking by Santos’ defenders at the back allowed Anchors to cut through and fired home a second goal to take the lead.
Santos replied immediately from the restart, after they forced a corner kick that was steered home. Both teams threw everything at each other, trying to snatch all three points.
However, Anchors had the final say when they stretched the defence of Santos before laying off a perfect through pass to their reliable striker who made no mistake and gave Anchors the lead for the third time in the game. Santos made a few changes but it was too little too late as the final whistle sounded with Vukani Anchors taking home all the points on offer.
