AS parents of boys who play soccer at Paarl Boys’ High, we would like to respond to a letter from the new headmaster of the school, Mr Derek Swart, published in the Paarl Post last Thursday.
Mr Swart indicates that he did extensive research into the sport at the school and that the decision to downgrade soccer was not taken lightly.
However the truth is that he never even bothered to speak to one pupil who plays soccer at the school, not one parent of a pupil who plays soccer nor the parents committee, who along with Mr Tilo Klingenberg (an old boy who manages soccer for the school) have put in seven years of hard work to improve and manage the sport for the school.
Mr Swart’s research and “discussions” were of such an inferior quality that he did not find out that Boys’ High competes against more than ten high schools in Paarl (including Hugenote) and almost 50 in the Boland (including Paul Roos) in u.14 (Mille Cup), u.16 (MTN Cup) and u.18 (Coca Cola Cup) school leagues. Paarl Soccer Club does not have a junior league team.
Playing in these leagues as a school enables our boys to be able to compete for provincial honours and in the seven years Boys’ High has had over 20 Boland players and five Western Cape players, including my son this year.
Downgrading soccer as a full school sport in reality means, no more opportunity to play for provincial honours and no more opportunity to play club soccer. The fact is that the downgrading means – NO MORE SOCCER AT ALL!
Regarding facilities: Besides two matches played this year, we only use the school fields for practice and that after five pm.
We have done what we can to alleviate the pressure on the fields by negotiating with the Municipality and using their fields for matches.
The “damage” soccer does in a year is not a fraction of the damage done by rugby on one Saturday of matches! Also, if field damage is such an issue, why has nobody at the school ever raised it with us in seven years?
Article 20 of the Schools Act also speaks about allowing the reasonable use of the facilities, and in this case the school is being totally unreasonable.
The fact is also that about 60 boys play soccer as a first choice sport with at least another 20 also playing as a second choice but importantly, also, that parents are starting to send their boys to the school BECAUSE it offers soccer as a school sport.
With Mr Klingenberg sitting in on the school’s Sports Committee meetings, the year has gone very smoothly. So smoothly in fact that none of the issues, bar one (outside players), that Mr Swart raises, ever came up for discussion! It was agreed to allow some players from outside the school, who were friends of our boys, to join in a controlled manner.
We appeal to the Department of Education to do everything it can to speedily investigate this matter in order to have it resolved.
Charmaine North
