Dube Birds are back in top flight football
ALEXANDRA – The Dube Birds are back in premiership football of the Premier Soccer League.
Remember the Beautiful Dube Birds as Moroka Swallows were fondly known to their avid fans, well if you do, you will be happy to know that they are back in the Premier Soccer League.
Known as Swallows FC in the GladAfrica Championship, the Dube Birds, nicknamed after their home base in Dube, Soweto, have been crowned champions of the former National First Division after the resumption of the stalled league due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Just more than a year ago, the GladAfrica Group entered into a five-year partnership agreement with the Premier Soccer League to be the title sponsor of the second-tier professional football league in South Africa.
“It gives us immense pleasure to be part of the crowning of the first-ever champions of this exciting league. The fact that the crowning of the champions had to go down to the wire bears testimony to the competitive nature of the league in the past season,” said GladAfrica Group chairperson Noel Mashaba during the crowning and handover of the trophy to the champions on 29 August.
“Both the top two finishers had to sweat it out until the final whistle, making for a thrilling close of the season and a display of an exciting brand of football.”
Premier Soccer League chairperson Dr Irvin ‘Iron Duke’ Khoza also welcomed Swallows back to the fold of the league and wished them well. “The league will provide them with all the necessary support that is always afforded newbies of the league,” he added.
Swallows were relegated from the Absa Premiership six years ago in the 2014/15 season and after one season in the National First Division, they were further relegated to the ABC Motsepe League and eventually to the SAB League.
The once-mighty Swallows whose slogan was ‘Don’t follow me – follow the Birds’, have a colourful history in South African football after being formed on 10 October 1947 and occupied the epicentre of SA football.
They formed the original Soweto derby with Orlando Pirates before the emergence of Kaizer Chiefs in 1970, as a result of the breakaway from Pirates of founder Kaizer ‘Chincha Guluva’ Motaung to form the revered Soweto Glamour Boys as Chiefs became known to their faithful.
The emergence of Chiefs relegated Swallows to the back seat, handing the fierce rivalry between the Dube Birds and the Buccaneers to Abafana Bokuthula Noxolo. Swallows’ return to top-flight football will rekindle the old memories and only time will tell whether they will survive their maiden season after the six-year hiatus.
