Locked Down Spectator

Has India’s time to finally, finally, finally win a Test series in South Africa, that country’s final cricketing frontier? The team from the subcontinent is one series win away from immortality alongside Australia following the commencement of the 2023/2024 Freedom Trophy at SuperSport Park in Centurion. The all-too-brief series will conclude in the New Year’s Test at Newlands Cricket Stadium in Cape Town. At the time of this article’s publication, they will taken on the South Africans in three T20Is and three ODIs. For the record the former ended 1-1, while the latter saw the visitors triumph 2- and rather convincingly. If they triumph in the Test series, it would put them in the incredible echelon of “clocking the game”, so to speak. India would be the second team in men’s cricket history to win home-and-away against every Test nation in the long format of the game, One Day Internationals, T20s as well as winning the ICC Champions Trophy, the T20 World Cup as well as the Cricket Wor

If football peaks after this one then it will the greatest peak of all time! South African football is that gift that keeps on giving. This time it was the turn of Skepe Nketole to give tot the world the absolutely absurd! The team arrived for the 2023 Philly’s Games spectacularly in a helicopter for their encounter against Alex Cheese FC. This remarkable and unexpected arrival delayed the game by 15 minutes as the ‘bird’ landed on a gravel football pitch in the township of Ivory Park in Midrand, north of Johannesburg. A video of this spec actor is now doing the rounds on social media as tongues wag over the madness. The Philly’s Games are one of several tournaments that take place during the festive period around South Africa. Traditionally, they serve as entertainment while the local football season is in recess during the Christmas and New Year’s Day celebrations. They are also a platform for unseen wannabe-pros to be scouted should the opportunity arise. Also, it’s where unserious

The phrase “a chip of the old block” gets used more than enough one might say. It has become hackneyed, so to speak. But one cannot help but apply it to one Charlie Woods. And to do so would be fair and accurate without putting much thought into it. The youngster is all but his old man Tiger in his style of play, technique and mannerism. This was as plain as day during the 2023 Father/Son Challenge, more commonly known as the PNC Championship at the Ritz-Carlton .  Several videos on the internet have gone into depth either seriously or tongue-in-cheek about Tiger and Charlie Woods’ similarities. Charlie and his sister Sam Alexis were born to Woods and his ex-wife Elin Nordegren. As per the reliable and always-accurate Wikipedia, the PNC Challenge is  an annual golf tournament for two-player teams, consisting of PGA Tour and Champions Tour golfers and (usually) their sons.

The 2023 Rugby World Cup that South Africa emerged victorious from feels like it happened fours ago, now. Incidentally, that is when the Springboks won the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Who knew. This was South Africa's fourth triumph in the global showpiece event, which is quite remarkable, considering they have been to eight editions, a sensational 50% return. It's as if winning this competition is now officially in their DNA whoever you send from South Africa! We have all seen the highlights of that memorable 12-11 victory over the old enemy New Zealand which unfolded the Stade de France in Paris on 28 October. Many of us have even watched the game in its entirety to the point of nausea. Enough, already. However, the Locked Down Spectator scoured the internet to eventually chance upon a new perspective on the match, as well as the epic encounters against England and France on the previous two weekends. It's a video of the three matches' highlights from a camera placed behind

Danny Care will be seeing Cameron Woki in his nightmares for the next while. The Harlequins scrumhalf was planted firmly into the ground by the Racing 92 lock in a recent Investec Champions Cup encounter at the Paris La Defense Arena in the west of the capital of France.  This all resulted in a try that was finished off by scrumhalf Nolann Le Garrec following the move's spark by new superstar recruit Siya Kolisi. Care, the former England pivot, made the rookie error of going high against a behemoth like Woki, who gladly indulged him by handing him off into the artificial turf of the domed venue. As for the result, it was something of an upset, with the Quins coming away from the city with a memorable 31-28 victory. Racing's points came from two tries by Le Garrec, Antoine Gibert and Ibrahim Diallo, with La Garrec nailing all four conversion. The visitors'' points came via a match-winning drop goal by Marcus Smith, with him, Andre Esterhuizen, Alex Dombrandt and Jack Wal

  “Harry Maguire is a donkey who has the defensive presence of a traffic cone.” This was a post I put on Twitter - or now X pre-Elon Musk’s takeover - in April 2022. I was rightfully banned from the platform for abusive behaviour because indeed, I was out of line. Maguire did not deserve to be treated this way by myself and many other Manchester United supporters who were rightfully frustrated with his performances at that juncture. It got to a point where overworked manager Erik Ten Hag took the captaincy of the team away from him at the start of this season. The England centre back has only gone and shut me the hell up this term with his impressive form! He has been crucial in helping keep alive a season that is threatening to go totally off the rails as the Red Devils battle injuries, horribly out-of-form players, a dodgy game-plan and sideshows off the pitch. Maguire has been so damned good that he was named the Premier League Payer of the Month for November! Wow! Talk about a come

Goal Of The Season Contender | Craig Martin | Cape Town City vs Chippa United THE BACKSTORY I, the Locked Down Spectator, will be looking at the best goals scored during the 2023/24 Premier Soccer League season. This series will look at quality goals that were scored in the DStv Premiership, MTN 8 Wafa Wafa, Carling Knockout Cup and the Nedbank Cup. We can have our negative thoughts about club football in South Africa, but you and I have to admit that some world class goals do grace our matches, and disappointingly, to little fanfare. If we were serious as a football public, we should be clamouring for them to be included for consideration in the annual FIFA Puskas Award, starting with the 2024 edition. I have taken my time to sit down and rewatch the highlights of EVERY PSL match thus far this season to see if there were goals that could be considered a Goal Of The Season contender. As per Wikipedia, the FIFA Puskas Award "is an award established on 20 October 2009 by the Federat

Somewhere in the shadow of Table Mountain is a silent assassin who should be striking more fear into the hearts of men than he currently does. He just seems to leave a trail destruction wherever he is seen in action. Lovers of rugby, Angelo Davids is kak gevaarlik. Lethal. Dangerous. Entertaining. A video compilation of his exploits just goes to show what he is capable of! The Western Province and DHL Stormers wing has provided highlights that will go down in history, and here is to hoping for more. One includes stepping Lions wing Zeilinga Strydom like he was dodging long overdue child support. The next involves infamously bouncing Free State Cheetahs and Springbok wing Rosko Specman in one of the most infamous phases of play in Currie Cup history. In there somewhere is knocking the stuffing out of former Sharks and current Lions scrumhalf Sanele Nohamba after the latter received a dreaded 'hospital' pass. It was reminiscent of the legendary hit that Samoan headhunter Brian Li

The much-anticipated Vodacom United Rugby Championship derby match between the Vodacom Bulls and Hollywoodbets Sharks at Loftus Versfeld  failed to live up to expectations. The Bulls swatted aside the currently-dreadful Sharks  44-10 in front of 25 000 or so people in Tshwane, consigning the men from Durban to a sixth defeat in seven outings this season so far. One of the selling points of this encounter were the contests within a contest that match-up, where 2019 and 2023 Rugby World Cup Springboks were pitted against each other across the park in mouth-watering match-ups. While the match was a damp squib in terms of an expected classic, there were several tasty incidents during the game where a Bok one-upped another Bok, as seen in the video above. There were plenty of moments that one could read into that we, as the rugby public, might blow out proportion in overanalysing. For instance, Sharks outside centre Lukhanyo Am put breakout utility flyer Canaan Moodie on his backside in a p

A historic moment in sports history is expected to occur in the year of our lord 2024: the revenues for women's sports are expected to total and surge past the $1-billion mark for the first time ever. SuperSport  reports that an explosion in popularity will result in this landmark as per financial powerhouse Deloitte. Women's football is expected to generate a record $555-million out of the projected $1.28-billion, hot on the heels of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup that has co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand. There is progress to be made however, with comfortably more than 50% of the current share coming out of North America. This is despite the prodigious growth of women's football across the Atlantic Ocean in Europe. Insights lead for Deloitte's Sports Business Group said Jennifer Haskell said: "Over the last few years we have seen the exception growth in women's sports across the globe, driving a significant uplift in its commercial value, which in

Alcoholism is intrinsic in South African football culture. This is the assertion of former Platinum Stars player Tintswalo Shabalala in the wake of the allegations that Kaizer Chiefs and Bafana Bafana legend Itumeleng Khune arrived drunk to practice , subsequently being suspended. Speaking to Kick Off , Tshabalala alleged that this sort of behaviour is happening at all the clubs across the land, adding: "The current players don't take their jobs seriously, and that's why it's worse. The problem is that, as humans, we don't handle frustrations in the same way. Someone like Itumeleng Khune might be frustrated by the fact that they are no longer the club's the first-choice goalkeeper. "When such things happen, others console themselves with alcohol. I fail to understand why we still have players like this when individuals such as Junior Khanye and Thabo Malatsi have repeatedly warned us about the dangers of alcohol." As per Sports Brief South Africa , e

Manchester United and Argentina starboy Alejandro Garnacho is probably a shoo-in for the 2024 FIFA Puskas Award following his unbelievable bicycle kick goal against Everton in the Premier League. Elsewhere on the United Kingdom, Harry Short would be considered to be part of this ballot if not for some obscure ruling that prevents non-league football goals from being nominated for this prestigious award. Harry Short, playing for Cwrt Rawlin FC - named for a pub in Caerphilly in Wales - smashed in an absolute worldie in a seventh division match against Penrhiwfer AFC. Yes, one still cannot get around the fact that Cymric - Welsh, for the uninitiated - has words that have no vowels in them when read in English, but whatever. This goal formed part of a thumping 5-2 victory over Penrhiwfer. A video that the 'pub club' shared has received comfortably over a million views on social media. It even led to the hashtag #PeoplesPuskas in response to the wonder hit. Penrhiwfer's defende

If Kaizer Chiefs and TS Galaxy felt like it, they could submit Pule Mmodi and Samir Nurkovic’s goals against Stellenbosch FC and Sekhukhune United, respectively, for possible nomination in the 2024 FIFA Puskas Award. These are just two of over 30 sensational goals that have been scored in the 2023/24 Premier Soccer League thus far, spanning the DStv Premiership, MTN 8 Wafa Wafa and Carling Knockout. Despite the negativity about South African football generally, and particularly at the highest level, some world class goals are being scored by local and foreign players which would make worldwide headlines if the top leagues on earth were blessed with such strikes. The Locked Down Spectator took time to break down the goals in three separate videos, showing that the season has not even reached halfway and already there are more than enough goal of the season contenders to pick from with one’s eyes closed. All the teams are well-represented if one thought that there was bias picking the ch

Well, "surprise, surprise!" The International Cricket Council, using common sense and logic, became the latest world sports governing body to either outright ban transgender women from participating in women's sports, or at least participating in it. You and I can't pretend to not have seen this coming, because the matter had reached critical mass in terms of controversy. For all the gobbledygook, techno-babble and pseudo-scientific jargon that was used to justify how feasible it was to include transwomen in women’s sports, it never really passed the smell test, even to the most ignorant of non-observers. It became clear that when the international governing body for swimming FINA voted to restrict transgender athletes from competing, the horse bolted there. Other organisations, fearing “cancel culture”, had clearly been scared to take the initiative before this, and subsequently drawing courage from FINA’s actions by hardening their collective and figurative spin

A school cricket match in South Africa saw ridiculous numbers appearing on the scoreboard in October 2023. During a Southdowns College and Tyger Valley College fixture in the SDC Day Night Festival in Tshwane, the latter scored an astonishing 320 runs off their allotted 20 overs. Compared to the highest ever scores in this format of the game at a List-A level, that would be six runs ahead of Nepal's 314/3 against Mongolia a few weeks earlier in September. The only story bigger than this mammoth total was the batting of young run-maker Dylan Kruger. The promising Kruger smashed a spectacularly breath-taking 256 runs from 77 deliveries. Two. Hundred. And. Fifty. Six. Runs. OFF 77 BALLS! Ridiculous! Totally obscene! It's one thing FOR A TEAM to score 200 runs in a Twenty20 match, because this total would be beyond most teams. It's another if said team scores 260-odd, which sounds un-chaseable. However, if one person scores all these runs in just under 13 overs of an innings, t

  The following article is likely to annoy England fans, and by extension, their New Zealand counterparts. It will leave the South African rugby community breathing a sigh of relief long after the fact. Don’t say you have not been warned. And it is meant in good fun. It’s the 57 th minute of the second 2023 Rugby World Cup semifinal between England and South Africa at the Stade de France in Paris. Surprisingly, the Red Roses are in a deserved 15-6 lead over the off-colour and increasingly desperate Springboks, and have earned themselves a scrum six metres away from the defending champions’ tryline. The momentum is with England, and one can sense that any score by Steve Borthwick’s men – a try, a penalty or a drop goal – will kill off any South African hopes of winning the match. And then one of the most important scrums in Springbok history occurs, as Retshogofaditswe 'Ox" Nche and company absolutely crunch England's chassis when it matters most. At the end of a victo

There is wasting time, and then there is wasting time. Mamelodi Sundowns players took gamesmanship to a new low (or high however you might look at it) at the end of the inaugural African Football League final's second leg against Wydad Casablanca. With the score sitting at 2-0 in the home team's favour at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Tshwane - 3-2 on aggregate - the Brazilians decided to give the Moroccans a taste of some traditional North African medicine. Several players decided to waste time in pitifully attempting to take a freekick near the sideline in the visitors' half of the field. It took several crucial seconds that ebbed away before the referee, the linesman and the Wydad players to cotton on to what was happening, before they all took some form of action. The referee flashed yellow cards to the Sundowns players dawdling around the ball, before these ones stepped away from it, allowing their other sharp teammates to step up and also stuff around. Five yellow cards