Strandfontein

Strandfontein FC Logo

Strandfontein

Football Club

Established in

1978

Chairman

Kelvin Davids

Contact number

081 776 5647

Email address

kelvindavids66@gmail.com or ashyshie@gmail.com

Location

Strandfontein, Cape Town, South Africa

Club History

Strandfontein AFC “Seagulls”

THE steadfast Seagulls are soaring the skies at Strandfontein AFC with at least 300 junior players and the amateur football club is known to be one of the largest clubs in the Western Cape, which is affiliated to the Mitchell’s Pain LFA and well recognized by Safa Cape Town. Having said that, Strandfontein AFC is a community orientated community base club that emerged in 1978 by a few families in the community, namely the late David Jonkers, along with the late Robert Trout, the Erispe brothers – Clement and Gregory, the Rinquest brothers of Claude and Desmond, the Dingwall brothers, Ivan and Keith, the Coetzee family, Robert and Wesley along with the late Kenny Barnes in the latter years. With that in mind, these stalwart pioneers   came together in forming a community football club in the heart of Strandfontein, applying skill and knowledge. Since 1978 to the mid 80’s, they ventured on, with Robert Quinn coming along in 1990, assisted the juniors as acting chairman and became chairman in 1991.
The club was declared as one of the top club 45 in Western Cape in the league in 1991 and played in top Safa Cape Town Toyota Super league, won promotion to Castle League Third Division and were the inaugural winners, which won them promotion to the Vodacom league and sold franchise in 2005 to Vasco da Gama – which become too much of a strain on the club without any sponsorship. Currently in Brazil at the Rio Olympics Games is proudly Strandfontein Jody February – the under-23 national goalkeeper with the Bafana Bafana team, who cut his teeth at the Seagulls at a tender age. Later in 2014, he joined pro-club, Ajax Cape Town.

The Seagulls crop also produce several other star-studded national players, like Dylan Deane, Wayne Roberts, Robin Johannes, Wesley Coetzee (the under-17 national goalkeeper) and Kurt Barnes, just to mention a few. Likewise Strandfontein AFC has produced some great referees and officials namely Ronny de Vos, Robbie Coetzee and Clive Maart rapidly come to mind, including the late Mike Alexander senior. Simultaneously the club is also very proud of its junior ladies, namely Kaydee Windvogel, aged 14, who represented Strandfontein AFC and qualified to represent the under-17 girls Safa Western Cape team and Jody Matthews who represented the under-13 Safa Western Cape team respectively.

Natasha Cyster, the newly elected junior chairlady of the club said: “We are so proud of our 14-year-old Kaydee, who was scouted at the Farouk Abrahams Goalkeeping Academy (FAGA) and already been elevated to the national women’s football set-up. She will be leaving the seagulls family in 2017 and will be playing for the UWC ladies team in the SASOL Women's League and she will also be playing in the LFA games. Kaydee Windvogel has been a FAGA member since the age of eight, and is in high demand for national youth team training camps as she is earmarked as a future Banyana Banyana
goalkeeper.

It is therefore no secret that Strandfontein AFC carries the football ethos for all the years and their vision is to also empower the coaches with football knowledge – 20 of its coaches have been sent on a course in 2015/2016 to acquire their D license which they’ll be awarded soon and 2 coaches currently have their C license. It is believed this gives the club a qualified licensed coach in each age division, some having more than one to share their skill and implement them to all players, making Strandfontein AFC with the most qualified coaches in Mitchells Plain. In July the Strandfontein club brighten-up the day of many kids in the community with an amazing coaching clinic that inspired and encourage its membership and the sponsored organization to do their bit for Mandela Day.

Joining in the fray with the “Seagulls” were the partnering sponsors of Manchester United Supporters Club Cape Town and Thorp Motor Group – and together ventured into a fantastic soccer clinic that attracted the youth of the club including kids of the community at Strandfontein Sports Complex. Coaches, being members of the MUSC Cape Town-branch that is based in Strandfontein and about eight Thorp Motors staff, were involved and assisted the coaches with the coaching of the kids. Likewise the Mandela Day 67 minutes football clinic for the youth of Strandfontein and Mitchell’s Plain was awesome and conjunction with Thorp Motors and the Manchester United Supporters club Cape Town, the Strandfontein AFC did express a hugh thanks to Zaino Zee Benjamin and Ricky van Wyk of MUSC and Chevrolet for making this possible⚽ and also thanked the coaches of Strandfontein AFC for making themselves available. “Wow, the kids were so amazing. They participated in everything and just loved every minute of the afternoon. Our thanks to Thorp Motors and Tshepiso Tshabalala for all her hard work in arranging this event,” said Shiehaam Ahmed, the club secretary. Equally proud is the Strandfontein AFC of its annual under-13 “By The Sea” tournament, which is currently running for now for 17 years and held during March every year. The dates for next year’s tournament is the 25th and 26th March 2017. The event has been able to attract clubs from all over even as far as Johannesburg to feast on and develop players by participating in the u-13 event and simultaneously is aim to create a carnival atmosphere and to entice clubs and spectators alike to share in the thrills and spills and captivated by the excitement of football talent the youth event brings.

Thus, among the entries, a few football academies participated like Ubuntu Academy, Ajax Cape Town, Old Mutual Academy and Ulana Academy who hails from Khayelitsha and Stellenbosch University (Maties) who took the title at this year’s event along with the Seagulls, who won the Plate section and entered this team in Safa Cape Town’s “Build it Reach for A Dream” Tournament and grabbed the title with no hesitance whatsoever. Club chairman, Kelvin Davids said their budding stars in the Seagulls under-8 and under-10 teams are do doing pretty in competitions. “We fired away at the  Wynberg St John tournament in 2014 – carrying the title until last year they were runners  up and also took the Mitchell’s Plain LFA title last year as winners at their tournament. This year the seagulls were knocked out in the semi-finals and the coach Justin Julies got the Coach of Tournament award and also got an award from Laurus. “It is unbelievable that we proses a surplus of young talent in our camp and with these amazing stars having so much skill and football intellect, our Seagulls have competed with confidence in the Wynberg St John’s tournament in October this year,” said Kelvin Davids. With the current 2016 amateur season that has ended, the Seagulls under-12 champions league finished on top of their log and were the knock-out semifinalist, under-12 premier team ended top and second on their logs, under-14 champions league and premier league teams finished on top of their logs the championship team also played in the knockout finals, under 16 champions league team finished on top of their log as well.
Strandfontein AFC has also been involved with charity work “giving back to the community”. We hosted a Women’s Day event fundraiser and charity event in August 2016 called “WOW – Women of Worth Seagulls Women’s Day” and part of the proceeds was given to Pink Drive Breast Cancer Awareness. This was an awesome event and would love to do this every year for our Seagulls Women.

Our 2nd and biggest fundraised and charity event was at the end of August 2016 and this was a Black Tie Masquerade Ball event part of the proceeds of this event was given to Heart of Hope Congenital Defect (for kids), another awesome event.

The current Executive Committee for 2017/2018: Club Chairman: Kelvin Davids, Vice
Chairman: Freddie Martin, Club Secretary: Shiehaam Ahmed, Treasurer: Ashraf Ahmed,
Junior Chairlady: Natasha Cyster, Referee Convenor: Rael Cunningham, head coach: Ryan
Diedericks, registration secretary: Atkin Moses, Procurement / Trustee: Aldridge Brookes,
Fundraising Secretary: Hilary Williams, Fixtures Secretary: Jude Patandin.

“The history and forth telling story of Strandfontein AFC continues, let us not forget many others who have cast their interests and skills over the years, big enough a family story to write a book about”