Thursday, February 13, 2025

A harvest of awards for Gaborone United

Winning one million pula looks to have been not enough for Gaborone United (GU).

They proved once again that they are a force to reckon with when they swept almost all awards up for grabs.

GU was the toast of the 2008/9 be-mobile Premier League awards that were held at the Gaborone International Convention Centre on Friday. The team that is also known as Moyagoleele won four top awards.

The team won Coach of the Season, Player of the Season, Players’ Player of the Season and Supporters Player of the Season.

The big award of Player of the Season went to GU captain, Joseph Phetogo, and went home with a whooping P50 000.
Another toast of the day was Ofentse ‘Size 10′ Nato who won two awards.
He walked away with the Players’ Player of the Season award and the Supporters Player of the Season award, pocketing a total of P35 000.

Coach Mike Sithole won the Coach of the Season award for the second time in a row.

Last year, he won it after guiding the team to second position on the league. Sithole won himself P10 000 with the award.

Many people had expected Nato to be the player of the season but his fellow compatriot Phetogo eclipsed him.
Nato had an excellent season and it was not surprising he was voted for by the players and even supporters.

The Player of the Season, on the other hand, was chosen by a technical committee and the criteria they used is only known to them. Normally, areas that are looked into include the number of the games the player played, discipline on and off the field, the overall contribution of the player to his team compared to his teammates.

The winner of the Top Goal Scorer award has been known before the awards. Master Masitara won it after scoring 27 goals in 27 games. He, however, did not collect his award in person as he has already signed for a Mozambican club called Liga.

The Assistant Referee Award went to Elijah Masita while Lekgotla Johannes won the Referee of the Season award.
There were also media awards.

The electronic media award went to Tiro Lepotokisi of Radio Botswana, while the commentator award was given to Leonard Sone.

In the Print media category, Monnakgotla Mojaki walked away with the award while Kabo Lemphorwana of the Voice won Photographer of the Season.
The notable prominent award that was not catered for was that of the goalkeeper. On why it had not been catered for, the Premier League said it falls in the Player of the Season award.

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