Top-flight football made a spectacular return to Bloemfontein and the Free State on Saturday with an entertaining Premier Soccer League opening round fixture between Marumo Gallants and Kaizer Chiefs.
Two days before the match at the Toyota Stadium, the game was sold-out and despite the rain in the city on Saturday the crowd witnessed the highly entertaining match. Gallants got off to a flying start when Sekela Sithole put the home team in the lead in the 8th minute. The Amakhosi did, however, level matters shortly afterwards with Mduduzi Shabalala finding the back of the net.
In the 76th minute, the match swung in favour of the Soweto giants as Joseph Malongoane received his marching orders with a red card. Moments later, Mfundo Vilakazi scored a cracking goal to seal the deal for the Chiefs and bank the three points with a 2-1 win.
Despite defeat to the much stronger opponents, the local supporters fully embraced their ‘new’ team and it was very reminiscent of the glory days of Bloemfontein Celtic. The Siwelele faithful broke out in song and dance and one could easily mistake it for Phunaya Sele Sele actually having played against Chiefs instead of Gallants.
Before the game in the City of Roses, the Gallants coach, Dan Malesela, told Bloemfontein Courant that it was vital to get the fanatical support of the city and Free State in their corner.
“It’s very key because it’s more like Kaizer Chiefs. If football dies here a big portion of the South African support is gone,” said Malesela.
“The evidence was with the last game that was played by the national team here. Obviously in the past we could see the turnout here was always good. So, we will be denying the people in the region an opportunity to enjoy football if we don’t do well. That’s exactly what we want – we want the people to enjoy football. Not only enjoy the results, but enjoy the football as well.”
Gallants still have a long way to go in order to earn the unwavering support of the fans, but their performance against the Glamour Boy was certainly a huge stride to achieving this. This week Gallants will travel for the first time as they head to Lamontville to take on Golden Arrows on Saturday, before their biggest challenge which awaits next week. They will head to Pretoria on Tuesday to take on the champions, Mamelodi Sundowns, at Loftus Versfeld. – MORGAN PIEK
