05 Mar 2015

In a bygone time, Francistown and northern football fanatics relied solely on Ecco City Greens to enchanter them with good performances at the stadia.

In recent times only a sombre mood can be felt from among the fans with most of their teams failing to live up to the demands of the top flight be Mobile Premier League. The once giant kid that Ecco was, a fairy tale to tell only this time the story seems to end on a bad note.

When Mamoja diski, as affectionately known among their fans, made it to the top flight league speculation around their promotion was that being one of the teams from the North they were deemed to relegate on the same tenure of the season.

This made light based on the competition that it is on the premier league for newly promoted teams. Little known to many of what then Francistown rookie based team would offer and actually proceeded to write their names on the history books of soccer as far as Botswana premier league is concerned.

On their first season they made it to the top eight, something that came as a surprise to many for a rookie to make it that far. As if that was not enough they made headlines by being the first team from the north to win Mascom Premier League title in 2007 on their second campaign.

The last honourable achievement they made since was to make the finals of the Coca Cola cup beating household names like Township Rollers only to fall short of their ‘cousin’ counterparts BMC. 

By then Ecco boasted with the players like Tebogo Sembowa, Malepa Bolelang, the hard tackling skipper Bosaratweng ‘Booster’ Magola and Powell Abednego a relatively unknown list of players coached by Barry Daka.

Apparently this was one team that would break a sweat and do well to even cause havoc for teams like Mochudi Center Chiefs, the mighty Chiefs that in their possession listed first choice national team players.

At one point Chiefs was just an ordinary team when playing against Ecco, with all 6 points at stake going their way.

Despite all this achievements the team seem to be falling short of their magic to keep with the big guns, one might have really expected this young outfit to keep up and transform into a force to reckon with. A lot happened but the biggest turning point was when the mother sponsor of both teams (BMC and Ecco) Botswana Meat Commission decided to jump ship.

The sponsorship issue had been a haunting old phantom resurrecting timely for a number of Francistown based teams. 

In the same fate for Ecco, that seems to be for now, this is like following in pursuit for the old trend of the Francistown fallen heroes.

The likes of Tafic football club, despite having no league title to show they have been doing well to stay and keep away from relegating but their woes started off when they had conflicts with securing a sponsor.

The complications of trying to privatise a community project, Extension Gunners being an example to that and so much to say about Task.

Admittedly, the challenge of securing a sponsor could be a mountainous hike for teams from the North with the cause being a different reason at play.

That is considering what the potential sponsor may request, well bear in mind the number of supporters this teams have exception of Tafic who have a better support base.

In spite of all the reasons at hand or submitted the question is why is that all the Francistown struggle with keeping up with the demands of the premier league while teams from Gaborone can actually live up to the challenge, note Notwane football club and the Peleng outfit Extension Gunners.

Undoubtedly this season Ecco have done less than enough compared to the team that used to torment other big teams, currently out of 21 games they managed to win and draw three games, and currently seating on a relegation zone, on position 15.

However the situation does not worry, only the Francistowners but football fanatics at large, but for Botswana Premier League, chief executive officer, Bennett Mamelodi has confidence that the league is still open.

He said the club was affected by their then main sponsor, BMC pull out, adding even the club is confident that they will survive. ENDS