Not a November to remember
NOVEMBER has not been kind to South African sports fans. It’s official, Bafana Bafana will not participate at the 2018 World Cup and South Africa will not host the 2023 Rugby World Cup. The latter perhaps not so surprising when you take into consideration our complete bungling of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and let’s not forget the total embarrassment that was the inaugural Global T20 Challenge that may or may not be a feature in global cricket moving forward.
And on the actual field of play, the Springboks have been diabolical while SuperSport United came close to clinching the Caf Confederation Cup trophy, but sadly it was not to be – they lost 2-1 on aggregate to TP Mazembe.
If cricket is your cup of tea, the Ram Slam might have provided some sporting relief, depending on your team of choice – the tournament has already dished up some good matches, but the attendance has been poor.
In the PSL, all we have to look forward to is draw after draw after draw. This past weekend, for instance, out of a total of seven fixtures (SSU’s game v Polokwane City was postponed because of the Caf Confed Cup Final), there were six draws and just one winning result (Pirates beat Bloem Celtic 1-0).
The week before there were also seven games, six of which ended in draws, and just one winning result – a 2-0 win for Sundowns against Wits. And of those seven fixtures, four ended in goalless draws.
The log is also rather lopsided, with SuperSport United and Sundowns having a fair number of games to catch up – SSU have only played five games but have 10 points, just one ahead of bottom-placed Wits, who have played 11 matches. It still boggles my mind that the defending champions and a Gavin Hunt-managed team, no less, are not just struggling, but are serious contenders to be relegated come the end of the season.
Fellow strugglers this season, occupying spots 14 and 15, are Ajax Cape Town and Platinum Stars – let that soak in for a bit!
■ Thankfully the F1 season is finally over for 2017, and unfortunately even with new ownership the sport is still as boring it has been in the past decade.
It still puts fans to sleep – thanks to lack of on-track action and predictability of results. There’s very little to look forward to come race weekend, and that’s difficult to keep saying and admitting, especially because I love watching motorsport.
There are plans to cut costs, plus additional rules and regulatory changes planned for the next few years – hopefully Liberty Media is planning on addressing these issues. If not, F1 will continue to haemorrhage fans.