“Truth be told: it is tough and training with no drive or anything pushing you becomes difficult too. In fact, I miss football; I miss my life. After all, it’s not just a field it is my home,” said a UJ football player.
Category: Sports
“Apart from women’s football still not being professionalised, . . . SWNL continues to experience some teething issues. These range from teams having to drive more than 1000km to play their fixtures to referees arriving late,” writes Busisiwe Mokwena.
Womandla League is one of UJ’s campus football leagues. The name womandla is a combination of women and amandla, which is a Xhosa and Zulu word for power.
Much anticipation awaits the 7th fixture as this might seal UJ’s fate in the tournament.
UJ coach Mandla Zwane told The Open Journal that one of the challenges is the lack of wins in their home games.
Having played away against the Central University of Technology, the University of Johannesburg’s Orange Army started well with a 0-1 win against the hosts in the first round.
According to the South African Government News Agency, there has been a 53% increase in the rate of violence against women in South Africa from 31 665 in 2015/16 to 70 813 in 2016/17.
There are two UJ Campus Football Leagues played yearly and at the end of every season, two teams from the Promotional league get promoted to play in the Major League. The last two from the Major are demoted to the Promotional.
A total of 90% of the team are new players with four sitting out due to injuries from the previous preseason matches, while others graduated and some having faced the misfortune of falling out on their studies with F-7.
Coached by Mandla Zwane, UJ loads a new squad to its arsenal led by the young captain Sphesihle Mbhele.
