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| Winter wonderland: Soccer City on Saturday night after the hail storm |
KAIZER CHIEFS fans are understandably annoyed about Saturday night's hail storm, which saw their game against Leopards abandoned after 34 minutes at Soccer City.
When referee Daniel Bennett took the players off, Chiefs were leading 2-0 with a superb free-kick from Bernard Parker followed by a neat strike from Kingston Nkhatha.
If the players had got back on the ground on Saturday night, the match would have resumed with Chiefs 2-0 up 10 minutes before half-time.
But because match commissioner Stan Swart was unable to clear the surface, they'll have to replay Leopards on Wednesday night at Soccer City, kick-off 8.15pm.
And under SAFA rule 8.14 they will start at 0-0, 90 minutes to play. While I suspect certain sangomas are cackling away happily up north, my Twitter (www.twitter.com/nealcol) and Facebook feeds have been awash with aggrieved AmaKhosi claiming this is unfair. And if have to agree.
But if Parker feels hard done by, consider the case of
the great Denis Law on January 28, 1961.
Playing for Manchester City against Luton Town, the Scotland
legend scored a record SIX goals in an FA Cup tie – but his performance (and
the 6-2 scoreline) was rubbed from the record books when the game was abandoned
after 69 minutes due to a waterlogged pitch.
On February 1 the game was replayed – and Luton won 3-1. The
scorer that day? A very unhappy Denis Law!
The statisticians claim Law is the only man to score seven
times and lose a game. They also point out that those six goals would have him
the 20th century’s leading FA Cup goal-scorer. Instead, that record
went to Liverpool’s Ian Rush (44) with Law second on 41.
Read the full story of Kaizer Chiefs sense of abandonment in www.thenewage.co.za in my Neal & Pray column on Tuesday.
You can also see my assessment of the weekend's action in South Africa and abroad during Classic Play on eTV Sunrise, DSTV 134, tomorrow morning at 7.15am.
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