Back to news

League News

Bootbank boots gratefully received

  • 09/12/08
Football image

The boots collected last season have now been given out to children in North West Province SA. click here for details

Our first consignment of boots were sent to Yazeed Patel for distribution amongst children in the Moses Kotane Municipality. Here is what Yazeed had to say:


The schools are all in the Moses Kotane Municipality which is near Sun City in the North West Province- about 120 miles from Johannesburg. Extremely impoverished areas where the only hope of employment are the platinum mines or Sun City Resort, where I am employed.

When I got here a few years ago, my kids who had been playing local league football in Johannesburg, wanted to continue. The problem was that there was no formal football structure here so the only way they could play competitively was if we started our own league. I got hold of about 40 schools in the area and started a league of 8 teams each in 5 age groups: Under 10, 12, 14, 16 & 18. These are all government schools. We started a Saturday league and Sun City Resort kindly provided buses to transport the kids to the soccer fields here in Sun City. We had 20 league matches in a day.

I managed to secure a sponsorship from some of the companies dealing with Sun City and we were able to purchase a complete football kit for each of the schools ? this is the kit the kids have in the images I sent.

You can really assure your association and all those who have contributed that they have made a difference to these children?s lives. You are quite right, the sport is being ruled by money and it seems that everybody is in it to make a quick buck. So when we receive gifts from your boys for children they do not know so that they too can take pleasure from this beautiful game we all love so much, there is hope for us and for football, after all.

With sincere thanks from all of us here in this part of the world,