Category: Sports

The Malawi National Women’s Football Team are through to the Semifinals of the COSAFA Women’s Championship after beating Zambia 1-0 in their final group stage match at Wolfson Stadium. Temwa Chawinga scored the lone goal of the match to inspire the Scorchers to a first Cosafa Semifinal appearance since 2011. With the win Malawi have won group B with six points without conceding a goal. After missing some good scoring chances in the opening minutes, Malawi got in right in the 30th minute when Temwa headed in a Zainab Kapanda’s cross. Zambia pushed hard to get back into the game and dominated ball possession for the better part of the second half but Barbra Banda and Grace Chanda’s efforts could not yield any goal. Coach McNelbert Kazuwa was all smiles after the final whistle for leading Scorchers to a Semifinal spot after four attempts.  “I am very happy for the win. We have been looking forward to this moment for a long time. They have been beating us so we have been planning on how to defeat them.  “We advised our girls to attack more and that’s exactly what they have done so we are very grateful to them.  “Now that we are in the Semifinals, we will go back to the drawing board on how to approach the next match and we believe that our girls will make us proud again,” said Kazuwa. The Scorchers will face the Second best team in the semifinal on Thursday.

By Mary Makhiringa Balaka, November 8, Mana:  Chief Sports Officer responsible for Mass Participation, Joseph Mazaza has said the country stands at a better position as far as netball is concerned,  He said there is much needed talent available in local communities. Mazaza said instructors have planned to came up with coaching path way in netball, in which they found out that there were four levels, which include; foundation, developmental, intermediate and elite. He made the remarks at the end of a five days training of netball coaches and umpires organized by Balaka District Sports Office. The Chief Sports Officer said that, “During the coaching path way foundation level, we train coaches to drill girls from five to 10 years, at the second level of developmental which is for girls of 11 to 14 years, the third one is intermediate which is of girls from 15 to 17 years and the last one which is the elite is for girls from 18 years above. “We have created an order in which netball can be developed in phases which were not possible in the past; this will help our young girls to go up the ladder step by step and at the end we will have well trained netballers with the much needed talent,” he said. Mzaza said all coaches in Malawi were also categorized according to the age group they serve. “People could just wake up and claim to be a coach or umpire without even having a certificate, this also has also led to the down fall of the netball industry in Malawi,” he said. “I am urging all these participants to maximize the skills they will get from here so that we develop netball in Balaka,” the Officer added. Mazaza called upon other district sports officers to emulate the example set by Balaka, saying this was what would develop the game of netball. One of the participants to the training, Michael Dafutala said the training has come at the right time, admitting that he was one of the coaches who were doing the job without the technical know-how. “This training will go a long way in uplifting netball in Balaka; we have the cream of netballers in our areas and we are able to tell that given the necessary support and skills, these will be very good players.[1] “All I can ask from the Ministry is to consider bringing trophies for girls at all the four levels separately; what happens now is that girls from developmental level compete with those in the elite level which is not fair, let girls from the same levels compete,” he said. At the end of the training, participants were awarded with a certificate of attendance, but will also have to sit for exams for them to be deemed qualified umpires and coaches. [1]

By Christian Brooks, Nathanael Hutchinson & Sanjeev Shett – BBC Most boxers will tell you the punches don’t hurt as much as the blows they take outside the ring. Frequently being forced to take fights at the last minute, rarely being paid what you were promised and then finding your manager was working for the opponent. Those are the kind of setbacks that might fuel the anger, rage and bitterness known by many in the sport. So, imagine being Len Johnson, a retired middleweight boxer with more than 100 fights behind him, entering Manchester’s Old Abbey Taphouse pub after a tough day driving buses around town on a September night in 1953. Johnson, then in his early 50s, was teetotal but he was ordering a round for his friends. Whatever optimism, banter and conversation the group had brought to the establishment was swiftly brought to a close in one moment. He was refused service and thrown out because of the colour of his skin. It wasn’t the first time the boxer had been discriminated against for being black. But Johnson fought back, just as he had done his whole career. The eldest of four siblings, Johnson was born on 22 October 1902 in Clayton, Manchester to a father from Sierra Leone and a mother from Ireland. His introduction to boxing came after he got into a fight at work and his dad, Billy, took him to watch a local bout. Johnson didn’t immediately take to the sport, and it was to his surprise that his father signed him up to fight a couple of weeks later. He had little knowledge of how to box, let alone how to prepare, but he trained as best he could. His mother provided an old clothes line which he skipped with. The contest took place in 1921, at the Alhambra Theatre in Openshaw, Manchester. His opponent was fellow local teenager Jerry Hogan. The inexperienced Johnson came out on top, with a third-round knockout, but it turned out there was a bit of luck involved. “Jerry shoved his chin on to my hand and down he went for the count. I really had no idea how I knocked him out!” Johnson is quoted as saying in Boxing’s Uncrowned Champion, Rob Howard’s book about him. That first unlikely victory – lucky or not – was just the beginning. Johnson’s father had been a boxer – and both gained experience from fighting in ‘booths’ at travelling fairs, accepting challenges from the public. These ’bouts’ would not last long, but at the time were a considered a useful way to hone your craft. This was how Johnson acquired the defensive skills that would become his trademark. Over time, he developed into a fundamentally sound boxer who managed to avoid a lot of blows and countered well enough to end 36 of his 93 wins by knockout. In the ring, after a faltering start that almost prompted retirement, he became an opponent that people were happy to avoid. His breakthrough came in 1925 when he defeated the reigning British middleweight champion Roland Todd twice in seven months. That same year, he also beat Ted ‘Kid’ Lewis, a boxer who Mike Tyson once described as “probably the greatest fighter to come out of Britain”. These victories should have been the springboard for a sustained period of domination and success, for Johnson. But they weren’t. They were non-title bouts, and there was only one reason why. The British Boxing Board of Control’s ‘rule 24’ stated that both contestants for one of their titles needed to have been “born of white parents”. The rule, given government backing when introduced in 1911, remained in effect until 1948. That same year, Dick Turpin became Britain’s first black boxing champion, beating Vince Hawkins on points in front of 40,000 people at Villa Park. Turpin’s brother Randolph would in 1951 become world middleweight champion, defeating Sugar Ray Robinson. Johnson wasn’t the only successful fighter who found himself locked out of the sport’s elite during that time. About 30 miles up the road in Liverpool there was a Guyanese boxer named Ritchie ‘Kid’ Tanner who was considered as good a featherweight as any, but never fought for the biggest prize. The lack of acceptance for black boxers wasn’t only a British issue either. At the start of the 1900s, the United States had responded with anger at the notion that the best heavyweight was a black man. Jack Johnson – no relation to Len – endured such hostility during the seven years he carried the title of world champion from 1908 that he was eventually forced to flee his country because of a racially motivated conviction. He was pardoned in 2018, 72 years after his death. Len Johnson was also forced into an escape. In 1926 he left Britain and spent six months in Australia, beating Harry Collins to win the Empire middleweight title (it would now be considered the Commonwealth title). Johnson said the experience did him “the power of good”, although a triumphant return to Britain did not follow. He was informed his title win wasn’t recognised in his homeland. It was one of the many factors that led to his disillusionment with the boxing world. “I’m barred from the Albert Hall and the national sporting club. In fact, whenever there is big money I’m kept out of it,” Johnson said in 1930, as quoted in Michael Herbert’s book about him, Never Counted Out. “The prejudice against colour has prevented me from getting a championship fight. I feel now that there is no use whatever going on with the business.” Johnson’s professional career was drawing to a close. His final fight came in 1933. His affinity with the sport continued until the outbreak of World War Two, and he would still occasionally fight in the booths at travelling fairs. But now the second act of his life was starting. One with a political punch. Towards the end of the war, Johnson had joined the

By Michael Kachitsa John Baxter Taylor Jr. (November 3, 1882, Washington, D.C. – December 2, 1908, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American track and field athlete, notable as the first African American to win an Olympic gold medal. He was born in Washington D.C. to former slaves. The family settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he attended public schools and graduated from Central High School in 1902. He spent a year at Brown Preparatory School, also in Philadelphia, where he was the fastest high school quarter-miler in the country. As a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, he was the ICAAAA (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) champion in the quarter mile. He bested his personal time in 1907, and again was the ICAAAA quarter mile champion. He graduated from Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine in 1908, and was a member of Sigma Pi Phi, the first black fraternity. He was recruited by the Irish American Athletic Club in New York, and was its most prominent African American member. Taylor was a member of the gold medal-winning men’s medley relay team at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. He ran the third leg, performing the 400 meters. He followed William Hamilton and Nate Cartmell (fellow athletes from the University of Pennsylvania) and was followed by Mel Sheppard (a fellow athlete from Brown Preparatory School). In both the first round and the final, Taylor received a lead from Cartmell and passed one on to Sheppard. The team won both races, with times of 3:27.2 and 3:29.4. Taylor was the first African American to win an Olympicgold medal. His split for the final was 49.8 seconds. He advanced to the finals in the men’s 400 metres race at the 1908 Summer Olympics, winning his preliminary heat with a time of 50.8 seconds and his semifinal with 49.8 seconds. In the first running of the race, Taylor came in last place out of the four runners. However, teammate John Carpenter was disqualified after being accused of obstructing British runner Wyndham Halswelle and the race was ordered to be repeated without Carpenter. He still ran to the finish, Taylor and fellow American William Robbins didn’t refuse to compete in the second final. They all reluctantly ran the second final , with a time of 50 seconds, and was awarded the gold medal.

Malawi National Women’s Football Team Coach Mac Nebert Kazuwa has named a 35-member squad ahead of the 2020 Cosafa Women’s Championship scheduled for Nelson Mandela Bay in South Africa between 3-14 November 2020. Kazuwa has included China based Chawinga Sisters, Tabitha and Temwa who have just concluded their 2020 season last weekend with the latter guiding her side Wuhan to the Chinese Women’s Super League championship in her debut season. The two are set to make their return to the COSAFA Championship following their last appearance in the 2017 edition in Zimbabwe. The Scorchers will start camp training on Thursday October 15, at the Mpira Village in Blantyre. Southern Region based players have started arriving at Mpira Village on Wednesday afternoon while those from the Centre and North will join camp on Thursday morning. All the local based players underwent COVID-19 tests in the past three days and all tested negative. The players will also undergo medical and fitness tests on Thursday as well as COVID-19 camping guidelines orientation before they start their training sessions.