Classic Clash in East London

On Saturday there is an FNB Classic Clash in East London, the 12th FNB Classic Clash between Zweliyandila and Ntsonkotha, two schools in impoverished townships near East London, places where unemployment is endemic.

Ntsonkotha last won in 2009 for since then Zweliyandila have won three in a row, winning last year 24-13.

Zweliyandila is south of East London, near the mouth of Chalumna River where an Irving and Johnson fishing vessel, the Nerine, netted the first coelacanth, the living fossil, said to be unchanged for 300 million years and thought to have become extinct 70 million years ago till the Nerine netted one and took it to East London where it caused immense excitement.

Ntsonkotha is situated in Newlands Location, a rural village beyond Mdantsane, the sprawling township where roughly half of the population of East London lives, an area much abused in apartheid days.

Both schools will be excited by the occasion as they get few chances to play as a school and certainly not in circumstances as lavish. Sadly, it seems that the boys from these two schools do not go on to play for representative school teams.

Date: Saturday, 4 May 2013

Expected weather conditions: 70% chance of rain with a high of 18°C, dropping to 12°C.