Alex, Soweto footballers to do battle for June 16
JOBURG – A soccer tournament involving teams from Alexandra and Soweto will do battle as part of the 16 June celebrations.
The City of Johannesburg, in partnership with the local football associations of Alexandra and Soweto, will host a football tournament to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the student uprisings of 16 June 1976.
Known as the 16 June 1976 Uprising Soccer Tournament, it will mark the uprisings that began in Soweto and spread across the country like wildfire to profoundly change the socio-political landscape of the country.
Events that triggered the uprising can be traced back to policies of the apartheid government which resulted in the introduction of the Bantu Education Act in 1953.
This was followed by the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) and the formation of the South African Students Organisation (Saso) and raised the political consciousness of many students while others joined the wave of anti-apartheid sentiment within the student community. When the language of Afrikaans alongside English was made compulsory as a medium of instruction in schools in 1974, black students began mobilising themselves to fight this decree of the apartheid government.
According to a programme delivered to Alex News by the chairperson of the Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association and his Soweto counterpart, Phil Mogodi, the tournament starts on 11 June at the iconic Orlando Stadium involving a match of the legends which is set to open the celebrations.
That will be followed by a match of the footballing gogos, after which a selection of both Alex and Soweto ladies’ teams will do battle for township superiority and bragging rights.
Then U17 Alex boys versus their counterparts in the U17 Soweto boys, after which the winners of the Mayoral Cup 2014, both girls and boys, will collide with their counterparts in Alexandra, Eldorado, Rand Central and Soweto.
A second leg of the tournament will take place at the Alexandra Stadium on 26 June, which will also include an opening match of the legends, the gogos, women senior teams of the Alex LFA and the Soweto LFA and U23 boys of the two LFAs.
The Mayoral Cup winners of 2015 and 2014 boys and girls will collide with their counterparts from Alex, Eldorado Park, Rand Central and Soweto, where three cows are expected to be slaughtered in the final celebration of Youth Month Anniversary.
Details: Maisha Molepo 082 972 0235; Maisha.Alexlfa@telkomsa.net; Phil Mogodi 072 172 6043; pmogodi@@clinix.co.za
