07 Sep 2020

 Arguably one of the oldest local football clubs, Masitaoka, fondly known as Majatlhaga by its legion of fans, is a team that originates from the biggest village in the country, Molepolole.

The club was named after the regiment of Masitaoka, an influential social clan in the history of Bakwena during the reign of the charismatic Kgosi Sechele II.

In an interview, the communications manager of the team, Godfrey Ratlhaga revealed that Bakwena elders saw it fit to thank the regiment and honoured it by naming the team after them.

Top flight football has been evading the team for over five decades since its formation in 1968, and it was only this year that they managed to gain automatic promotion to the elite league.

Ratlhaga pointed out that the team first came into being in 1962. It was formed by a group of Bakwena royals, Kgosi Gaobotswe Golwelwang, Kgosi Sentibile Sechele and Kgosi Keineetse Sebele among others and was properly registered in 1968.

He noted that Masitaoka’s promotion was long overdue after they endured near misses in the past, some of which was when they could only manage to make numbers at the play offs.

It has been a long and bumpy road for the Molepolole outfit because in 2005 when their diehard fans were positive that they were headed in the right direction, the team was again relegated to the lower division from First Division after having languished there for at least a decade.

With the assistance of their sponsor Tswana Gas, they finally made it back into the Debswana First Division-South after acquiring the status of the then obsolete Black Peril.

Having fought a gallant fight to reward their diehard fans through gaining automatic promotion, the club mouth piece says they carry with them the hopes of thousands of Bakwena of Molepolole and adjacent villages.

Ratlhaga said the promotion of their club was poised to change the dynamics of the beautiful game because as one of the oldest clubs in the country, they were going to first re-claim their followers who had aligned themselves with bigger premier league teams.

He boasted that though the team was formed in Molepolole, their fan base covered the whole country, adding that as lockdown restriction eases, they would tour the district before spreading their wings countrywide registering members and opening new branches.

“It must be noted that having derived their name from an influential social clan of the Bakwena tribe, Kgosi Kgari Sechele III and his wife are the number one supporters of Majatlhaga and they always help where they can whenever there is a need,” Ratlhaga said.

Apart from gaining a spot in the elite league, the club has only won the national 2^nd division in 1994, after that they experienced a string of poor performances which saw them tiptoeing between first and second divisions.

“It was in 2016 that a decision was taken to commercialise the team and the process is going in the right direction thus far,” he said.

Ratlhaga divulged that they were getting ready for the elite league, and the club was looking for strategic partners both on and off the field, saying with the right experience and positive attitude, they would be able to stay put in the league.

He said the club was grateful for the support they have been getting from their supporters throughout the country, saying they would do all they could to make them happy.

Masitaoka boasts producing some of the country’s top players such as Sekhana ‘Nandos’ Koko, Topo Piet, Monageng ‘Mnighe’ Thaele, Thabiso Mabachi and Ntesang ‘Mirror’ Simanyana.ENDs