Two of the Mother City’s top First Division clubs, FC Cape Town and Ikapa Sporting, as well as Witbank’s Mpumalanga Black Aces, are the next batch of lower League clubs through to the Last 32 at the expense of Dynamos, Witbank Spurs and Ga-Rankuwa United, respectively.
Despite having much of the possession, Dynamos battled to find the back of the net at the Lulekani Stadium, and when the visitors scored the only goal of the game through a late Francois Adams’ header, the home team and all their dedicated supporters was left severely stunned.
Chairman Pat Malabela spent a frustrating afternoon on the bench trying to advise his coach, but in the end, Lady Luck evaded the Inland Stream promotion hopefuls.
“There is a nice spirit in the camp now, we are going through a good patch,” says Cape Town’s coach, Johnny Ferreira. “We scored from a free-kick on the corner spot. It was our sixth or seventh successful set-piece of recent times, whereas last year we didn’t score from one.
“I left out superstar Morne Davids, which didn’t go down well with some of them, but that is life. I also didn’t play Zeka Karkee, who is a regular, so I took a bit of a gamble. However, it paid off in the end. It was a great win because this is the first time we have gone beyond round one in the cup. And this was our first win in three years against Dynamos.”
In the second five-goal thriller in two days of typical knockout cup football, Ikapa came from behind to defeat Spurs at the Ackerville Stadium after Dikotsi Ntho had given the Witbank side a first half lead.
However, Sergio dos Santos’ side threw caution to the wind, equalised through Kurt Lentjies, which eventually forced extra time and during this period Warren Budde, the former Hellenic striker, netted the all-important goal in Ikapa’s 3-2 win.
“What a game! My boys were unbelievable, it was an incredible performance,” said an ecstatic and highly emotional Dos Santos after the match. “Spurs’ first goal was blatantly offside by at least ten metres, and then one of my players was sent off for chirping the linesman when the guy broke through again because of another offside.
“But the important thing is that we did the business and are looking forward to the next round. I hope to draw a lower team so we can get through to the last sixteen. Then you can even bring my old club, Kaizer Chiefs, we don’t mind.”
At the Caledonian Stadium, Amazayoni head coach Kenny Ndlazi came face-to-face with his former team Ga-Rankuwa United, and together with Aces’ fanatical fans – many of whom were wearing their traditional Blue and White and carrying their bibles – inspired his team to a well-deserved victory. The score was 1-0.
