Promotional league’s top achievers honoured
The much-contested Golden Boot Award goes to Whisky Kudakwashe of Norwood Young Stars with 36 goals while Coach of the Season is Sakhile Zulu of United Stars.
The Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association (ANLFA) has bestowed honours on the top achievers of its recently ended Promotional League.
Among those honoured is the championship coach of United Stars Sakhile Zulu, whose side just clinched the trophy of the ANLFA Promotional League to gain automatic promotion to the Hollywoodbets Men’s Regional League in the River Park-based side’s arduous journey to the Premiership division of the Premier Soccer League.
Zulu was named Coach of the Season after he guided his talented young side to victory after only two attempts at securing promotion, both saw the side being booted out in the finals, with the last effort going down to the wire and seeing them knocked out on penalties.
This time, his charges emulated Mamelodi Sundowns and were jammed on the league’s summit for the entire first half with no loss until the final match of that Stanza where it lost to AmaSkills but still kept kingship of the log.
Midway through the second league stanza, complacency and fatigue crept in and the boys were dethroned from the summit by a resurgent Black Mask outfit. Stars recaptured their status at the top of the league with a couple of wins and remained there until the last game in which they only needed a minimum of a draw to secure the championship and automatic promotion but they got a cherry on top with a slender 1–0 victory over bitter rivals, AmaSkills.
For that, Zulu’s charges earned the team a cheque of R12 000 from the LFA, which the club president cum-coach said he would use to register the team and players in the new, along with their medicals.
Stars goalminder Nthiso Botsolo’s heroics in between the sticks, some of which kept his side in contention for the league from start to finish, earned him Goal Keeper of the Season and his fellow prolific striker Njabulo ‘NJay’ Shabalala two goals shy of the golden boot that went the way of Zimbabwean immigrant Whisky Kudakwashe of Norwood Young Stars with 36 goals to his credit.
The Player of the Season went to another one of Zulu’s charges, midfield maestro cum-striker Thabiso ‘Pito’ Mangoaela.
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