A decision to focus on local clubs proved a masterstroke as it generated an electric atmosphere when the SPAR Nafa Easter Soccer Festival drew to a climax in Port Elizabeth on Monday.<\/p>\n
This was the view of Northern Areas Football Association media liaison officer Vincent Heynes after Park United defeated Nafa premier league rivals Bloom Callies 1-0 in a tense final.<\/p>\n
In hosting the 45th edition of the tournament, Heynes said they had decided not to invite out-of-town teams this year, opting to give more local clubs a chance to compete in the popular event.<\/p>\n
“The local support for the teams was incredible and this is probably the primary reason for the outstanding spectator involvement over the weekend,” said Heynes.<\/p>\n
“In terms of support and atmosphere, this year’s event probably ranks as the best in recent times, making it another huge success.<\/p>\n
“The rebranding of the event as a festival was apt because, besides the soccer, the food stalls and entertainment throughout the weekend contributed to a carnival environment.”<\/p>\n
Heynes said the decision to continue with the age-group competitions from U10 to U20 was another major boost.<\/p>\n
“Parents and families are very important to Nafa and the inclusion of all the junior divisions attracts so much attention.<\/p>\n
“The enthusiasm of parents and spectators was clearly reflected in their high level of vocal support. It creates such a buzz and it gives so much value to the entire event.”<\/p>\n
The organising body would continue to look at ways of improving the weekend’s offering, he said.<\/p>\n
“Next year we will look to include a women’s section and we also want to add more life-skills programmes for the juniors and more coaching clinics.”<\/p>\n
Heynes added that there had been a big improvement in the standard of play this year.<\/p>\n
“Teams seemed to have moved up a notch as they appeared to be fitter and stronger.<\/p>\n
“Although played in windy conditions, the final was a competitive affair between two teams based in close proximity to each other.”<\/p>\n
An interesting match-up, he said, was the clash between Park United and defending champions Sibanye in the semifinals.<\/p>\n
“Sibanye defeated Park United in the final last year so this year’s winners gained a bit of revenge by taking this clash 2-1.<\/p>\n
“This came courtesy of a Sibanye own goal after the teams were deadlocked at 1-1 with only a few minutes remaining.”<\/p>\n
Heynes said there was also the unusual occurrence of a place in the quarterfinals being decided by a draw.<\/p>\n
“This was all part of the rules where Malabar rivals Shamrocks and Ramblers could not be separated in relation to their points, head-to-head result, goal difference, goals scored and goals against,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It was a first in the 45-year history of the tournament, with Ramblers going through after being drawn from a bowl.”<\/p>\n
He also mentioned the significant progress made by Stardrift, illustrating the importance of providing opportunities to local clubs.<\/p>\n
“They have participated in this event for 25 consecutive years and have never made it to the knockout stages,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This year they reached the semifinals in their best performance at the event, so that was really encouraging to see.”<\/p>\n
The Nafa official paid tribute to the significant role title sponsors SPAR played in the tournament.<\/p>\n
“Their contribution is extremely important and we would not be able to host as successful an event without their support,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They are closely involved in all aspects of the tournament and this all adds to the prestige of the whole package.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A decision to focus on local clubs proved a masterstroke as it generated an electric atmosphere when the SPAR Nafa Easter Soccer Festival drew to a climax in Port Elizabeth on Monday. This was the view of Northern Areas Football Association media liaison officer Vincent Heynes after Park United defeated Nafa premier league rivals Bloom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":58746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3398,3397,3399,3385,1759],"class_list":["post-17250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-bloom-callies","tag-nafa-festival","tag-park-united","tag-soccer-festival","tag-spar-eastern-cape"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}