Our 1st girl’s soccer team played their third match of the year against Westville, keeping their 3 – match winning streak by beating our opponents 5 -0.

The star of the match was debutant Martina Satanassi who’s first goal was a free kick taken from just to the right of the big box which curved spectacularly over the keepers head. Martina carried on in good form scoring her hat-trick with two more outstanding goals, one from another free kick outside the big box and the last goal was scored from a great pass into the box by captain, Nolu Mhlauli.

Right wing Maxine Bonnage utilized a first-rate overhead pass from Vuvu Ntozini and proceeded to beat the keeper and add one more goal to the rising score.

The final goal was scored from a spectacular build up starting from the back when Nasreen Astrie’s great throw-in reached the young right wing Kelly Walker, who played a beautiful cross that found Anelisa Tuswa’s feet. Tuswa took full advantage of the pass and slammed the ball into the back of the net.

Other girls’ soccer results from the past weekend:

U/14A lost 1 – 0 to St Marks. This was a great game played in excellent spirit by both teams. Credit must go to St Marks for the enthusiasm showed by their coaches, parents and players for the game.

U/15A won 1 – 0 against Lawson Brown. The two teams were very closely matched with both teams creating chances to score. VP had many opportunities to make the game sage, but was very unlucky. Inge Fankhauser saw her volley taken from just inside the big box come off the cross bar, before Sarah Rautenbach clinched the game with a shot from close range.

MATCHES vs CHISIPITE from ZIMBABWE (03 May 2010):

Our 2nd and 1st Girls’ soccer teams hosted Chisipite Girls High School from Zimbabwe. This was a historic moment for VP as this was the first International team to play our girls’ teams. The 2nd team match started in a frantic pace with teams threatening to score. For our girls, this match presented them with the opportunity to redeem themselves form a loss against Walmer High the previous Friday. The opening goal of the game came from Satesha Maistry who connected with a corner kick taken by Carmen van der Merwe. In the second half, Chisipite piled the pressure as they were looking for the equaliser. The game was settled when Maistry scored her second goal of the match from close range. VP won 2 – 0.

Following the entertaining match by the seconds, the first team took to the field against Chisi’ first team. The two teams were once again evenly matched. VP looked very threatening when going forward and created early chances to score. Maxine Bonnage opened the scoring following a great build up and through ball from Anelisa Tuswa. Bonnage had another great opportunity to make it two when she was played through by Tandile Namba, but her shot hit the side netting.

In the second half VP won a corner kick taken by Martina Satanassi, who’s pin-point cross found the head of captain Nolu Mhlauli who made no mistake to give VP a 2 – 0 advantage. Five minutes later, Martina made a solo run from deep in midfield and hit an unstoppable left – footed shot the found the back of the net. Chisi never gave up and kept coming forward. They were rewarded with five minutes to go when the scored a well-deserved goal. VP won 3 – 1.

The 1^st girls’ soccer team kicked off the season in fine style as they recorded a convincing victory over Lawson Brown. The match was played at a very high intensity with the VP girls applying all the early pressure. The “floodgates” were opened when Vuvu Ntozini chipped the goal keeper from outside the 18-yard box for the game’s first goal. This goal was followed with another goal from outside the 18-yard box when one of Lawson Brown’s players were penalized for handling the ball. Our centre back, Tessa Wattam (grade 9) stepped up and took an unstoppable shot that kissed the back of the net.

The second half started in similar fashion with VP applying more pressure. Captain, Nolu Mhlauli played an excellent through-ball for debutant, Anelisa Tuswa (grade who calmly beat the goal keeper to record her first goal for VP. The final goal of the match was setup by Anelisa Tuswa and finished off by Maxine Bonnage (grade 9). The girls created more chances to score, but were happy with the result in the end. Special mention must be made of our 3 central midlfielders who broke down Lawson Brown’s play and were responsible for our team going forward. They are Vuvu Ntozini, Kaylor van Rooyen and captain, Nolu Mhlauli.

JUNIOR SOCCER:
2009 saw the greatest participation in girls’ soccer since 2006. We started the year with the participation in our Victoria Park Soccer Challenge, where we were able to enter 4 U/15 and 2 U/17 teams. Needless to say, the U/15 final was contested by VP teams. This year’s league season was disappointing in the sense that other schools in our immediate area have not embraced girls’ soccer and that left our junior girls and their coaches extremely frustrated.

Nevertheless, the girls, led by a very passionate young team of coaches trained on a weekly basis taking whatever opportunities they had to play matches. The season ended on a very high note for some of the girls as they were selected for the U/15 SAFA – Nelson Mandela Bay Soccer team. They are goalkeeper Rachel Munro, defenders Tessa Wattam and Kayla Barnard, midfielder Anuschka Assam and striker Fatima Khan.

I would also like to extend my congratulations to Maxine Bonnage and Tessa Wattam (both in grade 8), who as beginners, showed great promise and temperament to be selected to represent the school’s first team in the PEFA Women’s League. These two young girls have a bright future ahead of them and we should hear of great achievements from them should they show the same dedication and commitment to the game that they did this year.

I would to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate Miss Danielle Deyzel, Miss Christine Vorster, Mr Brett Bennett, Miss Jayde Howitz and Mr Gareth Angles who between busy schedules at university gave up their afternoons to lead, inspire and instill confidence and love for soccer in our junior players. They have all done a great service to VP Girls’ Soccer and I salute them!

SENIOR TEAM:
Our first team has been “under construction” since 2006. Each year the team performed progressively better and better, we managed to retain players that started playing in 2006 while they were in grade 8 and grade 9. These players now form a very strong core of our team and their experience has made it easy for us to introduce other young players into the team to ensure VP Girls’ Soccer remains one of the best teams in PE, if not the best!

We started the year playing in the VP Soccer Challenge, where we reached the final unbeaten and without conceding a goal in 7 matches! The final was against Hankey, whom we had beaten 1 – 0 in the group stages of the tournament. Unfortunately, we could not convert any of the chances we created to score in a match that we had clearly dominated. The match had to be settled by a penalty shoot-out. After 16 penalties taken, Hankey emerged as the winners. The tournament would later prove to be good preparation for the season that lay ahead. In the school’s league, we emerged with 9 wins from 10 games, with a loss to Walmer High School being our only hick-up.

While participating in the schools’ league, the VP Mustangs as we were fondly known took on women’s teams in the P.E.F.A Women’s league every Sunday morning against teams such as Callies, St Georges, PE City, NMMU, etc. We kicked off the season with a 5 – 0 win against St Georges, a 3 – 3 draw against Callies, which was followed by a 3 – 2 win over NMMU! The rest of the season proved to be very competitive with the girls producing similar results on a weekly basis. These performances ensured that we finish in 3rd position after playing 20 matches, with the most points in the PEFA league – 41, the previous best being 25 points in 2007. At the end of the leagues season, we took part in the PEFA Women’s Knockout competition. We saw NMMU off in the semi-finals with 4 – 0 victory to qualify for a thrilling final against Callies.

THE KNOCKOUT FINAL:
The week leading up to the final, we had two training sessions. In the first of these we concentrated and worked on group defending in order to soak pressure from Callies and to try and frustrate them by not allowing any space in midfield and especially no space in our defending zone.

During the next session we worked on penalties, winning goal would come either from a set-piece or a counter attack. As it turned out, our planning worked to the “T”! Callies were forced to play sideways for the entire game without any penetration or threatening our goals. We had 3 chances in the first half to score from counter – attacks, but could not convert.

The second half saw more of the same, only with Callies taking shots from 30m away from our goals which proved to be easy pickings for our Eastern Province captain and goalkeeper! We continued to create chances on the counter attack as Susan Wells, Jovanka Djuza, Louise Pretorius and Melanie Beukes ran rings around Callies’ defence. Still, the goals wouldn’t come.

During the last 10 minutes of the game, with scores tied at 0 – 0, the coaching staff, after much debate on the bench, made an inspired substitution taking off a defender and bringing on Kay-lyn Oelofse into the attack. We won a corner kick with exactly 5 minutes left in the game and Kay-lyn (with her first touch on the ball); hit an unstoppable volley from inside the penalty box to give us a much deserved win in the final!

The 2009 squad that brought glory to VP was made up of the following players: B Köhne, C Froneman, R Rödeler, N Astrie, T Wattam, L Pretorius, J Howitz, N Mhlauli, S Wells, N Maheneza, M Bonnage, K van Rooyen, J Barron, V Ntozini, J Djuza, M Beukes, M Nobrega, C Vorster, K Oelofse, F Borlinghaus and S Gqabaza.

Thank you to Mr Marlon Louis and Mr Kagan Assam for assisting me with the preparation of this team in 2009, we would not have achieved our great results without these two brilliant coaches!

Mr T Thoba  (Coach)

Victoria Park High School will be hosting a Golf Day in aid of our 1st Girls’ Soccer tour to Cape Town in September, as well as a soccer camp for our junior teams at the end of August. The Golf Day will be held on 5 July 2009, at the Walmer Country Golf Club. Please see attachments for further details.

Golf Day Sponsorship – Press link for more details

U/15A:

won 7 – 0 (Scorers: Z Sizani 3, S Pillay 2, W Nongata 2)

U/17A:

won 6 – 0 (Scorers: B Mahlalela 2, A Windeballe 2, J Windvogel 2)

1st Team:

won 6 – 0 (Scorers: Nomzamo Maheneza, Kay-lyn Oelofse, Susan Wells, Louise Pretorius, Nolu Mhlauli, Mikaella Nobrega)

VP MUSTANGS vs NMMU (PEFA LEAGUE):

Victoria Park recorded a historic victory over NMMU, the first over them in 3 seasons. The game started at very high pace with the Mustangs putting the opponents under pressure in their half. The first goal of the match came in the 15th minute when Susan Wells’ cross found Jovanka Djuza in space on the edge of the box and she calmly put the ball past NMMU’s helpless goalkeeper.

The second goal arrived 10 minutes later when, once again Susan found Jovanka in space on the left and she recorded her second goal of the match. NMMU profited from a lapse of concentration at the back and pulled a goal back 2 minutes later. The Mustangs, however, were determined to come out on top and scored through Susan Wells who received a through-ball from Jovanka Djuza directly from the kick-off to make it 3 – 1 to VP.

We had numerous chances to wrap the game up early in the second half when Jovanka’s shot went over the bar. Jayde Howitz’ effort also went off target moments later. Two more chances fell to Allison Lindley who’s excellent header was ruled off as being off-side and Mikaella Nobrega’s shot was saved brilliantly by the NMMU goalkeeper. NMMU scored their second goal 10 minutes before the end and came hard at us for the equaliser, but our defence stood firm. Player of the match: Jovanka Djuza.

Final score VP Mustangs 3 – NMMU 2 (Goal scorers: J Djuza 2, S Wells 1)