The XP is new in the field but already winning big
The five aside football facility is determined to take sports to another level.
The XP Arena opened its doors in March 2022, but already the facility’s making major strides both on the sports field and in the community.
Alexander Stothard from XP Arena said they are a five-aside football facility based in Magaliessig. They chose to open the facility in the area because they wanted the facility to be central, as the surrounding areas are Fourways, Bryanston, Lonehill and Paulshof.
“Five aside football is football on a smaller scale. It was developed for the fitness side of things and adapted by another game called futsal. The field is surrounded by netting so the ball never goes out for the duration of the 40-minute game.”
Middle: Richard Faasen, Shakeel Kidd, Michael Faasen.
Front: Craig Rapson
Stothard said they have a kids football programme that has over 100 kids in it. The programme is run by Nicholas Stothard who is a UEFA A licenced coach.
Nicholas is also the head coach of the University of Pretoria Varsity Cup team. Alexander said Nicholas does not coach the kids, the director of football who instructs the coaches on how to coach the kids.
The arena also has social adults leagues that run during the week.
“The adult league starts from 16 years old, we have a wide variety of different ages for different teams, whoever wants to play will apply on our website and will get entered into the league. You come with you team so most of the time it is guys who are playing with friends against other teams. This creates a fun environment for them to stay active, play the sport they love and also have that competitive edge,” said Alexandra.
“We run tournaments often as well which see winners usually walk away with over R10 000. We recently had a semi professional league running for 15 weeks which saw the winners grab R26 500. We will be adding two more five aside fields to the facility before middle of the year as well as replacing the old Astro turf with new Astro turf.”
Alexander is a former player for SuperSport United and Amatuks. He said he wanted to provide a facility to help develop football in South Africa whether it is only for football lovers who want social aspect or for children to develop their skills to one day become professionals.
He credits himself, Nicholas Stothard and Rory Bloy for coming up with the concept and putting words into action, “We have a dream of opening another three of these facilities around South Africa.”
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