Fourteen-year-old Siyabonga Nkonyane of Dobsonville in Soweto and twelve year old Rosario Matroos of Hillbrow close to the Johannesburg CBD, had a long term dream come true when they were hosted by the Kaizer Chiefs first team at Naturena on Friday morning.

The two youngsters who have life-threatening illnesses and have in recent months spent most of their days at the Johannesburg General Hospital located in Parktown in Johannesburg, came to Naturena as part of Chiefs association with the reach for a dream foundation where the club together with reach for a dream fulfil the wishes of ill young people wishing to meet Chiefs players.

Kaizer Junior touched

Apart from having the opportunity to meet with the entire Chiefs first team squad, the youngsters were given the opportunity to meet their favourite Chiefs player; for Siyabonga Nkonyane who suffers from Aplastic Anemia it had to be Kaizer Motaung Junior.

After spending some time talking with the youngster, the Chiefs striker added, “it is really an honour for me to find that my achievements on the sporting terrain have acted as a motivating tool for a young man who has many challenges in his life. Knowing that I have done something to help motivate this young boy to want to live on is really touching”.

Before parting company with Nkonyane, the Chiefs hit man handed him a jersey with the name Motaung and the number 7 printed at the back. He wasted no time and immediately put on the shirt.

Bartlett scoring off the field

While Nkonyane had ambitions of meeting Kaizer Junior, Rosario Matroos had been talking about his up coming meeting with Shaun Bartlett all week. A gleaming Matroos was given a Jersey from Bartlett and he too could not contain his excitement and immediately wore the shirt.

Bartlett was well pleased with making the youngster happy, “football is not only about scoring goals on the field it is also about helping to enrich the lives of others in other ways. It was this boys dream to meet me and if some one can benefit in any way from what I have done, that is very self fulfilling for me”.

Coach for a day

Once they had been handed their jerseys and took photographs and collected autographs from the players, Muhsin Ertugral allowed the youngsters to stand by his side and act as his deputies, when he ran his team through their drills for their morning session on Friday.

Clive Edwards a volunteer with the Reach for a Dream Foundation said of the boys visit to Naturena, “we are thankful to Chiefs for allowing this visit to happen, these boys have been waiting all week long for this”.