Battling for top honours in Golden Eagles
Northern Natal was not represented, and local players Andries van Eck played for Eastern Province, Johnny Kossmann for Boland and Lettie du Plessis for Northern Cape
Last week, Kimberley in the Northern Cape was the centre of national badminton when the Golden Eagles SA Championships & Tournament were held. Seven provinces battled it out for honours.
Northern Natal was not represented, and local players Andries van Eck played for Eastern Province, Johnny Kossmann for Boland and Lettie du Plessis for Northern Cape. The Eastern Province team proved to be too strong for the other provinces and walked away with the gold.
Boland finished fourth and Northern Cape seventh.
In the open, Andries managed only to win the plate of the mixed doubles event and lost in the semi-finals of the men’s doubles.
The tournament and championships took place in the beautiful De Beers badminton hall, which has a wooden floor, excellent lighting and colour painted walls. The hall is only being used for badminton and available at any time of day or night, hence the reason for strong junior, senior and older sections, ie veterans, masters, grand masters, silver and Golden Eagles. What a pleasure, what an excellent position to be in! The SA Grandmasters will also be held in this hall in September.
In Emnambithi/Ladysmith, indoor sports are crushed by multiple other usages and especially by local, provincial and national government departments.
Two clubs have already closed because of irregular usage and hopefully badminton (or one of the other three sports) will not follow suit. The sad part of usage for other purposes is that the floor is getting damaged as the dilapidated floor mats are no longer protecting the floor.
