Today sees the final teams selected to participate in the much-anticipated annual Mayor’s Cup set to be staged at Buffalo City Stadium next Saturday.
The teams that were selected in the four zones, namely King, Mdantsane, Duncan Village, and East London will be competing in the following sporting codes; soccer, rugby sevens, table tennis, volley ball, boxing and goalball.
BCM manager of sports services Manelisi Lwana said four teams from each zone would compete in the tournament. Their scout will be on the lookout for players who will represent BCM at the Steve Vukile Tshwete Games (SVT) against other municipalities in November.
“This tournament was done by the municipality in all our 50 wards and it’s a build-up tournament to the SVT Games which will be hosted by the Department of Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture (Dsrac) and Salga (South African Local Government Association),” Lwana said.
“So every sporting code that will be participating in the Mayor’s Cup tournament will also be present at the SVT Games.
“Including all the ages, so that we have continuity and things can run smoothly in the STV Games as well,” he added.
“As you know we are a metro, like Nelson Mandela Bay and all the others are district municipalities. We need to lead by example and I can confirm that all the teams will be ready for June 16.”
Lwana said as organisers of the event, they were working together with sport federations including the BCM sport council and Dsrac.
“We are catering for the players and transporting them and federations are performing their duties on the field of play, and then they submit team lists to us. And goalball teams from Dimbaza and Mdantsane will receive full kits for the first time.
“It includes balls, and protective gear; everything they need to play the sport, because they were the gold medallists last year. So we want to encourage them by doing that.”
Lwana admitted that last year they got too excited with organising the event rather than paying attention to their teams.
“We were very busy with the hosting arrangements rather than preparing the kids, but this time round I’m also focusing on preparing the teams.
“For instance boxing has a lot of teams, but then we tried to reach all of them and so today the teams that were picked in the zones, will battle it out to be selected for the finals next week.
“Even last year the former Model C schools didn’t participate, but this year we moved the trials at Hamstech where they were comfortable going.
“So hopefully they will be included in the squads depending on the selectors, but what I like that they were given an opportunity to trial.”
Safa-BCM will today be concluding their selections at the Orlando Stadium in Mdantsane...