School Holiday Programme Final Tournament

With the holiday camps at an end, it was time for the big tournament where the final teams from all four camps went against each other. Saturday the 10th July was the perfect day for this as the final of the World Cup was held the following day. It was also the day that the last World Cup game would be hosted in Port Elizabeth where we would be taking our last group of selected kids .This big event was a celebration of the success of the holiday programme and it joined together the kids from all the different locations that had hosted our camps including New Brighton, Kwazakhele, Zwide, Soweto, Missionvale, Langa and Motherwell.

Eight teams took part in the tournament, which was held at the Raymond Mhlaba Indoor Sports Centre in Motherwell. Later that day, Germany was playing Uruguay at the stadium in Port Elizabeth for the 3rd/4th place play-off and 5 kids were given tickets to attend the game, together with some of the staff. Honouring this tournament were officials from our local government as well as the German government represented by Interior Affairs and Sports Minister of Lower Saxony Province Mr Uwe Schűnemann. The Eastern Cape MEC for Sport, Recreation, Arts & Culture, Xoliswa Tom, was also in attendance and addressed the crowd to talk about the importance of working with and developing children.

The opening ceremony for this tournament was quite a sight. The kids sang both the German anthem as well as the South African anthem followed by a few words from the officials. There was a lot of excitement as the opening game was Germany V’s South Africa with Mr Schűnemann and his entourage very vocal in their support of Germany and the rest of the crowd backing Bafana. The other teams put together were South Africa, Spain, Holland, Italy, England, Brazil and Argentina.

With a very high team spirit on the day, Brazil was the winner of the tournament, a team from the Motherwell holiday camp. It could have been that they had the home ground advantage but they excitedly walked away with the trophy. Other winners on the day included player of the tournament, dedicated participant and man of the match as well as team prizes for the runners up and third and fourth place who received ball, bags, towels and t-shirts as part of their prize. Later at the stadium, it was exciting to watch Germany go against Uruguay for 3rd place and the light showers of rain did not dampen the spirit and excitement at all.

The whole day was a fantastic end to an action packed, fun filled holiday camp period and a truly exciting World Cup for us and our kids.