It's been a disappointing week for sportsmen and women across the province as many games had to be dropped or rescheduled because of bad weather and waterlogged fields.
It's been a disappointing week for sportsmen and women across the province as many games had to be dropped or rescheduled because of bad weather and waterlogged fields.
Local clubs and schools were among those frantically trying to reshuffle sporting events. Fortunately Grahamstown was graced with a warm, sunny day yesterday (Thursday), which allowed Kingswood College to play a cricket match against a touring side from The United Kingdom.
Kingswood took on Ethan College yesterday afternoon and Kingswood cricket coach Gregg van Molendorff told italGrocott's Mail/ital that he was grateful for the weather that enabled them “to play some kind of game against the touring side”. This was only the UK school team's second match so far, the first being against Grey College in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday.
A match against an Eastern Province side had to be cancelled as well as their scheduled match against St Andrew's College on Wednesday. The Ethan College players head off to Knysna this weekend before ending their tour in Cape Town.
In other cricket news, all Grahamstown Cricket Board (GCB) fixtures scheduled for last weekend were called off due to the heavy rains in the area. It is unclear whether the teams will have to share the points from these unplayable games, or if they will have to play at a later date.
As of yesterday the Port Alfred Country Club's field was still waterlogged and the Port Alfred Hospital ground was closed due to soil from the nearby hill tumbling onto the field. GCB country co-ordinator Barry Smith said the matches scheduled for these venues will be played elsewhere until the fields are playable.
Adverse weather conditions since last weekend also prevented any competitions from taking place at the Grahamstown Golf Club, including the Kelly Foursomes, which was scheduled for last Saturday. Club fixtures have also gone through numerous changes.
The GBS competition, originally scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday) has been postponed until Saturday 10 November. Tomorrow will be the Kenrich Lamb Day (moved from 7 November) played over a betterball stableford format. The Wimpy Golf Day will be played on 7 November.
Golf club captain Leon Claasen reported that most of the fairways are waterlogged.
Hopefully tomorrow's Sakhulutsha Soccer Development Project pre-season tournament final will give Grahamstown soccer fans what they've been waiting for. The final between City Pirates and Eleven Attackers has already been postponed twice and all involved are holding thumbs that the game on Saturday will be a case of third time lucky.
First, on 13 October, the match was postponed due to a misunderstanding between Sakhulutsha and the Makana Local Football Association on when the field times were booked. The final was again postponed last Saturday due to heavy rains. Sakhulutsha project leader Siyabonga Masinda said the final is scheduled to kick off at 3pm on Fiddlers Green.
Another Sakhulutsha Soccer Development Project league lost three days of fixtures due to the recent heavy rains. The U15 league matches last took place on Friday 12 October and Masinda said the league will continue today (Friday) with matches starting at 2pm on the Rhodes University King Field.
The DSG/St Andrew's College sports day has also been postponed twice since Thursday, 18 October, first because of rain and then because of waterlogged fields. “The unprecedented rain over this past week has really presented a challenge in terms of getting Sports Day underway,” said St Andrew's sport director Peter Andrew.
“As a last resort we are going to try and run the event next Wednesday afternoon from 2pm-6pm,” he said. “We are well aware that the matrics and Grade 10s are in the midst of exams and that this may have an impact on things.
“We do feel that we must make every effort to hold the event though, even if it is not ideal,” Andrew concluded.
See the Sports Diary below for more weekend sport action.
