Lobatse Major shifts to Gaborone

CALISTUS KOLANTSHO
Correspondent | Tuesday March 23, 2010 00:00

'The club house and greens are in a bad state. The club does not have bowlers. We rely on players from Mafikeng, South-Africa and that is not a good thing,' said BBA spokesperson, Lebo Mascarenhas. She explained that the problem emanates from the fact that the clubhouse is in the premises of the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) and the company has declined to give BBA permission to renovate the facility. She said that negotiations for permission have taken too long. She said Lobatse will field a squad of players who are not attached to any club. Mascarenhas said the only person who is currently trying to revive the Lobatse Bowling Club is relocating to the United States of America permanently. She stated that this might signal the death of the club unless the BBA comes to the rescue.  Meanwhile, the BBA elected a new committee during its annual general meeting in Gaborone recently.

Kitso Roberts and Lebo Mascarenhas retained their positions as chairperson and spokesperson respectively. The new committee is made up of Charmaine Hassan as secretary; Remy Kebapetse as competition secretary and Marv Mitchell as treasurer. Tim Mortonis is the selector for Gaborone club, Tony Allen for Jwaneng, Derrick McCartney for Orapa, John Ashby for Francistown, Binks Glover for Lobatse and Gary Matheson for Selebi-Phikwe. 

Mascarenhas said the Gaborone Major, held at the end of February, was played under a new format of sets. She explained that the new format is used world wide. She added that the annual FNB Interdepartmental tournament is currently on-going at the Selebi-Phikwe Club.

'The turn up was disappointing last week and teams were arriving late. Some did not pitch up at all and some teams didn't have enough members to play. We had to replay the games this week on Monday and we are behind by one week. The tournament will be finished late. The tournament was planned to finish by March 31. Now it has been pushed to the first week of April,' she said.  Mascarenhas complained that members of the Selebi-Phikwe club are not supporting their team. 'After being a member of the Orapa club for 11 months, I was asked by BBA to come back and revive the team (Selebi-Phikwe) but I cannot do that if people are not willing to assist me.

They have rented out the bar on a three year lease and I wonder how we will raise funds during this period without the bar,' she said.