24 Feb 2016

The Botswana Hockey Association will take part in the African Youth Championship to be held in Windhoek, Namibia from 18-28 March this year and Botswana will be represented by Under-21 boys and girls teams.

Hockey Association chairperson, Unaswi Mateba told BOPA in an interview that preparations for the tournament have gone well even though they experienced some problems.
Neither of the players on either of the teams has ever played as a collective in one team, except only playing in practice matches.

Mateba further explained that they will be using the tournament to grade their players and give them experience as the majority of the players are mostly from their development structures.
In selecting players for the national team, the association uses the local hockey league, tournaments and even trials to scout for players.

They also have school and national competitions for Under-13’s, 14’s and 18’s categories and a team of 48 people including officials will be travelling to Namibia on March 15 and expected back home on March 29.
Thero Maiketso will be coaching the boys team while the girls hockey team is coached by Nickey Wallace.

The boys team has five experienced players who have already played at the junior levels and even up to the Under-18 levels with players such as Kitso Ditlholo and Robert Ponharo .
The girls team also has players who participated in both local and regional events from a junior level, and these include One Lobatamang and Selah Molosiwa.

In past events, the country took part in regional and international events and has played against countries such as South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
South Africa is the strongest opponent Botswana has faced in the Southern African Development Community region and is also the defending champions.

Like other sporting codes, the association has challenges such as sourcing enough funds to cover costs, shortage of facilities such as fields and equipment and even personnel such as umpires, development coaches and even administrators.
They also have problems with players as they are school-going children so they sometimes have to reschedule training and even not participate in tournaments to give them time to focus on their studies.

“There is minimal support from the public and businesses but we cannot blame them since we have not sold the sport to them but there is an improvement,” Mateba said.
The association has programmes they will use to get support from both the public and business community that they will run this year and years to come. Ends