Remember the Name: Ronwen Williams

South African football has always been gifted with top quality goalkeepers since the national team was re-admitted into international football in 1992. The country has seen a plethora of great shot stoppers and in young Ronwen Williams, the trend of classy Bafana Bafana number ones is set to continue.

Ronwen Williams: One for the future.

Ronwen was born  on January 21, 1992, a few months before South Africa's first international encounter, where they took on Cameroon in Durban. He is originally from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape and is a product of the famed Supersport United/Tottenham Hotspurs Academy.

The Supersport United keeper broke into his club's first team during the 2010/11 season after joining the club as a 13 year old in 2005. Since those early days, Williams has made the number 1 jersey at Matsatsantsa his own, displacing the well-travelled and vastly experienced former Bafana 'keeper, Rowen Fernandez out of his position. United coach, Gavin Hunt has shown a lot of faith in young Ronwen who has been described as a natural talent with very good reflexes and a surprisingly calm nature for a young goalkeeper.

Williams won the Hot Young Player of the Year prize at the PSL Awards at the end of his 1st full season in top flight football. He beat off competition from Kaizer Chiefs' highly rated Lucky Baloyi for the accolade. Williams counts Chelsea's Petr Cech as his hero and cites ex Bafana 'keepers Emille Baron and Fernandez as his mentors.

Williams has represented South Africa at under 20 level and has been praised for his high work ethic. The current Bafana goal tender, Itumeleng Khune, who, without doubt, will soon be battling against Williams along with Wayne Sandilands and Moeneeb Josephs for the Bafana no.1 jersey, is noted as saying he is "very impressed with what he has seen of Ronwen.”

Ronwen says of himself: “I’m happy with my performance this season. But I need to improve, I still have weaknesses. Like during the game when we are leading  against Bidvest Wits at the weekend. I rush to release the ball and I must not do that sometimes. But these things come  with experience and I will learn from it game by game.”

Reflex Save: Williams denies Calvin Kadi

Williams produced a Man-of-the-Match performance in their 1-1 draw against  Bidvest Wits recently and was pretty much the reason his team not  losing the match despite playing a sizeable chunk of the game with only 9 men on the pitch. He saved a penalty from Calvin Kadi late in the game  and  made some top class saves which earned United a point.

After his recent performances there have been calls for Ronwen to be included in Gordon Igesund’s plans for the upcoming AFCON tournament on home soil and the qualifiers thereafter. “I’m always ready,” he says.  “I’ve been doing well for my team and if I’m called to play for the country, I will honour that call up. However, a call up to the national may come immediately but if his performances continue, it is certain we will be seeing Ronwen Williams in national colours.

Bafana keepers since 1992:

Mark Anderson (1992-1997: 7 caps)

Steve Crowley (1993-1995: 20 caps)

 Roger de Sa (1993: 1 cap)

Wade du Plessis (1994-1995: 2 caps)

Andre Arendse (1995-2004: 67 caps)

Brian Baloyi (1997-2008: 24 caps)

Simon Gopane (1998: 1 cap)

Hans Vonk (1998-2005: 43 caps)

John Tlale (1999-2002: 8 caps)

Calvin Marlin (2002-2009: 16 caps)

Emile Baron (Debut: 2002- 6 caps)

 Moneeb Josephs (2003-2012: 22 caps)

Wayne Roberts (2003: 1 cap)

Rowen Fernandez (Debut: 2003- 23 caps)

Thabang Radebe (2005: 1 cap)

Itumeleng Khune(2008-2012: 48 caps)

Wayne Sandilands (2011-2012: 2 caps)

The Amazing Story of Ali Dia.

Ali Dia: A legend in his own right

You may have never heard of him and if you had to run a quick Google search on him, what you would find is his name listed as the worst Premiership signing ever but Ali Dia probably has the most fascinating or funny story of all footballers who have played in the English Premiership. Mainly because he isn't a footballer.

Ali Dia dreamed of becoming a pro footballer. So while most footballers dreams come true after countless hours spent on the training ground as kids and a lot of technical and strength training and whatever else it takes to become a pro, all it took for Ali Dia's dream to come true was a very convincing phone call.

See, Ali Dia got a mate of his to ring up then Southampton manager Graeme Souness pretending to an agent. The friend somehow duped Souness into believing that Ali Dia was in fact an accomplished footballer who had scored an impressive amount of goals for PSG in the French League in the previous season and was in fact former Liberian striker George Weah's cousin. Where did they con Souness? The big prize was that Ali Dia, the lethal striker, would available on a free transfer. Souness lapped this story up and Ali Dia was offered a one month contract at the Saints on a trial basis. 

Ali Dia in his one and only game for the Saints

Now at some point in my reckoning, I would think that they would have caught him out at training or something like that. But the lie continued as Ali Dia was scheduled to play in a trial match, but one that had to be cancelled due to a stroke of good fortune (on his side) and a waterlogged pitch. By accounts of former Southampton players who trained with him, Ali Dia was awful, but Souness inexplicably persisted with him. Ali Dia played in his Southampton debut in a Premier League game against Leeds United in 1996. Thirty-three minutes into the game and Saints legend Matt Le Tissier had to be replaced. Enter Ali Dia. To the shock, horror and astonishment of the Southampton players, Souness put his faith in Ali Dia in the number 33 jersey. Twenty minutes later Ali Dia was back on the bench. In that time he proved out on the park that he was hopelessly out of his depth and nothing like what he had been described as in the phone call, at one point he missed a shot at an open goal because of poor ball control. There, in front of a packed stadium at The Dell, Ali Dia showed that he was a fraud. Needless to say, he never played for Southampton or in the Premiership again. Ali Dia went on to play for a few clubs in the lower leagues, never attaining any level of success before quitting and focussing on an academic career.

I cannot imagine how Saints fans feel about being associated with the one of the greatest cons of the professional game. I wonder how Graeme Souness feels about it too. It has the plot of an episode of MTV’s Punk’d, to me it sounds like a funny story of a man who was dared by a drunken mate in a pub to prank Souness and see how far they could go with it. The Southampton fans are known to chant “Ali Dia is a liar” from time to time. Today, I reckon Ali Dia should have a place in sporting folklore. Whatever you think of him, nobody can take away the fact that at one point in his life, Ali Dia was a premiership footballer. He got to live his dream.

Remember The Name: part 1 - The heir to Boucher's Throne.

At the moment, the South African cricket team does not have a specialist wicketkeeper. AB de Villiers, one of the Proteas' more accomplished fielders has been entrusted with the responsibility of the gloves while being expected to continue performing with the bat.

It is quite a farcical situation considering that a specialist 'keeper in Thami Tsolekile is waiting in reserve. The only reason that I can come up with as to why Tsolekile hasn’t yet found himself in the XI is that perhaps his batting could be deemed as suspect and I don’t suppose the South African selectors would have wanted to expose him to a bowling attack as proficient as England’s during the tour of England a few months back. The real toss up for the selectors right now is JP Duminy’s batting versus that of Tsolekile. Duminy averages 37, 57 runs per innings in Tests and 51 in First Class matches compared to Tsolekile’s 9, 40 in Tests and 29, 01 in all First Class games; granted Duminy has played in thirteen more Tests. But at some point, the selectors will realise that they do in fact need a specialist wicketkeeper and right now that solution is Tsolekile. However considering that Tsolekile is in his thirties and only a few years younger than the previous keeper, Mark Boucher, even he cannot be regarded as a long term fixture behind the stumps. So who will the SA selectors turn to?

CLT20: De Kock celebrates after making 50 against the Mumbai Indians

I am putting my money on young Highveld Lions keeper/batsman Quinton de Kock. He is 19 and in his breakthrough season of professional cricket. Initially, he was a highly thought of gloveman who was handy with the bat but since the days of his early promise, de Kock has proven that he is as good in behind the stumps as he is with bat in hand. The left-handed batsman starred for the SA u19 cricket team at the World Cup played in Australia earlier this year where he made 284 runs in 6 matches at an average of 47,33 and an impressive strike rate of 102,52. De Kock has been a regular in the senior set-up at Gauteng cricket since 2009 where he made his debut as a 16 year old representing the Gauteng senior amateur side in a game against Border. He has been most impressive in First Class cricket where he has amassed 1209 runs in 14 matches at an average of 63, 63 and most remarkably in that time he has already scored 4 centuries with his highest score of 194 scored earlier this season against the Cape Cobras. De Kock seems like the real deal. He has been a consistent and quality performer in all 3 formats of the game and he is an attacking batsman as his strike rate of almost 88 in first class cricket suggests and a powerful striker of the ball, in the mould of Adam Gilchrist. 

Tidy Glovework.

Mark Boucher was able to stand alone as South Africa’s wicketkeeper without any pretenders to his throne or anyone mounting a serious challenge for the wicketkeeper’s spot for 15 years apart from Tsolekile who knocked him off his perch for a brief period in 2004. The reality of it is that there isn’t a shortage of skilled or talented ‘keepers playing the domestic game, all you have to do is cast a glance at the list of ‘keepers playing in SA: Morne van Wyk, Davy Jacobs, and Daryn Smit etc… But I reckon de Kock would have the edge over anybody else because quite simply he is young and could have the same opportunity as mark Boucher to grow in the role of being the Proteas gloveman, and, if given the choice, the decision makers, I think, would want someone who is a quality performer and one who would be able to make the position his own and remained settled in that spot for a long period of time. If this is so then de Kock is their man. Remember the name Quinton de Kock. You’re gonna be hearing it a lot soon.

Rugby Goes To Soweto? Come off it, man!

So all through last week, all I was hearing about the Test match between South Africa versus New Zealand was the buzz. Rugby goes to Soweto. Sure, the FNB Stadium might be in the vicinity of Soweto, although some might argue that point too, but the Test was misrepresented as a rugby match for the people of Soweto.

Well, from what I saw of the crowd, it didn't look any different to the crowd you find at Newlands or Loftus Versfeld. I don't mind that the game was at the FNB Stadium, but I do have a gripe with the way this fixture it was marketed. The Springboks versus All Blacks game is the biggest game of the year and probably one of only a handful of rugby internationals that can pull a crowd of over eighty thousand. So very clearly, the biggest sporting arena in the land for the biggest rugby game in the land is all about the money. Hey, we already know this, you don't have to say it explicitly but don't shove horse shit down our throats and tell us it tastes like candy.

The game had nothing to do with the people of Soweto. Sure, there were a set number of tickets allocated for Soweto residents only, but the fact that the tickets were priced at R250 a shot disqualifies so many from going to the game and watching their national rugby team on their front doorstep, especially when u think about the only other game that fills up the FNB Stadium, the Soweto Derby where the tickets are priced at R40 a shot. It cannot be any clearer.

If the rugby people in suits wanted the people of Soweto to come out and enjoy the rugby, they wouldn't have set the price so high. They can tell us about costs and whatever else, but this game was all about large profit margins. For R250, me and 5 of my mates could go and enjoy the game and have an awesome day out. For the same amount, only one of us can go to the rugby.

When Kings of Leon and U2 perform at Soccer City, they don’t crow about rock music coming to Soweto coz they know we know better. I realise there are so many stakeholders involved in this venture and marketing it the way it was probably benefits a lot more than just the rugby suits and it paints a rosy picture politically, but if you want to market it as a game in Soweto for the people of Soweto, play ball. Make it affordable for the average Sowetan. Simple.