Soccer: Lungile Madywabe
WHATEVER Kaizer Chiefs coach Jeff Butler tells his charges before their game on Saturday against log leaders Cape Town Spurs at the Rand Stadium, he knows that Chiefs will have to win to keep alive their hopes of salvaging anything this year.
However, the real drama will be 20 hours later in Atteridgeville where second division Pretoria City take on Qwa-Qwa Stars in the other Bob Save Super Bowl semi-final. City, who have virtually sealed their return to the first division after they were relegated last year, are the first team from the second division to reach this stage of the competition. City’s squad is virtually completely made up of seasoned professional players and they have home ground advantage.
Unbeaten since last October when they were one-nil winners over their semi-final opponents, City have scored 140 goals, 37 of which were in this competition.
Nicky Shaw, who had a brief spell with Chiefs is their top goal scorer, with 34 to his credit. Former Chiefs striker Shane McGregor, who is now City’s coach, is cautious about predicting the outcome, saying: “Football is a funny sport. You can play well and still be on the losing side, it depends on whether it’s your day.”
City have, however, had an easy passage through to the semis, fortunately avoiding the first division teams. Stars are the first team from the elite division that they will play in this competition, prompting McGregor to say: “Since we are the underdogs we will just enjoy ourselves on the day but obviously with an aim to win.”
Mike Mokoena’s boys, who were the runners-up in this competition last year when they lost to Vaal Professionals, will be hoping to reach their third cup final in 15 months. They won the Coca Cola Cup last year when they beat Hellenic.
Their road to the finals has been bumpy. They disposed of relegation candidates Rabali Blackpool away from home and Manning Rangers in Chartsworth and beat Africa Champions Cup semi-finalists Orlando Pirates at home in a penalty shootout after the teams were locked in a goaless draw after extra time.
On Saturday Chiefs fans demanded to know why Butler elected to field an off-form Brian Baloyi instead of the more popular and better Zairean goalkeeper Eshele Botende. This was after Chiefs had lost for the third time this year to Wits. However, Butler was dismissive of the criticism of Baloyi. “Unfortunately the mistake a goalkeeper makes is an ultimate one, because it ends up at the back of the net while that made by a player may be cleared, but Eshele was also responsible for the Aces and Cosmos goals. We will see how they shape during the week.”
Chiefs were without some of their regulars, with Neil Tovey finishing his two-game suspension and Gardner Seale out because of injury. The Chiefs coach promised that the team that will be chosen this Saturday will be a competetive one because “hopefully everyone, including Lifa Qosha, will be available for selection”.
The pragmatic Butler warned that Chiefs are not a quality team and this is the reason why they have had a mediocre season. “You can’t put right in two weeks what has been wrong for a long time, but I hope for the sake of the loyalists that Chiefs reach the finals.” Chiefs beat Sundowns in the last 16, before pushing aside Moroka Swallows to reach the semis.
Spurs coach Mich d’Avray says there is nothing wrong with winning a double and that is enough to send a warning to a lucklustre Chiefs. But D’Avray argues that if football was about guarantees then surely he would go for the league. Since it is all about luck and how the team performs on the day, “I am certainly looking for both,” he says.
Commenting on the pending case concerning Sundowns and Blackpool whom Sundowns claim did not show their identity cards during their game earlier this year, D’Avray said: “The whole of Cape Town is looking at the case quite closely. It would be a shame for our soccer if the league was decided in the boardrooms of the NSL again this year.” Pirates won the league last year after they were awarded a point when Vaal Professionals players failed to produce their ID cards. The NSL rules state that all teams must produce ID cards before any NSL game.
Spurs have beaten Chiefs three times in the league since last year but they are all square in cup competitions. Chiefs beat Spurs in March this year in the quarter-finals of the BP Top Eight while last year they were knocked out of the Coca Cola.
Only the rich need apply for Atlanta
South African Olympic fans had better start saving now because a visit to Atlanta next year is going to cost a fortune, writes Julian Drew
WITH the announcement last week of the various tour options available for next year’s Centennial Olympic Games, it is clear that anyone who seeks even a look-in on the world’s greatest sporting spectacular will need considerable liquid assets to do so.
As with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), aka the world’s most exclusive club which controls the fortunes of the Olympic Games, both in terms of their destiny and financial clout, it will be necessary to belong to a rather exclusive income bracket to pencil in Atlanta as your holiday destination next July.
But then again international travel has never been the preserve of the proletariat. Indeed, the only way the average South African is ever going to set eyes on the Olympic Games is if Cape Town manages to secure the right to host the 2004 version when the IOC casts it vote in Lausanne a little under two years from now. Even then it will be necessary to dig up long-lost relatives in the Cape or start cultivating new friends from the windy part of Africa, such is the scarcity and cost of accommodation come the “16 days of glory”.
According to Sandra Collier, divisional manager of Specialised Travel Management for Rennies Travel, most of the expected 1 200 South Africans who will go to the Games will leave South Africa in three six-night waves. If this sounds a bit like an old style SADF military raid it should be remembered that such is the scale and complexity of the Olympic Games that only the precise logistical planning of a military operation will ensure that everything runs smoothly. Even then such planning cannot prevent disaster when combined with the peculiarly Mediterranean brand of ma-ana, ma-ana organisation encountered in Barcelona.
The price of a package tour to the Olympics ranges from R9 925 for a six-night tour to upwards of R25 966 for an 18-night package encompassing the entire 16 days of the Games. These prices do not include meals or tickets to any of the events. Nor does it include accommodation close to the main Olympic venues, but that is something seasoned Olympic spectators are used to. “Unfortunately you can’t pick and choose your accommodation at an Olympic Games,” says Collier. “The centrally located and better class hotels are all taken up by the Olympic family, the media and sponsors. We made sure we tied up accommodation as close as possible to the Olympic ring and none of our clients will be more than an hour away from the centre of Atlanta.
“That will be a vast improvement on Barcelona where many South Africans were staying up to three hours away from the centre of the city and couldn’t even get public transport to their hotels after many of the evening sessions had finished.” While these transport problems were not of the making of the tour operator, but rather the failure of Spanish railways to provide an improved service during the Games, the extra money that had to be forked out to pay for special coaches to hotels was an unwelcome addition to an already expensive holiday. In fact transport in Barcelona was the main problem encountered by Olympic visitors and it is something which the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) has made adequate provisions to overcome next year.
All ticket holders for Olympic events in Atlanta will be able to travel free of charge on the Olympic Transportation System (OTS) which will make use of the rapid transit rail system, park-and-ride lots, shuttle buses on high-occupancy vehicle lanes and exclusive pedestrian corridors.
As official travel agent to Nocsa, Rennies were given first option as offlcial travel agent, tour operator and ticket agent for the Olympic Games, but they have also agreed to sell packages through other reputable travel agents without increasing the cost to the end client.
Rennies have joined up with the British company, Sportsworld, who also handle the Olympic tours for several other countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Greece.
This arrangement gives Rennies access to Sportsworld’s extensive experience as an Olympic tour operator together with a larger pool of Olympic tickets. Although Sportsworld came under intense criticism in Britain for the way in which it handled the Barcelona Games, most of the problems were created by the poor transport arrangements and in Atlanta there will not be a repeat of the Barcelona debacle.
While visitors to the Games will be paying a premium for hotel accommodation, they are still not guaranteed to get tickets for the events they would like to see. Most of the tickets for the popular events like athletics, gymnastics, swimming and basketball are heavily over-subscribed and prospective spectators must fill out an application form for all their ticket requirements when they book and send the full cost of all tickets ordered.
Confirmation of ticket orders should be received within 60 days when credits will be refunded or excess payments requested if tickets have had to be upgraded.
The popular-event tickets are classified as category I tickets and for every such ticket purchased a category II ticket must also be bought. Category II tickets are for the preliminary rounds of the popular sports and also for the rest of the sports on the Olympic programme. An opening or closing ceremony ticket requires the purchase of four category II tickets.
The easiest way for fans of a particular sport to ensure that they get tickets for every day of their sport is to buy a season ticket which is only available in the highest price category and then at a premium, but the buyer is not required to purchase any category II tickets. That means that somebody wanting to see the full athletics programme would have to pay out a hefty R7 900 nine months in advance of the Games. A ticket to the opening or closing ceremony will cost R2 800 plus the minimum cost of the four cheapest category II tickets which comes to R235.
Anyone feeling flush enough to go the whole hog and stay for 18 days to view as many events as possible, including the athletics and both ceremonies, will have to cough up at least R50 000. And that doesn’t include daily sustenance! There are options to buy packages that offer just tickets or tickets and the flight to Atlanta but the tours that include accommodation are likely to receive preference when it comes to the allocation of tickets. Accommodation will also be difficult to find in Atlanta unless you have friends or relatiives there.
Obviously an Olympic binge is out of reach for just about everyone. However, an enjoyable and memorable Olympic holiday can be had for as little as R12 000 if you spend carefully and are just looking to experience the Games which is what most Olympic tourists are after. With a supporting cast of countless shows and events in the Cultural Olympiad featuring some of the world’s biggest stars, and the special magic of just being in an Olympic city with what seems like the whole of humanity, that is perhaps a small price to pay.
Bringing Wessels back would be an empty gesture
Cricket: Jon Swift
THE name Kepler Wessels has recently made persistent appearances as a possibility to fill the troublesome NO 3 spot in the South African batting line-up. Perhaps this is all just speculation., perhaps stemming from something a little more serious than that.
Either way, there are two very salient questions which need to be asked before anything more concrete than conjecture comes about.
The first question is this: does South African cricket need Wessels? The answer to that one is an unqualified yes. The former captain has all the grim determination, an average of 41 in the 24 tests he played for Australia and the 16 for South Africa, and the clear ability to bolster an area which remains of great concern to the selectors.
Wessels, who retired from international cricket last year to concentrate on guiding Eastern Province, admits that he has not been officially approached by the selectors, but does not totally rule out a return.
What is against him are the suspect knees, battered from season after season of the Wessels refusal to bow to weakness of any nature, and the fact that his style of captaincy differs widely from the expansive approach of his protege Hansie
The second question is perhaps a little more complex: does South African cricket stand to gain from bringing Wessels back ? Sadly, the answer to that must be no. There are a number of reasons why, not least of which is merely replacing one problem with a stop-gap solution. Wessels, iron man though he might be, cannot go on forever. And drafting him in does not help in alleviating the problem for it mitigates against any number of young cricketers growing into the role.
Yes, giving the English a shellacking in the current series is important to the game in this
But not more important than allowing this country’s cricket to grow on the super-oxygenated blood of new talent in the long term.
Finally, there are the dangers to the man himself.
It would be sad if Wessels, often maligned as a thinker who merely substituted Plan A with Plan A again in his captaincy, but a magnificent player in his own right, were to be remembered as a has been who couldn’t make it back.
Should he be in any doubt about that, he merely has to turn to another Eastern Province and South African captain, Hannes Marais, and ask about that man’s return against Willie John McBride’s 1974 British Lions.