Thabo Thukuthezi, coach of the newly promoted Sasol League outfit Goal Hunters Ladies, has seen many players come and go since the birth of the club in 2011.
One aspect he highlighted which remained constant throughout the last decade is this “blueprint for success”.
Thukuthezi highlighted that patience was also one key aspect and that he lives by the old adage ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ as he was vindicated when he won the Western Cape Provincial playoff on Sunday in the Cape Winelands.
“It’s 11 years now that we are competing in the Regional Women’s League as we preached that Rome was not built in a day,” Thukuthezi explained to No Bones with Jones. “It took us years but we knew we had to be patient as our time would come. We saw it coming after we finished second last season, missing out by 1 point.
“That’s when I told myself that 2023 will be our year where we win promotion to the Sasol League – and now we did exactly that. My target for this season was to finish it off early and my girls did it with 6 points.
“They were dedicated and working hard and I am so proud of them. I want to tell their parents to support them even more going forward as I expect bigger things to come from them.
“As we look ahead to the future we are appealing for support from parents, the community of Khayelitsha and other businesses and stakeholders for support as we are a community club and along with our Khayelitsha LFA we hope that we will get support,” the coach added.
Thukuthezi emphasized that as important as it was for him not to lose sight of the end goal, so too was it equally important for him to create alternatives and to ensure that young talent gets nurtured and developed.
According to Mooki, as Thukuthezi is commonly known, he had to continue rebuilding his squad in order to reach their goal.
“Like 85% of the team is still under-19 and they only started playing competitive football from last year,” Thukuthezi stated. “l recruited them from another Program here in Khayelitsha called Ikasi school program which is another project to create avenues for talented players to shine.”
After winning promotion from the Development Regional Women’s League to Regional Women’s League in 2012, the Khayelitsha-based outfit has had its fair share of challenges – on and off the field.
Thukuthezi maintains it is important to create role models so that the rest of the community has something to strive for.
“Especially for young girls, there are no real and proper role models to look up to as there are many challenges,” he added. “Besides alcohol and drug abuse, teenage pregnancies have become a worrisome factor in our community.
“Even at some point, the community didn’t want to accept that women can play football. You will hear people call the young girls names because they associate them with football and I found this very strange and very sad, you know.”
Mbekweni Sundowns Ladies from Paarl is the other team promoted to the Sasol League for 2024.
