If you haven't already, head down to your nearest store and get this week's paper edition of Soccer Laduma, it's a great one! Towards the end of the paper, you will see a column written by editor Vuyani Joni, warning us that SA football is in danger, and the supporters have weighed in on this issue…
In the column, Vuyani speaks of the lacklustre crowd attendances in South Africa these days, as well as the growing trend of people preferring European teams to local ones. One of our supporters has suggested that this trend is due to the lack of entertaining footballers on the field today.
"Truly speaking, during those memorable past years, Mr Editor, players were allowed to showcase their God-given pure skills with the ball to entertain the crowd and viewers at home, in contrast with today's players, who are not given much room to do so by their coaches, like Rakhale, Skhwama sa Matariana, Zongo, the late Scara Ngobese, etc. No more frequent entertainers on the field of play these days. Such players are no longer wanted in the starting XI by their coaches, who often claim that they slow the pace of the game. There are no more crowd pullers in today's teams. It's very hard to pay my hard-earned cash to go to the stadium to watch a South African team playing a Danish or Scottish style of play. Kings like Jomo Sono, Shakes Kungwane, Teenage Dladla, Moripe, Dikoebe, Mnini, Ba shin Mahlangu, Botsotso, etc., were always encouraged by their coaches to do their wizardry with the ball! Jomo would even force two consecutive shibobos on the opponent, then lift the ball with his foot and hang it on his jersey, and then stand with his two feet on the ball having dropped it while the opponent looks dizzy near him. I mean, everyone was always eager to watch him playing live, including the fans of other teams. Something is missing in today's players! The stadium would be full to capacity even if Aces was playing against AmaZulu in the first league match of the season. Eish... I really miss those years... " – Seiso Wa Lady Grey
Do you think this is the main reason for lacklustre crowd attendances in SA?
