“We want to help our players to become better players and also develop into better human beings.” These are the words of Igshaan Hugo, the head coach of Fish Rite Hanover Park Cricket Club in Cape Town.

Every now and then we all come across stories that are infinitely bigger than us, bigger than our expectations.

In these last 12 months, so far, that story for me is the story of Fish Rite Hanover Park Cricket Club and their youth program and the efforts of the club in general.

The club’s coaches attribute all the positive developments to their club Chairperson Ashraf Allie. But Ashraf insists that it is the coaches who do all the heavy lifting, and that’s why he refused to be the one to tell the story of their programs. 

This is their story:

“We want to help our players to become better players and also develop into better human beings.” These are the words of Igshaan Hugo, the head coach of Fish Rite Hanover Park Cricket Club in Cape Town. 

But, both are easier said than done, and here is why: the club lacks proper facilities.

Even though it is very difficult to help a youngster to hone their skills when the ground is not up to the best standard. Forget the lush green cricket fields with discernible pitches. That is not what one will find at their grounds.

Their grounds hardly have sprinklings of grass cover, and the best way to describe them is sandy. But, that doesn’t deter the ambitions of the youth coaches at Hanover Park who make up for what they lack in facilities with determination and passion.

Christopher Lodewyk and Wesley Seconds, the two junior coaches at the club, really believe that the club will produce players who will represent South Africa in future. Both the Momentum and Betway Proteas teams. Anyone on the outside looking in might consider this dream as delusions of grandeur. But, delusions of grandeur they are not.

Having practically spent most of their lives with the club, first as players and now as coaches, Lodewyk & Seconds have seen enough to believe that almost anything is possible. After all, the duo played alongside the current Assistant Coach of Cape Cobras, Faiek Davids at Hanover Park. 

Yes, Faiek Davids the big-hitting lower to the middle-order batsman, who played in the Howa Bowl and later played with Western Province and Boland during the 1990s, was once a member of the club.

Having such an acclaimed player as an alumni gives the club something tangible to show the current generation of age-group cricketers. It gives them something to aspire to. And even though Lodewyk and Seconds never reached the heights reached by Davids, their effort now is to help the club’s youth to go beyond the levels they reached as players. 

They are determined to make the best of the situation. 

POVERTY AND GANGSTERISM 

If the lack of facilities had been the only hurdle in the way of Fish Rite Hanover Park Cricket Club’s way, things would be much easier. Sadly it is not. The club is nestled in one of Cape Town’s most notorious neighbourhoods, Hanover Park. 

With high levels of poverty, it is not uncommon for two families to live under one roof or for one family of up to 10 or more members to depend on a single breadwinner. What that means is that most youngsters in the area are either under-nourished or do not get enough to eat.

“One of our biggest problems is nourishment,” Igshaan shared. “It is very difficult for a young person to concentrate on their batting or bowling on an empty stomach.”

In most cases, especially in areas like Hanover Park, the easy way out for many idle youths is crime and gangsterism. It gives them a way out, a source of income and somewhere to belong that is not home. It is not easy to help mould a teen into a better human being in these conditions. Because already their society is moulding those youths in a different way.

The community dictates how they should walk, how they should talk, how they should behave. In most cases, they are not expected to behave like minors, but rather like adults. Instead of doing regular things that youngsters do. They need to develop abilities to look after themselves when bullets are flying around them. They cannot be children, they are asked to grow up much too quickly.

At the end of the day, it is far much easier for a youngster to get a bit of money from crime and gangsterism than it is by playing club cricket.

But, Fish Rite Hanover Park Cricket Club chairperson Ashraf Allie and his team are slowly gaining ground by providing food hampers and meals to their members through the various partnerships the club has established over the last six years.

In doing so, they are showing the youth that there is a better way.

The truth is, once an individual is no longer worried about going hungry, then they can dare to dream.

OPENING UP THE WORLD

Despite all of these problems, the club has slowly made milestones. In 2019 the club sent a team of U14 club members on a tour to the UK where they had the opportunity to visit County Cricket sides, including the club’s patron Moeen Ali’s Worcestershire County and even made a stopover at Lord’s. 

The trip was such an eye-opener to the youngsters, showed them that there is a bigger and better world full of possibilities out there. It showed them that no matter how big their dreams, dreams born out of reading and watching international cricketers, it is not a world entirely beyond their reach.

After their tour, the club received a visiting group of cricketers from Birmingham in early 2020, just before the lockdown and travelling restrictions were enforced to try to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. The reciprocal visit by the English contingent helped to strengthen ties and a sense of identity as cricketers with the members of Hanover Park. 

The reality, though, is that trips abroad only come once in a while, so Ashraf, Igshaan and the other coaches are constantly organizing outings. Most of them might be within Cape Town, but what they do is open the eyes of their youths to the fact that there is a world out there. A world that is within reach. A world where one doesn’t have to act tough to survive. A world where the sound of gunshots is not as regular as a car horn. A world where not everything is transactional, where the young girls are concerned. 

“When I first joined, the young girls were uncomfortable accepting little things from me. Drinks, sweets, anything. Because the expectation is that when someone gives you something they want something in return,” Igshaan shared. 

Chatting with Ashraf and his team I realized that what Fish Rite Hanover Park Cricket Club was doing is bigger than just sport. It is more than just a place where youths play a game they love, go on hiking trips and different excursions. It is an effort to offer youths from Hanover Park a way out.

“It’s not easy, but besides building cricketers, we are trying to build well-rounded individuals. People who can work with others in teams. People with a sense of responsibility.”