Despair over the poor condition of local soccer grounds

Pietermaritzburg residents have raised concerns about the appalling state of football grounds around the city. Most of them are inaccessible, have been vandalised, and are a safety risk to teams and to residents.

Some of them have been turned into “smoking dens” by local drug addicts or “hunting grounds” for prostitutes.

This state of affairs was discovered during a recent visit to some of the well-known local football venues by The Witness.

Residents and sport administrators have raised their anger over the situation with the Msunduzi Municipality by writing letters to the local media and on social media platforms.

Most local sport administrators said that local football and the city’s sporting legacy has been neglected by the municipality to the point that it has been totally destroyed or vanished.

ALSO READ | Pietermaritzburg’s Manor grounds being restored

READ MORE
Volunteer crime-fighting group focused on making Pietermaritzburg safe
Makhetha Mzimela, the South African Football Association’s (Safa) uMgungundlovu’s regional executive officer, told The Witness that the regional governing structure is also affected by the “unplayable” conditions on local football grounds. He said it is impossible for them to host regional and provincial playoffs at the grounds.

Mzimela said Safa uMgungundlovu mainly relies on UKZN and Maritzburg College’s grounds. “The shortage and bad conditions of those few grounds that are available is really a big issue and it’s affecting sport.

In most cases we use Maritzburg College and UKZN grounds for our events. You can imagine [what would happen] if those institutions were to stop us from utilising their facilities.
Formerly popular soccer grounds such as the Tatham Grounds, Manor Grounds, Brookside and Qokololo Stadiums have disappeared.

They have been used as sites for malls, taxi ranks and housing projects to be built. The surviving ones such as Northdale Stadium, Dales Park, Khan Road’s Protea Centre and Edendale’s Wadley Stadium are all neglected and are on the verge of decay.

ALSO READ | Grounds in a mess after Samwu’s sports day

The Qokololo Stadium was totally demolished to make space for the Edendale Mall.

The Tatham venue was also done away with and the new housing project near the Jika Joe informal settlements was developed there. The old Masukwane sporting venue and the Brookside grounds were lost when the new Howick Taxi Rank, opposite M.L.Sultan High School, was built.

The Echo Road’s sport facility, Manor Grounds, was used for illegal dumping by the community. None of these facilities was replaced or rebuilt elsewhere.

The Witness found that the only local sporting facility that is still in a playable condition and is well maintained is Woodlands. This has been attributed to the cleaning campaigns driven by former professional goalkeeper Keith “Kiddo” Abrahams.

Abrahams said the only way to solve the problem of neglect relating to the upkeep of local sport facilities is for Msunduzi to work together with ward committees.

Our municipality needs to create that special working relationship with ward committees and even with sport administrators or coaches.
ALSO READ | Safa uMgungundlovu urges clubs to get players registered

He also told The Witness that years ago the municipality used to have caretakers and security officers looking after local sport facilities. Community members also need to be hands-on to detect vandalism of their facilities, he said, adding that there is currently a shortage of sporting facilities and that more need to be built.

Sihle Dywili, an attorney who also owns a local soccer team and runs a development academy, said it is heart-breaking to see that the local facilities are either gone or neglected. He suggested that facilities such as Dales Park in Mayors Walk should be leased out to private companies or to capable individuals.

I run an amateur team and a development juniors academy and we don’t have a venue. So I am personally appealing to Msunduzi Municipality to allow me to lease Dales Park and I will maintain it.
Msunduzi Municipality had not responded by the time of going to press.