Bluebirds coach Malvin Khumalo believes his team performed beyond expectations in their maiden season of the Sasol Women’s Football League.
Although Khumalo had set himself an ambitious target of finishing in the top eight – which they missed by two points finishing 10th – he said he was extremely proud of his girls and their achievements.
“For an Alex team with meagre resources to outgun some of the long-serving teams in the league is more than plausible,” said Khumalo. “We never let our financial woes pull us down as we were determined to succeed against all odds.”
He said at one stage they could not raise enough money to honour a league match against JVW Ladies in Bedfordview. “We then collectively decided to approach the station commander of the Alexandra Police Station, Brigadier David Ngcobo, who dispatched a police van that took us to the venue of our match.”
Khumalo added that this was only after motivating his request to Ngcobo by saying that he was running a community team that sought to take young girls off the streets, and this was playing a part in the fight against crime.
The coach said the team’s financial woes were exacerbated by the fact that teams were only allocated money in instalments after honouring a number of fixtures. “This does not bode well with maiden teams who have no sponsors as it means we have to dig deep into our own pockets to finance the team,” he said.
