Alex girls to strut their stuff at football festival

Alex girls will participate in the annual Discovery Girls Football Festival at Crawford Preparatory School in Benmore, Sandton, on 15 June as an invitational team.

The festival, which is organised in conjunction with the Johannesburg Primary School Football Association, consists of eight area teams, as well as the invitational team from Alexandra.

As organisers for a host of various football tournaments for Johannesburg primary schools, the association created this festival to develop the sport for young girls and offer them more opportunities to play beyond schools’ current footballing season.

Iona Maclean, head of experiential marketing at Discovery, said initiatives such as this were incredibly important in light of the data available on the health of South African children, as it kept our girls active and burning the extra calories.

“Regional studies corroborate the growing public health challenge of childhood obesity, especially among girls and in urban areas. In fact, through a 20-year longitudinal study, South African researchers showed that girls who were obese between the ages of four and eight years were a staggering 42 times more likely to be obese at 16 to 18 years,” she said.

Also present at the event will be another Alex footballer, former Banyana Banyana skipper and now coach of the U17 SA Women’s National team, Simphiwe Dludlu, who will be on hand for the day-long festival, along with other experts, to scout for their top 15 most promising girl footballers.

One hundred and twenty players will take to the field to impress Dludlu and her experts and the selected girls will then represent Gauteng in the Girls Interprovincial Football Tournament in Hammanskraal at Camp Discovery in September.

“I know that I will have my work cut out for me to choose only 15 girls,” said Dludlu, popularly known as Shorty since her playing days.

“There will be a lot of passion and determination out there, and I wish each and every player the very best of luck. I’m looking forward to witnessing all the homegrown skills and helping to make some of these girls’ dreams come true.”

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