SEDIBENG.- With August being known as Women’s Month, TOUCHLINE wants to use this opportunity to pay homage to the less celebrated women in our community.

These are just ordinary women, but the impact they have made in their communities can’t be ignored.

In most cases when it is Women’s Day or Women’s Month, we only celebrate those women that we see on television or who are involved in politics. The question is, what about those ordinary women who are pillars of our community despite their status in our society?

TOUCHLINE wishes to acknowledge women such as Bo Mme Ma-Mokete, and Mathwala for raising me while growing up in Evaton. The above-mentioned women used to spend time watching us playing soccer because they were not staying far from the soccer grounds that we used.

I don’t remember my parents coming to watch me play football regardless of my talent but the two women would tell my parents how talented I was. This was during those days when the whole community would pack the dusty grounds to capacity to watch the games from the D division until the first team.

However, today the community packs the grounds to capacity when there is a tournament. In the past, the community would come to watch only two teams play against each other with there being D, C, A Two, and first-team divisions.

I can still remember, as if it were yesterday how the community used to pack the Evaton Ocean Star FC ground to capacity to watch the above-mentioned divisions. The two women and others would watch all our divisions playing.

I was very young, playing for the D division and they would cheer me up, calling my nickname, “The Great, The Great”, behind the poles when I was on the ball until I was promoted to the first team. They were pillars of strength to many of us who played for that legendary club.

Like other kids, I could have ended up doing crime and drugs but thanks to women like Mme Ma-Mokete and Ma-Thwala here am I. These women were just ordinary people in our community but the role they played in our lives was and still is, to this day, there for everyone to see.

TOUCHLINE knows that they were not aware of the role they played to many of the youngsters in the community because to them it was normal to look after every child in the streets.

We must ALL go back to our communities to thank the ordinary women for raising us to be the men and women we are today. When I visited Evaton Central my heart bleeds because that legendary football club no longer exists. This is the very same team that made me the person I am today.

THANKS also to Ntate Zungu who was our Preza (President). May his soul rest in peace