Bitter-sweet soccer season for Phikwe teams

MQONDISI DUBE
Correspondent | Friday June 6, 2008 00:00

 

The season ended on a high note with a 2-0 drubbing of resurgent Extension Gunners, which assured the miners of a top four finish, their best ever.

Nico provided the country's joint leading goalscorer in Master Masitara, giving local fans something to dance about. His 18 goals tied him with Mochudi Centre Chief's Jerome Ramatlhakwana. As is the norm, Majombolo started the league sluggishly and were counted among relegation candidates until a dramatic second round resurgence lifted them off the relegation zone. The Phikwe side went on to post impressive results, which saw them finish fourth behind eventual champions Chiefs, Gaborone United (GU),and Santos respectively. Sadly, this was Phikwe's only success story this season.

Cross-town rivals FC Satmos, who were seen as a safe bet for an early return to the elite league, huffed and puffed the whole season and failed to string together decent results. The result was a change of coaches midway through the season with Duncan 'Tros' Tshegofatso making way for Matlhogonolo 'Paymaster' Dintwa. Although Dintwa tried his level best, Satmos' charge was too little, too late as Francistown based GNT had opened a commanding lead. Satmos' campaign seemed to go off the rails following a shock 6-1 humiliation at the hands of Motlakase.

However, the following weekend, the Cheetahs shocked all and sundry when they beat log leaders, GNT, 3-0 in Francistown to throw the championship race wide open. This brought renewed optimism to the Phikwe fans who thought that Satmos had launched a late surge for the title.

Consecutive defeats for GNT coupled with Satmos' wins further brought hope that the Phikwe side might sneak in at the last minute.

However, Miscellaneous also came in strongly and Satmos were left counting what could have been. A boardroom decision has seen Miscellaneous top the Division One north log, but cannot gain automatic promotion through soft points and will slug it out with GNT for that slot. Satmos' only hope for the play-offs is that GNT beats Miscellaneous and then they would have a chance to play Miscellaneous who got other soft points from relegated Red Lions. Again, there is no guarantee that Satmos would win this tie, let alone the play-offs. This has left many fans in the mining town red faced.

Red Lions, a promising team that churned out former national team player, Abueng 'Stone' Dijogadifele, is now a pale shadow of its former self. The team has been relegated to the lower divisions after a bizarre season in which they did not bother turning up for some fixtures. In the few instances that they honoured their fixtures, they were handed embarrassing rugby-like score lines, with the 7-1 demolition at the hands of Satmos summarising probably the club's worst season.

A number of teams got soft points from a Red Lions side that shocked Notwane in the Coca-Cola Cup two years ago.

However, their existence is largely in doubt as most of the players have reportedly deserted the team. Botshabelo's crowd favourites, Monang whose rise to the top was as meteoric as its fall, failed to return to Division One as they found the going tough in the regional league. Under the tutelage of former Nico and Satmos forward Phinda Mbereki, the former premier league team failed to climb back to Division One as was widely expected.

On a positive note, Phikwe's son, referee Joshua Bondo, continued to fly the town's and the country's flags high with some impressive performances in the middle. He is now rated as one of the top referees in the country and to put the icing on the cake when he officiated at three international tournaments in Namibia, South Africa and more recently Zimbabwe. Bondo is in the running for the Referee of the Year Award, having missed out by a whisker last year.