TINTSWALO BALOYI
JOHANNESBURG - ROOTED at the bottom of the National First Division log, out
of the Nedbank Cup at the first hurdle and off-the-field turmoil, the
prospects are looking dire for Moroka Swallows Football Club.

The fallen Soweto giants, who were relegated from the elite league last
season, appear headed for the unenviable drop to the third tier of the
local game after an outrageously dreadful stint in the lower echelons of
local football.

With less than a third of the 30 contested matches left, the Dube Birds
have failed to soar, embarrassingly so.

The team, winners of the Nedbank not so long ago, find themselves at the
bottom of the first division log.

With nine games remaining, Swallows are odds-on favourites to suffer
relegation amid suggestions this would signal the demise of a club before
it turns 70.

Swallows are considered as one of the original two Soweto clubs, together
with Orlando Pirates.

Earlier this week, fellow strugglers SuperSport United, albeit in the top
league, dumped the besieged side out of the lucrative Nedbank Cup.

Such surrender was in contrast to a side that clinched the same tournament
in 2009.

However, while Swallows were duped out of the elite league last season, a
former senior player told Gauteng Guardian Sport he had seen the demise of
the side coming.

“I don’t want to be dragged into the club’s predicament. However I am not
surprised to see the club occupying the position it finds itself in,” he
said.