Last weekend AMANDLA EduFootball hosted its annual 24-hour crime prevention football tournament at the Chris Campbell Memorial Field in Khayelitsha. This event promotes choosing sport over crime for youth living in the townships. I was anticipating this day from the months of preparation, the stories I’ve heard from the past years, the pictures, and much more. I was a bit nervous going into it because I don’t remember ever purposely staying up for a full 24 hours straight. But I did come prepared with plenty of Coca Cola and even some Red Bull, in case I got really desperate for energy.

More than 2500 participants!

My day started at 6:30 am in order to pack ample food and clothes and to get to the field by 8:00 am. When we got there, the excitement was already beginning, as the Coca Cola truck was there to set up their stage. Throughout the whole day the DJ provided a great set of music which encouraged lots of dancing from the participants, employees and spectators alike.

The event commenced with a few speakers including the Mayor of Cape Town, Mr. Dan Plato, the Provincial Minister of Community Safety, Mr. Albert Fritz, and of course, our very own Florian Zech. Once the speakers finished, we started the Under 13 Boys’ tournament - within the first hour, we had over 500 kids at the field, wow! Next up were the Junior and Senior Girls, followed by the Under 16 Boys.

24 hours of Football, Education, Soup and lots of Coffee

Sometime that night (to be honest, the time all kind of blended together and I can’t remember what time exactly), the Under 16 Boys’ tournament ended, and we prepared for the men’s tournament which ran from about 11:00 pm until 10:00 the next morning. The 48 participating teams meant we would need liters and liters of soup (in the biggest pots I’ve ever seen in my life) and countless loaves of bread (throughout the course of the day we handed out over 500 loaves of bread), and even more liters of hot coffee and tons of sugar!!

Throughout the event, Leigh and I embraced our role as volunteers and did countless random jobs, but we made sure we had the most fun possible doing each and every one. We worked with our new friends at the Shoprite soup kitchen, handing out food and playing London Bridge the entire time. The kids thought we were crazy, but we had a blast. Everyone managed to stay awake by consuming large amounts of caffeine, but mostly just by staying busy and making the best out of every moment and of course by laughing and dancing pretty much the entire time. Needless to say, by the time we got home at about 10:30 Sunday morning, we were more than ready for some serious sleep!

It was a huge success!

Overall, I think the tournament was a huge success. I had just as much fun as the nearly 3000 participants and spectators who played and watched more than 290 games of football in 24 hours. I have tremendous respect for what everyone who works at AMANDLA has done to make this day possible. I am very lucky to have been involved in this event and it will definitely stand out as one of my best memories from my time in Cape Town. 

Courtney is volunteering for AMANDLA EduFootball for a couple of months