SPORTS REPORT: 8 April 2007
Another term is over and we look forward now to the winter sports which is always a hectic programme for players, coaches and spectators but I am sure there will be many enjoyable moments as ever. The 1st team hockey set off yesterday, as I write, for a tour to the Durban area of South Africa. They are playing some top South African schools whilst they are there and we wish them all the best. The rugby team will also be competing at the Cottco Festival at the end of the holidays and they have been allocated some tough matches. I am sure the team will rise to the occasion. I am sure they will value your support if those of you in Harare are able to get along to watch. The soccer team was actually the first to see serious action as they played a pre-season friendly against CBC just before the end of term. Blessing Tupiri put Falcon into the lead but sadly CBC replied with 2 goals to take the game.
Tendeka Matatu supplies you with results in his weekly bulletins. What I try to do is to fill out the picture a little bit though I fear I don’t always have the full details that I would like. The week after half term was the final round of cricket, tennis and basketball matches for this term before we moved into the athletics season.
Basketball
CBC came out to Falcon with their 1st and 2nd
teams and in two rounds of matches the Falcon teams came off triumphant.
Tennis
The 1st tennis team travelled up to Harare to take on
Eaglesvale in the first round of a revamped Mim du Toit national schools
competition. I cannot give you any individual details of performances
but the team won the match. I am also not sure when or where the next
encounter will be or who against but it would be good to have an
extended run in this competition for a change.
Cricket
The final weekend of the schools cricket season was also the weekend of
our Junior Schools Cricket Festival. This has been reported on elsewhere
on the website but it does seem to have been a real hit in its two years
of competition. The weather threatened to put a literal damper on
proceedings but fortunately we were spared all but a short passing
squall on the Friday afternoon. Ruzawi convincingly and deservedly
retained the title they had claimed last year.
The Falcon teams were in action against CBC and it appeared that CBC was intent to spoil the party at 1st team level as, on the Main Field they reduced Falcon to about 10-4. 123 may have represented something of recovery but it was hardly an imposing target. However, if CBC were contemplating a big win the Falcon bowlers had other ideas. Stevie Macheka produced what coach Dave Grant says was one of the best spells of fast bowling he has seen in his 10 years in charge and destroyed the top order with remarkable figures of 7-24. Captain Dan Landman then cleaned up the tail and CBC were 63 all out. Well done to both of them.
On the Oval the U16 Aside won comfortably by 8 wickets and at CBC the U14 A ,U16 B and 2nd XI won though the U15 A side lost narrowly.
There are inter provincial age-group tournaments around the country these holidays and the following boys were selected to represent the new province of Southerns :
U19 : M Bint, J Graham, D Landman, S Macheka, J Richards
U17 : W Bandura, T Mupariwa, S Beevor, R Dube
U16 : G Mamhiyo, C van Rensburg, J Brown, T Enwerem, M MacIntosh, A Ndabambi
U14 : M Mlambo, T Ganyani, B Langley, G Coleman, K Walder, T Ndlovu, G Smit
Also towards the end of term, Mr Gavin Shilton, the top cricket scorer in Zimbabwe came out to Falcon to conduct a seminar for our cricket scorers and other interested boys. 11 boys wrote the D Grade scoring exam and 10 of them passed, Deelan Doolabh and Jeremy Richards scoring 100%. This is the full list of those boys who passed the exam :
Deelan Doolabh, Jeremy Richards, Bjorn Moyo, Munashe Kazangarare, Jack Randle, Ben Randell, Mathew le Roux, Cedric Moyo, Bheku Dube, Keith Coetzee.
Athletics
Tendeka has given good coverage to our principle athletics event this
term. As ever Founders Day was a good day socially as well as sportingly
with some competitive athletics going on and good performances in many
areas even if there were only 2 records broken if I remember rightly.
The softness of the track may have been one of the reasons for that.
Some people have seen our involvement in the zonal and provincial athletics meetings as being disruptive to the usual school programme and whilst some of their concerns are indeed valid, it has nonetheless exposed our athletes to the top athletes from around the country. It has been an eye-opener in some cases but it has also shown that our athletes can compete with anyone. In the recent Inter Provincial meeting held at Hillcrest College in Mutare Corey van Rensburg won the javelin, Deleroy Sibanda the shot and Stevie Macheka was part of the victorious 4x400 relay. Michael Frankis and Stephen Ngozo also achieved second places. Well done to them all.
Richard Harrison
8 April 2007