More than just a football match
IRVIN KHOZA, local football’s el supremo, likes to describe the Soweto Derby between Orlando Pirates, which he chairs, and Kaizer Chiefs as a hospital and a soother.
The uniformed observer would find that description pretty strange.
After all, these are supposed to be the country’s biggest rival clubs. But a trip to the FNB Stadium on Saturday for the derby would have confirmed the assertion by the Premier Soccer League chairman.
On Friday in Parliament in Cape Town, members of different political parties were at each other’s throats during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address – with opposition parties the EFF and DA striving to show that the ruling ANC was taking the country on a fast road to nowhere.
But on Saturday you would have sworn they were bosom buddies, their political affiliations forgotten as they got behind their clubs.
The likes of the EFF’S Julius Malema, Mmusi Maimane of the DA, UDM boss Bantu Holomisa and the ANC’S Malusi Gigaba are among the prominent politicians who hardly ever miss the Soweto Derby.
This past weekend saw the EFF pull off a political master stroke by hiring an aeroplane that flew over the packed calabash in Soweto with a message urging those who saw it to vote EFF in the upcoming elections.
There was no master stroke of significant note on the pitch, though, as the two teams played to a 1-1 draw.
The result, however, would have been pleasing for Pirates, who came from behind to equalise late in the match and thus maintain their domination over their bitter rivals. The result meant Pirates have yet to lose to Chiefs since December 2014.
Khoza’s view of the derby as a uniting force in the country continues to be proven by the fact that unlike in all other derbies the world over, Pirates and Chiefs fans mingle and sit together in the stands without any violence.
It is a rarity in football and something that helps make the Soweto Derby the spectacle it is.
The fact that even politicians can forget their differences, even if it is only for 90 minutes, confirms the derby’s role as more than just a football match.