WATCH: Lawley Youth Solutions hosts another successful football tournament
The Lawley-based organisation has been running football tournaments since 2016 during school holidays. All of the their tournaments have been a success.
LAWLEY Youth Solutions hosted a successful football tournament from December 7 to December 22.
The Lawley-based organisation has been running football tournaments since 2016 during school holidays.
The organisation hosts divisions ranging from u-11 to u-15 with no affiliation fee required. The purpose of this tournament is to keep children away from the streets.
With the tournament in its four-year spell, the organisation spiced things up by involving netball. The founder and chairman of the organisation, George Leqoqolo, said they are trying to reach out to the children through sports to teach them to be responsible human beings.
“These are our future leaders, we need to nurture them. We are very happy as an organisation to host this tournament. Seeing teams around our community taking part in this tournament, it made our work to be easy hosting about 150-240 children,’’ said Leqoqolo.
Tournament
The tournament started in a group stages format, with nine teams participating, which saw the team with most points going straight to the final while the one rooted at the bottom getting relegated.
Pastor FC proved to be a dominant force as they thrashed every team they came across, booking a spot to the final in the u-15, while Brazil FC was booted out. The knock-out stages consisted of six teams and the winner from the six was set to collide with Pastor FC in the final.
Freedom FC played a successful knock-out stage and saw themselves in the final to take on the ever on form Pastor FC.
Final
On December 22, football lovers came in numbers to witness one of the epic local finals.
Pastor FC in the opening stance had to battle against a heavy wind. With the wind favouring Freedom FC, it seemed as if Pastor FC was about to witness their first defeat of the tournament.
But, with the high-class players they have, Pastor FC managed to handle the wind and dominated the ball possession.
Pastor FC won 3-0 in the u-15 division, u-13 Superstars won 2-0, defeating Diski Lovers, and u-11 Diski lovers won on penalties, overcoming Bluebirds.
Netball
The final was between Pastor and Diski Lovers Girls, where Pastor, again, clinched the title.
Where to from now?
Leqoqolo said they are going to start a league and open an academy. “This will help our children with various opportunities out there. We plead to business people to support us to make it easy for us to ensure that our talent is well taken care of,” he said.
The organisation wishes to thank the following sponsors, Raining Grace Funeral Parlour and Department of Sports and Arts Culture for making the tournament a success.
If someone wishes to sponsor the tournament in the future, they can contact George Leqoqolo on 073 546 7594.
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