June 16 is about to take on a completely new meaning for Tembisa. The sprawling township east of Johannesburg that has for long lived in the shadow of its western counterpart Soweto could be a scene of a big party on Thursday.
And it won’t have anything to do with the rest of the country commemorating 40 years of the student uprisings that contributed towards the democracy that South Africa is today.
Tembisa’s party will be a football celebration. Or so the people hope.Just about everyone from the Ekurhuleni kasi is confident that come 5pm this afternoon they will have their own team in the country’s elite league - the Absa Premiership.
None of them foresees Highlands Park tripping up in their quest to win the Promotional Play-Offs when they host Mbombela United at Makhulong Stadium today.
Victorious in their two matches already, the team nicknamed the Lions of the North need only beat Mbombela United - a team the clobbered 3-0 in their own backyard in an earlier match - to achieve promotion.
As it is, there is a suggestion that the venue that has always been packed all season could prove a bit too small for what Tembisa believes will be the most memorable match for their side.
I’m just glad Thursday is a holiday because I cannot imagine the kind of “I told you so” I’d be in for from a colleague who has been babbling on about how Highlands Park are Premiership material.
As it is, he had actually predicted that their team would pull the rug from underneath my home team (Baroka FC) and steal the National First Division (NFD) title at the death.
That didn’t happen though and I took pleasure in celebrating Baroka’s promotion.He confidently said Allan Freese and his boys would walk the Play-Offs and so far they have done just that.
On Monday he spoke of how Highlands Park will not only be promoted but how they will make life very difficult for even the top teams to get anything out of Makhulong next season. He used the fact that they gave Mamelodi Sundowns a tough time in the Nedbank Cup to back up his statement.
Of course older football fans will be aware of how the team that previously went by the same name was among the country’s top clubs. That Highlands Park though was predominantly white while this one is teeming with boys from kasi.
And should they deliver the goods as expected, the party in Tembisa is sure to last all of today and go all the way into transforming June 16 into an altogether different kind of day for this fascinating township.
The Star