The 2009 edition of the Matlola-pata social soccer event held at Solomon Dihutso Primary School in Mogoditshane once again proved how good football is at bringing people together.

The event was not short of exciting moments as the Under-15 boys played against girls. The event was just what the passionate soccer lover was looking for.

On January 2, hordes of soccer lovers converged at the ground to witness a day of nothing else but social football comprising teams from the southern and northern sides of the Molepolole road that passes through Mogoditshane.

The teams were made up of the Under-15, Under 17, women's team, junior masters, senior masters as well as the main game.

While all these games provided the entertainment fans were looking for, the one game that attracted a lot of attention was the main game, the last to be played on the day.

Second best was the senior masters' game which the northern team won. Both teams had a host of former Super League stars in their line-ups but perhaps the 'old men' were so result oriented because they failed to live up to expectations.

It was a friendly tournament and many expected to see those 'tsamayas'. But someone on the bench had been itching to tickle the ribs of the fans. That moment arrived when Andries 'Six Mabone' Seago came on as a second substitute in the second half. Suddenly the crowd went crazy as he started to juggle the ball around.

Indeed he provided the much-needed spark to set the tone for the last game. No one can take away the rivalry from football, friendly or no friendly emotions always run high.

The main game had its moments of brilliance and madness with players rough tackling their opponents with the same vigour that normally prevails in competitive games while some showed the same kind of agility that characterises league games.

The fans went beserk complaining about some of the decisions by referee Philemon Piet and some nasty comments by soccer mad old men and women on the touchline, all those made it all exciting.

That players such as Moemedi 'Jomo' Moatlhaping, Oteng 'Piero' Dipheko and Boniface 'Zolo' Makolo took part in the main game event just signified how competitive the match was. In the end, the Northern team in orange won the match amid fan fare.

The chairman of the organising committee, Seago, said "the idea behind this is to have people watching football on the second day of every year free of charge. It is during such days that a lot of youngsters engage in bad behaviour and on that day we had a big crowd which means that the number of those on the wrong side was small if at all there were any".

"Unlike all these years, the crowd was bigger, perhaps because we started inviting people earlier this time. We did not have crowd problems which shows that we are going somewhere. We want to change attitudes through these games and we are happy that there were no crowd problems at our games," he said. Seago said that although the games are free for the spectators, they hoped to attract sponsors to help them in the running of the tournament in the coming years. "The sole intent of social football is to get people together and we have made it deliberately that people watch for free.

But we need to use the games to reach out to more people. If we get any sponsors, we can then select some projects in Mogoditshane which we could get involved in," he said.