Athlone safety concerns!
The momentum is building up in and around the Mother City in anticipation of what should be a cracker of a DStv Premiership clash between Cape Town City and Kaizer Chiefs at Athlone Stadium on Saturday afternoon. As excited as one is about this mouthwatering clash, based on the history between the two clubs, there’s just an unavoidable nervous feeling about this and other Grade-A matches taking place at the Cape Flats-based venue.
This feeling emanates from the simple fact that any game that involves Amakhosi in the Western Cape, regardless of their form, is guaranteed to draw huge crowds. One Western Cape match venue that always lives up to expectations in terms of accommodating a game of this magnitude, is always the Cape Town Stadium. Now the two teams will be locking horns at a venue that is over 20 000 seats less than the Fritz Sonnenberg Roadbased stadium’s capacity. The Citizens have been going all out to galvanise as much support and create awareness as possible for this clash, with their ticket give-away activations in different FNB branches.
One has strong reservations against any Orlando Pirates, Chiefs or Mamelodi Sundowns games taking place at Athlone Stadium because of the volume they attract in attendance figures. Yes, the Western Cape-based football teams don’t enjoy the luxury of having many options when it comes to bigger venues, especially with shared resources with other sporting codes like rugby, but it would be advisable to keep the “Big Three” away from Athlone and Danie Craven stadiums. Football doesn’t enjoy monopoly or priority when it comes to the Cape Town Stadium access and the use of it has to make business sense, which is an open secret. However, if we are being honest, this game should be taking place at the 55 000-capacity stadium for various reasons, one of which is the supporters’ safety!
The crowd management at Athlone almost always leaves a lot to be desired. Having been to a number of ‘high-profile’ matches at the venue, over the years, one always finds himself clenching the teeth, crossing fingers that nothing hectic happens in the sometimes-overcrowded stands. South African football has been through a lot of pain and agony, over the years, experiencing stampedes at our stadiums due to overcrowd, among other things. The last thing we want to go through again is witnessing another stampede, especially after all the hard work that has gone into putting our football on an international map and saw us becoming an envy of almost every African country. One can’t shake the feeling that Athlone is a disaster waiting to happen! God forbid, something terrible ever happen at that stadium or Danie Craven. However, it is not enough to pray for nothing to happen, as they say, “Prevention is better than cure” because we don’t need spiritual intervention to avoid stampedes, as it is something we can control. It would be wise for the powers-that-be to consider taking the big games away from the two venues for safety reasons. Rather safe than sorry, one thinks. There are safety concerns, crowd control is out of hand at times and certainly not enough capacity to accommodate big matches. These teams enjoy a huge following, everywhere they go, and they should never be made to play in small stadiums, with all due respect to the immediate communities around those venues. People’s safety is more important than the right and ability to walk across the road to get to the stadium and enjoy the game. It is for that reason one feels these stadiums should be prohibited from hosting these kinds of games, as much as they tick all the safety boxes as prescribed by the PSL.
For security reasons, one feels there are a number of safety threats that we’ve seen at the small stadiums and we have to be proactive in mitigating any potential harm to our people’s lives. When Stellenbosch FC hosted Pirates in the first leg of the MTN8 earlier this season, sitting in the media box, one couldn’t help but make a silent prayer that nothing disastrous happens on the day, looking at they way a section of supporters forced their way into the venue halfway through the game. Over a hundred supporters pushed their way into the venue in what looked like a forced entry, breaking a gate down, as they ran in their numbers to try and get a spot in an already packed section of the grandstand. There was a flurry of these guys, whether they had tickets or not is a separate issue. The bottom line is that those supporters put not only theirs but everyone else’s lives in danger. Stampedes don’t always become an overnight thing, they start with what seems to be a small transgression which later becomes a habit, after gaining momentum. People always find a way to repeat what they got away with, until it spirals completely out of hand. We have people who buy their tickets well ahead of time, get to the match venue on time only to be inconvenienced by late comers some of whom have not even bothered to buy the tickets. We saw similar scenes when Stellies hosted Chiefs at Craven, where things almost went south for our Beautiful Game. It is so easy to navigate your way in and out of these venues for Group B matches but the problem is when there is more demand, which pushes the boundaries and the scope on all fronts.
This is not just a PSL or Stadium management issue because we, as the supporters, also have to take accountability and responsibility for our own contribution in what is going on. If you don’t have a match ticket, why do you even bother going anywhere near the stadium? You should be watching the game on television because that’s the choice you made the moment you decided not to purchase a ticket. You go and create unnecessary havoc and potentially endangering someone’s life and even yours, in the process. Once again, there are huge safety concerns about Athlone and Danie when it comes to big matches. These big teams should never be allowed to play at the two venues, find a way to accommodate them somewhere else if the big stadium is not available. Yes, it is easier said than done but certainly worth every cent and time in exchange for people’s lives and their safety at our stadiums. If we continue the way things have been happening at these two venues, and our supporters not getting their act together, unfortunately we are sitting on a ticking time bomb! Let’s prevent any possible misfortune from happening because, at the rate things are going, we are really skating on thin ice!
To everyone going to Athlone, please be at your best behaviour so that we don’t expose ourselves to any potential harm. Let us learn from the past, unfortunate, stadium incidents and make sure they never happen again. That’s the only way we can rid our football of any tragic events. Let us all enjoy our Easter break, stay safe and be responsible.
It is that time when I have to be a bearer of bad news, which is an unenviable task. Due to the ever-increasing petrol price and the distribution costs, despite all the efforts to avoid it, we find ourselves in a position where we are forced to increase Soccer Laduma’s retail price to R10 with effect from next week’s edition. To make up for this unprecedented increase, we promise to make every word count and this is the only way for us to keep going, otherwise we’d be forced to close business. We really hope you understand as we bank on your unwavering support.