While the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic were prevalent throughout last year, Young Bafana Soccer Academy continued to grow thanks to the continued support of its sponsors, parents and players.
The celebrated its achievements for 2021 at its end-of-year function at its newly built football arena in Lwandle on Saturday 4 December.
The event was attended by parents and players from the both the high performance and social teams of the academy.
With the completion of the new facility, the management and staff took the opportunity to host the event at the state-of the-art arena and introduce players and their families to their new training ground.
Young Bafana hopes to move all its training sessions and matches to the new facility as soon as the newly planted fields are ready for play, which should be early this year.
The function’s proceedings opened with a musical tribute and was followed by speeches from Young Bafana founder Bernd Steinhage and Young Bafana technical director and under-16 coach Carlo Kreiling.
A special tribute was delivered by Young Bafana’s top academic achiever Hlonela Sitenge, who honoured outgoing under-14 coach Graham Knott. He will be handing over his coaching duties to newly appointed under-14 coach Sikelela Ndlovu, as he will be focusing on tasks off the pitch.
This was followed by the prize-giving event, which saw players from the high performance and social teams receive medals and trophies for their achievements throughout the year.
Once the formalities were concluded, everyone enjoyed burgers and fries prepared by Café Racer, and the day ended with friendly soccer matches between the Young Bafana coaches, parents and players.
To end the year, the Young Bafana Charity Ride took place at the Lourensford MTB trails on Saturday 11 December.
The trails are maintained and run by Clay Pigeon Adventures, which hosted the event along with The Hanger Bike Co end-of-year ride.
The 100 participating riders went up to the Young Bafana sponsored trail, whereafter they enjoyed beers and boerewors rolls, and Steinhage spoke about the progress of the organisation and their future plans.
Young Bafana plans to host the ride bi-annually or every quarter. The club thanked all their sponsors and the community for their continued support throughout 2021.
Registration for the Young Bafana skills based social training programme, Young Bafana Stars, is now open.
V Interested parties can contact Christalla on 082 701 2319 or christalla@youngbafana.com for further information.
