Lekgwathi sanguine schools football can get kids off the streets

School football is something that is very close to former Orlando Pirates captain Lucky Lekgwathi, who wants to see many more players starting their football journey by playing in school tournaments.

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Through his Foundation and his restaurant, Grootman, the former Pirates defender, who is also a product of school’s football, organised a Back To School Under-17 tournament at the LLM Sports Ground in Turfontein last week, where eight teams played against each other. But, the tournament was not like any other, with the affiliation for each team being five pairs of school shoes which were donated to three schools around the area.

Lekgwathi’s aim was to raise 40 school shoes, but they were fortunate enough to get 100 pairs, which were donated to 100 school children.

“I think school football is important, I am a product of it. It needs to be revived, it was unfortunate for us that we couldn’t do anything due to Covid-19 in the last two years. But, we did it this year and I am glad to have seen many young kids out to play and thank you very much to everybody who donated,” said Lekgwathi.

The tournament was graced by retired Kaizer Chiefs midfielder Reneilwe Letsholonyane and TS Galaxy and Bafana Bafana midfielder Ethan Brooks. Lekgwathi says the youngsters were happy to see their role models and this will help them to concentrate on their football careers and most importantly to stay in schools.

“We know that we have a drug addiction problem in our communities, our kids’ lives get destroyed by these drugs. But, when we organise tournaments like this one more often, we can be able to take them out of the streets. We also need our current and former players to be present and attend these tournaments. The boys were happy to see Letsholonyane and Brooks. The guys spoke to them and the kids were excited. You can tell that they were inspired.”

The Lucky Lekgwathi Foundation and Grootman are planning a lot of activities to help kids get out of the streets and also to make the tournament an annual thing.