The momentum is building up in and around the Mother City in anticipation of what should be a cracker of a DStv Premiership clash between Cape Town City and Kaizer Chiefs at Athlone Stadium on Saturday afternoon. As excited as one is about this mouthwatering clash, based on the history between the two clubs, there’s just an unavoidable nervous feeling about this and other Grade-A matches taking place at the Cape Flats-based venue.
This feeling emanates from the simple fact that any game that involves Amakhosi in the Western Cape, regardless of their form, is guaranteed to draw huge crowds. One Western Cape match venue that always lives up to expectations in terms of accommodating a game of this magnitude, is always the Cape Town Stadium. Now the two teams will be locking horns at a venue that is over 20 000 seats less than the Fritz Sonnenberg Road-based stadium’s capacity. The Citizens have been going all out to galvanise as much support and create awareness as possible for this clash, with their ticket give-away activations in different FNB branches.
One has strong reservations against any Orlando Pirates, Chiefs or Mamelodi Sundowns games taking place at Athlone Stadium because of the volume they attract in attendance figures. Yes, the Western Cape-based football teams don’t enjoy the luxury of having many options when it comes to bigger venues, especially with shared resources with other sporting codes like rugby, but it would be advisable to keep the “Big Three” away from Athlone and Danie Craven stadiums. Football doesn’t enjoy monopoly or priority when it comes to the Cape Town Stadium access and the use of it has to make business sense, which is an open secret. However, if we are being honest, this game should be taking place at the 55 000-capacity stadium for various reasons, one of which is the supporters’ safety!
