RUSTENBURG based outfit Orbit College promoted to the elite Betway Premier Soccer League.
The club earned promotion to the 2025–26 South African Premiership after winning the playoffs at the end of the 2024–25 National First Division season.
The North West side, had to fight tooth and nail after outsmarting season campaigners Cape Town City, 1-0 at the packed Olympia Stadium, Rustenburg this week.
Letsie Koapeng, scored a brilliant goal that left veteran City’s keeper hapless.
Orbit College will represent Bokone Bophirima, that has struggled to produce a well organised football club from the province, in years, since Platinum Stars that was sold and relegated in 2018.
Coach Pogiso Makhoye and his technical team did the unthinkable, by earning a promotion to the Premiership as unknowns.
The ecstatic coach Makhoye was part of the same cohort as top local mentors including Eric Tinkler and Tlisane Motaung.
“I shared a class with your Eric Tinkler’s of this world, your Tlisane Motaung, your Jabulani Mendu’s, your Steve Barker’s. So, we were learning because football is all about opinion, from that class we could see football differently,” Makhoye was quoted.
“Now, what I’ve done as an IT manager, I took technology into football. Now every session, we plan, everything that we do here is a plan. When we train, everything that we see in the game is something that we’ve done.
“I’ve analysed each and every player of Cape Town City, we knew that if you go man to man, they will sustain us and I’ve been doing this for the past 15 years. So, defensive wise you need players that are not lazy, that run 90 minutes.
“What I’ve done this season, compared to last season, last season we were playing more of Tika Teka without purpose, playing a high line but this season, we have changed to say, now we need to protect the space behind.
Now that Orbit College will be representing not only the masses of Rusty, but the entire Bokone Bophirima- the call to everyone, businesses, the Municipality- must rally behind the team, including the North West provincial Government that had sponsored the team with R1m.
Talk of Municipality, there were concerns about the Olympia Stadium, could that be attended to. Of course, there’s an option of 2010 World Cup Stadium (Royal Bafokeng) that has been a ‘white-elephant’.
Now this is the time to put it to good use, including state of the art Royal Marang hotel and its training grounds.
Sponsors, its time for those signatures for “Mswenko Boys” as the team is known.
Re a le lebogisa Orbit College FC, tshwarang le nne seopo sengwe!
Image ( An IT guy, who used his tech skills to topple City and take his charges to the Betway Premier League, coach Pogiso Makhoye).
