Download PDFThe sports club, Mighty Bros Football Club is based in Germiston. It works with children from as young as 10 years old helping them develop their talent. ‘Mighty Bros’ works in girls’, boys’ soccer and netball, blooding them in from a very early age. The club was established by Tebogo Sithole, in 2015, but registered as a non-profit organisation in 2017. The club currently caters for plus seventy-five players.
The Mighty Bros initially did not have a netball team but in 2021 the club established their first netball team, ‘The Mighty Sisters Netball Club.’ The newly established team soon participated in the Ekurhuleni Netball Association (ENA). The dream of having a netball team was however short-lived because the team was later dislocated due to some members relocating. The netball team was not as strong as the soccer team but the club tried to keep the team together which was challenging. The club is still trying to strengthen the team by bringing in new players. They had the first trials of the year on 28 January 2023 with more to follow soon.
Mighty Bros FC works as a supporting structure to the youth of Germiston. The club helps keep youth out of the streets with most of their after-school time spent on the sports field training. The club currently has three volunteer coaches.
They sometimes however have trouble when it comes to finances, training equipment and training as a whole. The club depends on the player subscriptions for funding their different activities and club operations. Some of the issues range from either trouble with the communication or just managing children of different age-sets in general. One of their biggest issues is getting parents on board with the program either failing to recognise the child’s talent or failing to trust that the program is a safe space for children. This sometimes leads to ‘Mighty’ losing some of the children.
The children themselves have proved to quite interested especially the youth as they use this as a chance to get up to mischief. This was one of the reasons why some parents are sometimes reluctant to let the children join the club. The club sometimes uses its constitution to resolve some of the issues.
They have been working with the Germiston Local Football Association League (GLFA). This association has more than 15 small clubs under it, and has been one of the club’s supporting structure since 2017. The Mighty uses the Germiston city sports grounds for their training sessions for four days a week and are welcoming anyone who would like to join them.
Dorcus Thulisile Nkabinde (38) who is a team member and a shareholder in the club says the organisation is looking into restructuring and creating a working structure that will be fun for the children and help them balance school and sports. The restructuring is to also help gain trust from parents and make communication better by involving them more in the program. The restructuring will hopefully help them reach out to more youth in the area or help them collaborate with more organisations.
This article was submitted on 03 February 2023. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
