Twenty-four coaches received their Introductory Coaching Certificate, courtesy of Mpilonhle and the Royal Dutch Football Federation's (KNVB) World Coaches Program. Eric Whittie, a coaching instructor from the Royal Dutch Football Federation (KNVB), arrived in Mtubatuba with Gramwill "Shortie" Pienaar and Sharon Lombard from the South African based organization Stars in Their Eyes, to conduct an introductory coaching course as part of the KNVB's World Coaches Program. Twenty-four school and community coaches, ages ranging from 23 to 53 attended an intensive five day course with both classroom and field sessions to learn how to read the game, prepare training sessions, and run tournaments with little equipment and many participants. The certified course is part of the capacity development arm of Mpilonhle's new initiative, Home Field Advantage. This initiative is a water and sports facility project in which four high schools in uMkhanyakude received boreholes and a new sports field complete with a waterless toilet block and change rooms, a community laundry facility, and a food garden to support both school and community agriculture classes as well as orphan headed households and needy families. With beautiful new soccer fields, the four schools will serve as hubs for school leagues, which will be able to accommodate boys and girls teams from 15 high schools altogether. On Thursday, the coaches had a wonderful surprise guest appearance by Thanda Royal's own Neil Tovey and his assistants Milton Dlamini and Stavros Tsichlas. The coaches picked his brain about coaching and he graciously spent almost an hour answering all of them and then posing for pictures alongside the very people who consider him a South African icon. Needless to say, everyone was ecstatic at the surprise. And although it cut into lunch, appetites were nowhere to be found.
We got a surprise visit from one of South Africa's soccer icons. Neil Tovey, former National Team captain and Confederations Cup winner, he was famous for leading the team to victory and raising the cup in 1996 with Nelson Mandela. Needless to say, the coaches were in awe. (photo courtesy of Zululand Observer)
