Huge excitement at opening of Blue Label Legacy Park in Soweto

The eLan South African Rugby Legends is hosting a rugby clinic in Protea Glen, Soweto as part of the launch for their Sowetan Blue Label Legacy Park.

The clinic is billed as the “World Champions of Sport Unite for Charity”; the esteemed clinic will have both the Rugby World Cup Champions and the Soccer World Cup Champions attending the impressive occasion. The Springbok Rugby players, who are going head to head with the British Lions, will be alongside the Italian Soccer players, who are competing in the 2009 Confederations Cup, as they coach children from the surrounding communities in two of the greatest uniting sporting codes on this planet.

Joining them will be the eLan SA Rugby Legends team, the British Lions Legends team who are competing against each other in a British Lions Legends Tour. The well respected Brazilian Football players, who will also be competing in the 2009 Confederations Cup, will be a part of the star studded sporting celebrity line up at the sports clinic.

The South African Rugby Legends Association passionately and continuously uplift the country through the programmes that they run, included are the ‘Leaving a Legacy’ programme; ‘Street Kids Against Crime Prevention’ programme; the ‘Adopt-A-School’ programme and the flourishing ‘Iqhawe’ programme.

Two areas have been identified as the pilot projects for the ‘Leaving a Legacy’, the first is in Cato Manor in Kwa-Zulu Natal and the second is in Protea Glen, Soweto in Gauteng.

Soweto is an urban area in the City of Johannesburg, Gauteng. Its name in English syllabic abbreviation is short for South Western Township. Soweto; in recent demographic statistics is estimated to have more than a third of the city’s total population and all eleven of the country’s official languages are spoken there. These statistics made it easy to select Soweto for the pilot project for the ‘Legacy Park’.

The municipalities have contributed a plot of land that will be developed and will be kitted out with a multi purpose synthetic turf commonly known as Tigerturf and a community clubhouse with floodlights will be built. Sponsors and donors will be targeted from a funding perspective to be able to keep the venue functioning. A mobile police station with be stationed at all ‘Legacy Parks’ to make them safer for the communities to utilise.

Leaving a Legacy will be a community-facilitated project where the facilities will ultimately be available for the community to make use of, be it for soccer, after school sports training or any sporting code that they wish to use it for. South African Rugby Legends Association is bringing the possibility of a fully functional sporting venue to the people encouraging them to get involved in their communities and in sporting activities.

“We are hugely excited about such a milestone event. We understand that the opening of the Blue Label Legacy Park in Soweto will be the first opportunity that the World Champions in soccer have ever met the World Champions in rugby - which is an unbelievable coup! The Italian visitors are hugely excited, as are the Springboks.

The international media following the Italians for the Con Fed cup will be there; as will the British media following the Lions and all the local media following the Springboks,” says an excited Kim Jackson, Managing Director: Sportsfan Eventing on behalf of the South African Rugby Legends.

The Protea Glen ‘Legacy Park’ has been adopted by Johannesburg-based Telecommunications Company, Blue Label Telecoms.

Making dreams a reality, the South African Rugby Legends Association are hosting a clinic with high profile sporting celebrities helping out at the Protea Glen, Soweto ‘Legacy Park’ on 22 June.