Last night Dylan, Danny Boy and myself headed off to Newlands a.k.a The Graveyard for a top of the table PSL clash. Pirates were on top form going into this game, having not lost in 16 outings. A new PSL record! Ajax were not far off with an impressive 10 wins from 14 games since January.
The Urban Warriors mascott and dancing girls!
The atmosphere at the stadium was fantastic, definitely one of the best ive been too in my days as a spectator. Ques to go into the stadium were well managed yet I was still amazed at the fact that your ticket purchase options were limited to that of a R40 railway stand ticket and a R60 main grandstand ticket, with no set seat being stated on your ticket. Did we not learn anything from the World Cup? Set seats are a must for high profile matches – what with 30 thousand fans plus attending every week.
My old mate from Old Mutual Academy, Mark 'scarra' Mayambela.
Once seated i became increasingly annoyed with this group of people who were seated in front of me. They kept on jumping up, taking photos and waving their flag right in front of my face at any given chance! As I’m sure all of you will agree, there is nothing worse than paying money to go watch a sports game and you end up hardly watching anything.
George Maluleka, the dynamic industrious midfielder!
Back to the game though, surprising team selection from both managers left me with some serious thinking as to why some of these changes were made! Non the less both teams put out strong sides with Ajax grabbing a strangle hold from the word go. They netted in the 26th minute of the match and missed a few clear cuts there after to take the game out of Pirates reach. Half time the score was 1-0! So far so good for the Urban Warriors.
Granwald Scott has grown in stature and maturity over the last few seasons! Noticeably so this season though!
At half time we were introduced to the new Adidas is All In campaign. As the live commentator at the game mentioned, it was their biggest brand launch/campaign EVER! Dyl’s is busy researching the campaign a bit more before doing a write up on it, but from what i saw and heard, it looks great!
The mighty "ghost" as they are affectionately known as!
The second half began with Ajax playing an increasingly attractive style of football, pressuring high up on the pitch and shifting the ball from left to right with what looked like effortless ease! 2 cracking goals in the space of 2 minutes from Ajax left them in a position I don’t think anyone would have expected. 3-0 up against ‘the ghost’ with 35 to play. WOW!
Ajax boys being put through their paces at training.
Naturally once the third goal was scored Ajax took their foot off the gas a bit and started to keep possession a bit more. They made the Pirates boys look like amateurs at their own game, chasing shadows around a perfectly prepared Newlands pitch.
S.A's hottest property at the moment, Thulani Serrero!
In my opinion there was only one team in it with George Maluleka, Khama Billiat, and Thulani Serrero the top performers on the night. All in all, a great night for cape football and an even better one for Ajax Cape Town who went top of the log after this one! Hopefully they can bring the PSL title home after its 8 year absence from the city with the last team to have won it from here being the ‘Peoples Team’, Engen Santos. DIE POPPE SAL DANS 🙂
A rather despondant looking Mashego trudges out for the second half.
What a performance! Calvi thought Brent Carelse and Decamps were also top class. Check my msg posted on Ajaxs website http://www.ajaxct.com/news.htm?article=1773.
Do you think its acceptable for them to only release there official match review at 1pm after such a big game? Especially after there CEO was complaining about poor coverage in the print media…
I really enjoyed reading your comment Wheels. Well thought out praise and constructive critism is always a good thing. Ajax were far superior on the day and the score should probably have been about 5 or 6. Coming back to your question do i think its acceptable? No I do not because like you said the players did their bit, yet the media staff have not followed this up! My review was up at 1pm, the same time as Ajax’s one on their official website. Our site is not even a football focused blog. This is the exact reason why we are looking to get involved in this sector. To not only create awareness about the players and their relative clubs, but also to allow them to gain some exposure through the ever growing online mediums! Just look at the awareness players and clubs are creating for themselves on facebook and twitter…I must say Ajax is ontop of that one but they must follow it through onto their own site.
Newlands is only known as the graveyard to chiefs supporters, also is it that hard to put your article through a spell check before posting
We all call it the graveyard. Thanks about the spel check, trying to teach the M-Xit writing generation (Calv) the ropes. Gonna have to be more strict with his posts, awe!