Alex cash-strapped Rangers thrown a lifeline

Cellphone network provider Cell C hopes to partner with Alex’s newly promoted SAB League outfit Rangers FC to possibly walk the promotional journey with the team all the way to premiership football.

This follows the donation by the company of R20 000 worth of training kit, water bottles, and masks to the cash-strapped club that finally won promotion in the 2021 season after more than five years of trial and error under the Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association Promotional League.

Speaking in an interview with Alex News during the handover at the iconic Alexandra Stadium that once hosted matches of giants such as Kaizer Chiefs, Moroka Swallows and Orlando Pirates, the company’s area sales and operations manager Adam Damons said the handover would not be a once-off affair.

“We are exploring options of how we can possibly walk the promotional journey with the team right up to the ultimate Mzansi football destination, which is the prestigious Premier Soccer League.

“We want to be part of the successes of the team and its desire to inspire the youth of this country to also look at the options of doing sport as an enabling career for their participation in the country’s economic life,” Damons said.

Damons added that they hoped to find a way to grow with the team through a long-term partnership that could help ease some of the financial stresses associated with the beautiful game, such as travelling costs, payments for the usage of facilities etc.

On how they got to select Rangers for the donation, Damons said besides his teenage years of association with team skipper Sello Sithole which dates back to 2011 as football mates, he had read the various Alex News articles on the team and was inspired.

John Mnisi, former team owner and now advisor to new chairperson Musa Hlombe, pleaded with the company to continue to explore ways of formalising a long-term partnership with the club. Mnisi has since been appointed life president of the Alex Northrand LFA due to his immense contribution to the development of township football.

“We’re greatly indebted to them [Cell C] for the donation as it has been such a difficult mountain for us to climb to reach promotion to the SAB League. We have been struggling all these years to make do with the little that we have in our pockets and it has not been easy,” he said.

“We hope they can find it in their hearts to help us, and the success of this club will be etched in its history books as their success too.”

Turning to the future of the club in the SAB League, Mnisi said they would like to dispel widespread beliefs that they too would just be adding to the numbers of Alex teams currently plying their trade in that league.