Gaborone derby: Not quite to the hype

The overrated Gaborone derby between Township Rollers and Gaborone United is once again upon us this weekend, and what a great way to end the first half of the beMOBILE Premier League season - and more especially, to bring the 2014 calendar year to a close.

What a special weekend it would be if the derby was still something from the 80s and the 90s! The festive mood of Christmas would be at its peak by now with the rest of Gaborone buzzing with all sorts of revered names of footballers expected to get the city sparkling over the weekend. But not with the Gaborone derby of this era. A match between Rollers and United has lately become a dour and tedious affair to watch - a First Division match between Letlapeng and Killer Giants in Ramotswa has in recent years proved to be light years ahead of this exaggerated fixture in terms of passion on the field and excitement all around. Gone are the days when this Gaborone derby was the game everyone most wanted to see, the game soccer-crazy fans would soon be equally relieved to see done and dusted.

In the years gone by, the thrill of the Gaborone derby was not just about Gaborone, but was a game that captured the imagination of every sport loving person across the country even two weeks before kick-off. The buoyant derby week would not be as dry as this one week has been – various vendor spots and landmark shady trees in the city and satellite villages would be teeming with all manner of expectant soccer analysts wanting their opinions to be heard. For about that span of days leading to the game, fans in the opposing camps were brought to somehow scorn and spurn one another. Fights ensued and families were literally divided. It was a week everyone prayed for deaths and weddings to be postponed a little. The buzz of excitement and anticipation permeated through everyone, young and old, and from parents to their children.

Family budgets often had to be altered a bit with fathers and sons, mothers and daughters all wanting to go and watch the match at the stadium. And come derby day, the whole country, not just the city, came to a standstill. The tension on the day could be cut with a knife. If you could not be at the national stadium, your Omega or Tempest radio set would have to get a new set of Eveready batteries for a clearer live commentary of the match from radio presenters such as Patrick Masimolole, Geoffrey Motshidisi and Molemane Molefhe in the early 80s, as well as from the likes of Thomas Chalegwa in the 90s. Football matches from peripheral villages during that time were often reduced to non-events as some of the players for the involved village teams would suddenly fall ill and not show up, only to be later spotted at the venue of the Gaborone derby.

The matches themselves would live to expectation. At other times of course the matches would not be that spectacular, but the hair-raising effect of the rivalry and noise in the stadium would more than adequately compensate for the missing spectacle. But many times the matches lived up to expectation as the players displayed hunger and passion in their application on the field. The days when the Gabs Derby rivalry involved the likes of United’s Boniface Wonder Tape and Horatio Mahloane as well as Rollers’ Pro Morwalela and Topito Masheleng, craze was the name of the game. Even for the 90s era, mention the names Desmond Molefhe, Mmoni States Segopolo,  Aaron Radira for Rollers and the likes City Senne and Rapelang Razor Tsatsilebe for United, and your hair still stands on ends in nostalgic remembrance of the delight they offered on the field. 

Those days are gone. Any mention of the Gaborone derby featuring Township Rollers and Gaborone United nowadays elicits no excitement. It has become just another game.  Recent history has shown the so called mother of battles to be a dreary contest to watch. The notion that the game epitomises a battle for pride and bragging rights is no longer tenable. In fact, the Gaborone derbies of recent years have never really been about that passionate anticipation of walking tall across the streets of the city in the subsequent week. They have just been raw encounters that passed for a simple business transaction - very little emotions have shown prior and after the clash. There has been no entertainment nor anything the street soccer analysts can talk about on Mondays at their various hotspots. The game in Molepolole this Saturday is highly likely to be just that - business as usual. The non-combatant nature of this modern city derby has had a toll on the intensity of the actions and reactions that often went with the match-up in the past.  There has been no fireworks, no heated tackles on the field and no literal fights that are often the embodiment of real soccer rivalries.

In return, there now seems to be a general lack of enthusiasm from the modern football fan. Maybe again because of the failure by the two clubs to appreciate the real value of what a city derby can be. As if not run by serious businessmen of repute, officials from the two camps walk about towards derby day as if it is just another game. The two clubs at office level are both guilty of failing to take the lead in marketing what should essentially be the mother of all derbies. From the day the fixtures were released in August, the two clubs have known that this fabled fixture would be played just four days to Christmas. What an opportunity it was to have planned to make it a prominent part of the festive celebrations for the soccer loving populace – with activations and packages that could have been linked to the jovial mood of the moment where families would surely pack the stadium.

Unfortunately, as is the case with other elite football clubs in this country, people are voted into office to just go and sit at the grand stand and to be seen to be club officials. The modern Public Relations Officers and their Marketing Managers are just ceremonials figures whose role is to attend meetings and play hide and seek with the media that has now started doing what is supposed to be their job. True, the little hype that is there about the derby this week has been initiated by the media, and not the clubs. What the media should be telling the people right now is that the game has been sold out - for this game should definitely be a sell out. Club directors should show concern that a game of this magnitude, for clubs commanding thousands of supporters across the country, will once again attract a small number of people. 

One may be tempted to point a finger at the fixture being taken to Molepolole rather than in Gaborone, but even when the games have been played in Gaborone, they have failed to sparkle, both in attendance and on the field of play. It is perhaps for this reason that the modern player in the derby may not be bothered because no one else makes him see anything important and special about the game.

And perhaps too, the people sitting at the helm of the city chambers at the Gaborone Civic Centre should show interest. In South Africa for instance, city mayors and municipality leaders get out their normal call of duty to get involved in hyping their city derbies. They even bid to host the games. Even at provincial level, they do so because the derbies help market their localities. They organise entertainment and create match packages for their clients and the community. In fact, the Gaborone City Council does not have to go far to see how they should be involved. The Lobatse City Council is passionate about using sports to market their town. Whether it is with Extension Gunners or Victory Seekers Volleyball Club, the Town Clerk there, Gaba Sekwakwa, has gone out of her way to support any sporty event she and her team believed could help the town gain some extra attention.

She has in the past bid for national team games and other local sport competitions to be taken to Lobatse, and the council has spent money on such.  So, as the soccer-loving nation once again trots towards derby day this festive season, may those tasked with selling the game wake up and smell the coffee. May those at the chambers also be seen to care, at least for the future derby. There just has to be a jubilant atmosphere at the stadium for this match. May the two clubs work together in ensuring the stadium is fully packed – there should be no petty talk of who the host is, the same will be done for the second round encounter.

The clubs should prove to be professional enough by having marketing and branding budgets for games like this one. Each side can sacrifice a few replica shirts and other club merchandise for give-aways to perhaps twenty supporters with lucky match tickets. These two clubs are owned by astute businessmen who should know what it means to market a product you want the consumer to like. They should make their people to work. A pre-match press conference should also help, although it will not be enough on its own. By now we should be seeing several pre-match activities with a lot of own trumpet blowing from those appointed to do so for their respective teams.

The players too, should come to the party for the sake of their followers and not just care about what they get at the end of the month. The supporters are doing their bit using their hard-earned cash. They should be given what they deserve. As it is, club officials and their players have made the modern derby a distant cousin of what football lovers used to enjoy. The Botswana Football Association and the Premier League offices cannot dictate how professional and independently owned entities should run their business. This is about the clubs taking themselves seriously - Bring Back Our Gaborone Derby.