Stadium’s dilapidated state pains local coach

BLYVOOR Stadium which has produced soccer stars such as Bafana Bafana and Kaizer Chiefs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune and former Orlando Pirates midfielder Tebogo Mashaba is not even a picture of its former self.

The change rooms, a VIP suite, scoreboard and trading stalls have been completely stripped by illegal miners who sell easy pickings metal for scrap.

Taps inside the public toilets and parts of the roof covering the grandstand have been removed. The grass on the three fields is burnt with only the cycling track and portions of the grandstand still visible.

For decades the stadium hosted soccer and rugby tournaments becoming a favourite spot of entertainment for the villagers.

Blyvooruitzicht Gold Mine owned the three fields for use by its employees and their children.

They established rugby, soccer, athletics and netball teams which the company sponsored.

“Jomo Sono used to come here to scout for young talent. We had good players that competed in the Premier Soccer League. Khune, when he was 12 years old, used to play with us on this field while visiting his dad here, until me and his father took him to Chiefs in Johannesburg,” reminisces Johannes “Shuffle” Matsemele.

Matsemele arrived in Blyvoor in 1979 and worked as a rock mechanic until the company closed in 2013.

He played for the company’s soccer team and later became its coach, a job he is still holding with local boys and girls’ soccer teams.

When the mine closed down, the stadium became a target of illegal miners who operated on abandoned shafts in the area.

“I tried to protect this place. I would chase [them] away but it later became dangerous because [they] started arming themselves.”