In Division 1, Warriors took a decisive step towards the championship by winning at Atletico 3-2 and opening a 6 points margin with 1 game more. Global closed on Atletico by winning 5-3 vs Lenasia.

Crusaders and Panorama remained at the bottom withe Lenasia after losing 6-2 to Highlands and 4-3 to Happy Deals.

In Division 2, four teams are close to each other at the top due to Highlands losing at thome to Randburg 4-3.

Other results:

Old Park 1 – Randfontein 2-4

Drunken Pandas – Warriors 2-1

The exciting cup draw took place tonight in the presence of the 4 managers that joined us on Zoom.

Champions cup: (the “champions league” cup)

First round (21.09)

Q1: Drunken Pandas vs Joburg Atletico at Discovery
Q2: Global United vs Highlands Park B at Panorama
Q3: Florida Albion vs Happy Deals at Florida’s home grounds
Q4: Warriors 1 vs Old Parks at Discovery

Semifinals: (28.09)

Winner Q1 vs Winner Q2, Q2 to play at home (so winner Global vs Highlands)
Winner Q3 vs Winner Q4, Q3 to play at home (so winner Florida vs Happy Deals)

Final: 05.10 at Panorama

Challengers Cup: (the “europa league” cup)

Preliminary Round (19.09)

Sandton Warriors vs Randfontein at Discovery

First round: (21.09)

Q1: Old Parks 2 vs Panorama at Old Parks
Q2: GPMI Vets vs Highlands Park A at GPMI’s home grounds
Q3: Crusaders vs Randburg at Crusaders; home grounds
Q4: Lenasia vs winner of Sandton Warrios v Randontein at Lenasia’s home grounds

Semifinals: (28.09)

Winner Q1 vs Winner Q2 , Q1 to play at home (so winner Old Parks 2 vs Panorama)
Winner Q3 vs Winner Q4 , Q3 to play at home (so winner Crusaders vs Randburg)

Final: 05.10 at Panorama

Rules:

80 minutes game, no extra time, straight to penalties
League rules for yellow cards: 10 minutes sin-bin (please always discuss with the referee before hand that we are using sin-bins in case they forgot!). Red cards are only used in extreme cases and they need to be discussed by the committee (with a risk of the team getting penalized), honestly I hope sin bins are enough to cool players off.

NO UNDER 35. Bring your IDs or a copy of the IDs. If a team gets caught with under 35 players will be penalised and eventually expelled from the league (and you won’t be able to ask for your money back).
In the cup, before the game, any team can ask players of the opposite team to show proof of age. _If no ID is provided (or if the player is under 35), then the player cannot play that night and for the rest of the season. Guys, don’t cheat. If some of your guys are under 35, do not let them play, as simple as that.

Referees: currently it’s still up to the home team to provide and pay for fields and referees (apart from the final), hence the home/away draw that followed the main draw. If we can somehow manage to provide neutral referees for the 1st round and semifinals, we will let everyone know. But please understand that is quite difficult to convince referees to drive far away from their comfort areas (which means someone needs to pay for transportation).

If one of the 4 teams in the finals are also involved in the play-out for promotion / relegation (so currently would be Crusaders and Drunken Pandas , 3rd from the bottom Div 1 and 3rd from the top Div 2), then the playout gets played the 12th of October. If not it gets played at Panorama the same night of the other finals (05.10).

This means that the summer league will officially start the 19th of October, which will give us a week to prepare for the new season (calendars etc..).

All the finals are played at the same venue (Panorama has generator so load shedding won’t be a problem) with the cup lifting ceremony happening as soon as the finals are over.

Last night the committee had a meeting to discuss things going further, and to answer some questions that were asked.

Promotions / Relegations: Bottom 2 teams of Division 1 will be automatically relegated. Top 2 od Division 2 will be automatically promoted. 3rd from the bottom Division 1 will face 3rd from the top Division 2 for the last promotion spot. So for example, if the standings stay the same, Panorama and Lenasia would get relegated, Highlands Park B and Old Parks woukld get promoted, and Crusader would face Drunken Pandas for the last spot.

The last round for Division 1 will be the 7th of September, and for Division 2 will be the 14th of September (calendars are out of sync because Division 1 has 8 teams after Leeds left earlier in the season).

We passed the half point of the season. From now on, all the games that have not been played in the first round will be 6 pointers. UNLESS an agreement has been made between the two teams to play on a different date (monday / friday / whatever) (which supersede the league rules, we want teams to play rather and we are all adults so if there is a will there is a way). Again, we would rather have teams play against each other if there is still a chance rather than start giving 3-0 forfeits left and right.

During the current season, we reached a gentlemen agreement so if an away team cancels the scheduled game, the return game will be a 6 pointers still played at the original ground. For example Panorama was supposed to play Lenasia at Robertsham but because of a funeral they couldn’t make it. So it was agreed that the return leg would still be played at Lenasia’s home ground for 6 points. The same happened with Highlands A, they were supposed to play Panorama at the Panorama’s ground, but they cancelled it, so the return leg will still be played there. This is to cover the costs for late cancellations (referees, grounds, transport) so they can be re-used in the next leg, and to avoid tactical cancellations for the away team trying to sneak a 6 pointers at home. I think it is a fair agreement.

After that the cups will be played. There will be two cups: the Champions Cup and the Challengers Cup (temporary names, sorry, you can call them how you want at the moment).

Champions Cup: top 4 teams from Division 1, top 4 teams from Division 2.
Challengers Cup: bottom 4 teams from Division 1, bottom 5 teams from Division 2

Formula: quarter finals, semifinals and final. No extra time, straight to penalties.

Draw: We will have a live draw next tuesday. A link will be sent to watch it if you want to. It won’t take long.

Pool A (top current 4 teams Division 1) will face teams from Pool B (top current 4 teams Division 2). Home ground will be also randomly decided.
Pool C (top bottom 4 teams Division 1) will face teams fomr Pool D (bottom 5 teams division 2). Home ground will be also randomly decided.

Since Pool D has 5 teams, an additional draw will be made to decided which 2 teams will have to play an extra game to enter the main draw.

Dates: 19th of September (it’s a monday) for the extra playoff game. We want to start Summer League in early October so we cannot dedicate a full week for one game, sorry. We will need a result, so if one of the team cannot make, it will be a walkover. If both teams cannot make it, the result in the double leg in the winter league will be taken into consideration.
Quarter finals: 21st of September
Semi finals: 28th of September
Finals: 5th of of October

We are trying to organize all the finals on one venue. It will be easier for the cup giving ceremony. The idea is to have Champions final, Challengers final and the promotion play off. Obviously if one of the teams involved in the promotion play off is also playing in a final, this will be postponed (as long as it gets played before the summer league starts, so the calendars can be made in time, take few days to work out the kinks).

Payments: 11 out of 17 teams confirmed payments. The other 6 teams will be contacted individually. We need all of them to pay up or at least to make an effort / have a plan in order to allow them to keep playing in the league. Also the money will be used towards the prize giving awards at the end of the year (medals etc..).

Summer League: currently the idea is to start the 12th of October, as early as possible, since we have a long break in December. There is a chance some team from the previous seasons will re-join the league. If this happens, they will go straight to Division 1 in order to keep both leagues at 9 teams and simplify the calendars. Obviously the calendars can only be created once we know the promoted / relegated teams.

This is all, thank you.

In division 1, Warriors (3-0 against Crusaders), Atletico (2-1 vs Panorama) and Global (4-1 vs Highlands) increased the gap with the rest of the league. Happy Deals climbed to 4th with a 5-1 win at Lenasia.

In division 2 , Drunken Pandas, Old Parks and Highland Parks B all won, leaving Florida in 4th place.

Full results:

Randburg – Randfontein 4-4

Highlands Parks – GPMI 4-2

Florida – Drunken Pandas 0-1

Warriors 2 – Old Parks 1 2-3

Only 2 games played in division 1: Warrios beat Lenasia 10-2, consolidating their spot on top, and Global closed to the gap to Atletico with a 3-1 win away at Crusaders.

In Division 2 Highlands Park B jumped on top with a 3-2 win away at Randfontein, while Florida passed Old Parks 1 in second spot by winning against them 3-1

The other two games saw Warriors and Ranburg sharing a point with a 2-2 draw, and Drunken Pandas staying at 4th with a 4-1 win against Old Park 2

Division 1:

Thanks to a 3-1 win away at Lenasia, Joburg Atletico reduced the gap from Warriors (dropping the first points with a 2-2 vs Highlands Park A) to 1 point.

Happy Deals won 5-1 against Crusaders while Global beat Panorama 5-0

Division 2:

Highlands Park B missed a chance to go to the top with a 4-4 draw vs Sandton Warriors (the Old Park derby was postponed because of load shedding).

Florida won 1-0 at Randburg, edging towards the top, while Randfontein beat GPMI 7-0

Another round ruined by the crippling load shedding.

In division 1 Joburg Atletico beat Crusaders 5-0

In division 2 Ranburg won 9-1 at Old Parks 2, Florida and Highlands Park drew 1-1, Warriors and Randfontein also drew 3-3 while Drunken Pandas beat GPMI 3-1

In Division 1, Joburg Atletico beat Global 2-1, while Panorama, in a catch-up game, recorded the first points on the table with a 3-2 win against Happy Deals. In the only other game played, Lenasia and Highlands Park battled it to a 2-2 draw.

In Division 2 Old Parks dropped some points at the top by drawing to Drunken Pandas 2-2. Highands got closer to the top with a 4-1 win against Old Parks 2. Florida beat Randfontein away 4-1 while Warriors won 5-3 against GPMI

In Division 1, Panorama remained at the bottom after Warriors beat them 5-2

Division 2 results:

Old Parks 2 Randfontein 2-4

Drunken Pandas – Randburg 4-4

Sandton Warriors – Florida Albion 2-2

Old Parks – GPMI 5-1

Due to inclement weather and public holidays no game were played in Division 1.

In division 2 Highlands beat Drunken Pandas 2-1 and Florida beat GPMI 4-2. Old Parks maintened the position at top with a 2-1 win at Randburg