ALBERTON – By winning the Beeld-trophy for middle schools, Alberton High made history to become the first school whose name has been engraved on both the Beeld small schools and middle schools floating trophies.
After losing the Golden Lions final to Roodepoort 10-15 and going into the overall Beeld-trophy Northern Vaal schools competition as no.2 Golden Lions School, they overcame that setback to win the final by 22-15 against another Ekurhuleni school, Belvedere from Benoni in the East.
On their way to this historic feat, Captain Brandon Bewley and his team won, except for the Roodepoort defeat, all their other games as follows: AHS Germiston 37-0, Bracken High 26-0, Vorentoe 49-7, Queens High 26-7, Allen Glen 30-12, Pretoria Technical High School 27-7 and Parys 14-5.
Beeld, co-sponsors of the Beeld-trophy, regarded Alberton High as the pre-favourites in their match preview, but it did not look like that in the first half of the final at Alberton High. The visitors dominated in possession and territory to lead 15-10 at halftime, after scoring two tries in the first half against the eventual winners’ one try by the prop Philip Haarhoff and flyhalf Tristan Delport’s conversion and penalty goal.
The second half was a different story, and Vice-captain Mykal Reed’s try in the eighth minute, and the final try by the no.14 wing Neville Haarhoff towards the end, turned the scoreboard around in this thrilling final. That made victory possible, to give the principal Mr. Matt Minnie a wonderful farewell gift as headmaster, after almost three decades and retirement in November this year.
“Goodbye Mr. Minnie, this one was for you”, was the winning team’s message showing by the character they displayed to pull this big one through.
Alberton High u.15 could not clinch the double for the school, when the result of the u.15 final was almost a repeat of the Golden Lions u.15 final, with Queens High from Kensington again the winners, this time with 29-16 after leading 10-6 at halftime.
