Posted in News on Mar 26, 2007.
The game will now take place at the same venue in two days time, with the match scheduled to kick off at 16h00 Wednesday afternoon (28-03-07).
The Amakhosi reserves, who are joint leaders of the reserve league with Orlando Pirates, are undefeated after the first four rounds of the reserve league which kicked off in February. They were looking to hold on to their top spot with a win on Monday afternoon. They will now have to wait for 48 hours for the opportunity to face up to the students and reclaim the top spot.
Chiefs who were in the friendly city for Sunday’s Nelson Mandela Museum Charity Challenge game against Bloemfontein Celtic, were the unfortunate victims of a miscommunication surrounding their flight departure time on Monday morning. The Amakhosi were informed that their scheduled departure out of Port Elizabeth was to be on Monday morning at 08h45. Upon the team's arrival at the airport they were told that they had been booked on a flight which had already left for Johannesburg from Port Elizabeth at 06h30 Monday morning.
Dan Leboa the general manager of the Premier Soccer Reserve League who himself was in Port Elizabeth for Sunday’s game, was aware of Chiefs plight and said “Bobby Motaung contacted me on Monday morning and explained to me what had happened. Subsequently I communicated the problem to Wits and they were accommodating and agreed to postpone the game to Wednesday”.
Amakhosi communications manager Thebe Mohatle said of Chiefs delay in Port Elizabeth, “it is not the ideal situation for us to have had this delay, these kind of things happen in life thankfully the reserve league game has been postponed. Our real concern was to be back in time for the game our hosts Wits have been kind enough to agree to reschedule the game for later in the week, which has really worked in our favour”.
Through some hard work by Thami Mayaluza, Chiefs head of security and logistics, The Amakhosi players and technical staff managed to find flights out of Port Elizabeth later on Monday with the first group flying out at lunchtime on Monday afternoon. The rest of the team are scheduled to return to Johannesburg some time on Monday evening.
Amakhosi Coach Kosta Papic is hoping to have his players back at training on Tuesday morning.