Ajax Cape Town goalkeeper Hans Vonk, inspired perhaps by his Dutch ancestory and how another Hans had saved the town of Haarlem from the raging waters of the North Sea by sticking his finger into a leaking dike, re-enacted his own version of the legend at the mud-spattered Seisa Ramabodu Stadium on Sunday by thwarting wave upon wave of Bloemfontein Celtic attacks.
It was the fearless efforts of the former Bafana Bafana goalkeeper that overwhelmingly helped the 10-man Cape Town team to gain a fortuitous 1-0 victory and squeeze into the semifinals of the Absa Cup.
Vonk was aided and abetted by some of the most innocuous finishing from the Celtic players yet seen in a season where inept shooting has become a trademark of the PSL.
Yet it would be unkind to minimise the performance of the battered and bruised Vonk as he parried shots throughout the 90 minutes — culminating in an awesome 84th save from Moses Spandeel when enthusiastic Celtic supporters in the 20 000 crowd were already proclaiming an equaliser.
Ironically, it was Ajax who grabbed an advantage as early as the second minute when a calculated Franklin Cale pass was transformed into a magical goal by the agile and deceptive Tembinkosi ”Terror” Fanteni.
But after Celtic had already enjoyed a territorial advantage for most of the opening period, it was the same Cale who effectively put Ajax under seige for almost the entire second half when he was red-carded for retaliating in the 48th minute.
But even against the 10 valliant Ajax players, a shell-shocked Celtic, choked up by the prospect of Cup glory this season being snatched from their grasp, dithered and deliberated unecessarily in front of goal — and found Vonk an awesome obstacle on the occasions they were on-target.
Portions of the pitch resembled a mud bath as a result of torrential rain before the game and this seemed to bog down Celtic even further.
But as dispirited Celtic coach Tony de Nobrega remarked afterwards: ”We could have played until midnight without scoring. That’s the kind of game it was.” – Sapa