The young people of Govan Mbeki took to the social media to raise their frustrations on soccer grounds which are not maintained. Soccer remains one of the most loved sport in townships and young people spend much of their time either playing in soccer or watching their friend play.
It keeps them out of the streets, while it also helps to keep fit both physically and mentally. Nearly all the soccer grounds in townships were turned into dumping sites dues to the negligence of maintaining them by the municipality.
One can easily say the young people should maintain their own grounds, but the truth remains that the same young people do not have money to hire grass cutters to do the work. The coaches are also faced with many challenges from not having sponsor for the teams to also make sure they save money to buy soccer boots for the children from pore families.
They also hire transport for the children since most of them cannot even afford to pay for their transport when the play away games.
For young people to play in the grounds with long grass pose a serious risk for them. They will not be able to see if there are broken bottles or stones on the ground.
Another issue raised was that sport grounds in towns are well maintained by either the municipality or private companies.
What is preventing the same to be done for the township sport grounds? The Leslie stadium is the real “ihlazo” without even a tap for water. The whole of Kinross do not even have a sport ground except Sasol Club which is dedicated for Sasol teams. They youth of Kinross are currently waiting for land to be dedicated for their sport activities. Currently they use the school ground.