The Dimamrela Ladies football club is a testimony of young, black excellence in disadvantaged communities,” said Muswiki Melvin Tshiphongo, club president.
The club, formed in October 2021, is based in Hani Park, Bronville.
Tshiphongo, also from Hani Park, started the club after noticing that a lot of criminal activities, teenage pregnancies, and drug abuse affected most of the young people in the community. He took a stand to help build a crime-free community.
The team initially started with one male division, the Masters division. It comprises 30 years and older players with the spirit of uniting the community. The masters team inspired the youth of the community, which led to the team establishing more divisions.
The existence of Dimamarela brought excitement to the community and saw the occurrence of many matches.
The football clubs now competes on a weekly basis. This has brought business opportunities to members of the community because they can sell goods at the packed soccer fields every weekend.
Through personal acts from its management, Dimamarela has become a professionally-operated football club.
Their biggest achievement was getting all their divisions to register and participate at the South African Football Association (Safa) competitions.
The team is also officially registered with the Companies And Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) as a non-profit organisation (NPO). The chairman of the club has even gone so far as to launch a netball club for youth who do not have an interest in football.
Initially, Dimamarela had a rocky start. The team lost most of their matches, but left with valuable lessons learned in preparation for the next campaign.
They went on to win two trophies in preparation for the new season. In 2023, when the season started, the team had a clear vision of what needed to be done.
At the end of the season the team won the league, gaining automatic promotion to the Safa Sasol women’s league.
Dimamarela won the 2023 Safa regional league with 16 games played, winning 10, playing to a draw five times, losing one game, scoring 25 goals, and conceding six goals.
