Unsung Community Hero: The story of the Gelvandale Sports Club

The Gelvandale Cricket Club was founded in 1977 and is considered one of the best cricket clubs in a disadvantaged area in South Africa.

The club initially started as a cricket club but has now changed to a general club that offers a lot of different sports including lawn bowls, tennis and hockey.

Many Proteas cricket players like, Robin Peterson, Alviro Petersen, Garnett Kruger, Ashwell Prince etc and ExProteas coach Russel Domingo all started their cricket at the club however if it wasn't for apartheid who knows how many other Proteas players they would have produced.

Gelvendale also had many well know players from the New Brighton area that played their cricket against the club and the most well noted was Khaya Majola who often played against them.

Even the Jordaan brothers, Danny that is well known in football and Max who works for Cricket South Africa, all played their cricket at the club.

However we cannot just look at the top players at the club to see the value of the club. In talking to Robin Peterson, he told me that the club was a fantastic place for him to go to after school and it allowed him to make a lot of friends by playing sport. He said that it gave him a fantastic opportunity to believe in himself and keep off the streets where there were some bad distractions.

The problem in the club today is that even though they are still trying to get kids off the streets and out of gangs and other less than desirable occupations, they are battling to get the kids involved in sport.

Gelvandale Sports Club are actively involved in the local schools even busing them in after school so they can play various sports in after school. A lot of these schools do not have facilities that will allow them to play extramural activities but with the first class facilities they have to opportunity to play sport. Also the schools can focus in spending the little money that they have to focus on education instead of paying for sporting facilities.

 Rochard Dolley, youth and events manager, at the club talks to us about what the club is about and who supports the club, he talks about the future plans of the club and what they are looking to do to get kids involved and the survival of the club.