Orlando Pirates’ one-sided win over Lamontville Golden Arrows in Soweto on Saturday came within one goal of the matching the biggest winning margin for a league match since the launch of Premier Soccer League in 1996.
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But it was still way off the record winning margin for cup and league games in the long history of the professional game in South Africa.
The Buccaneers, who had dropped points in their previous two DStv Premiership outings and slipped from second to fourth place in the standings, were 3-0 ahead at halftime, five up with 15 minutes left and, despite conceding one to Arrows in the 77th minute, added two more goals for good measure in the closing stages.
It allowed Tshegofatso Mabasa to score a hat-trick as he continues to deputise for the injured Evidence Makgopa as Pirates’ lead attacker.
The record winning margin in a league match in the PSL era is seven goals, achieved three times previously.
The record is the 8-1 win that SuperSport United recorded against already relegated Zulu Royals on the final day of the 2003-04 season as defender Ricardo Katza got among the goals with a brace.
Matsatsantsa, with Pitso Mosimane as coach, had scored four goals up to the 80th minute, but then added another four in the next 10 as Royals capitulated.
SuperSport also won by seven goals when they thumped Maritzburg United 7-0 in the 2011-12 campaign – all the goals coming from separate scorers, including Kermit Erasmus and Tebogo Langerman.
Manning Rangers thrashed Hellenic 7-0 on the opening day of the 2001-02 campaign with Ishmael Maluleke grabbing two. It was the first game in charge for new Rangers coach Clive Barker after the club had six coaches through the revolving door the season before.
SUNDOWNS TAKE THE CAKE
But the largest margin of victory in a league match in South Africa remains from the old National Professional Soccer League in September 1978 when champions-elect Lusitano thrashed Manguang United 13-0 at the Rand Stadium in Johannesburg.
Malcolm Filby netted four, Mike Collins three and Manny Pinheiro two in a match in which Lusitano bagged nine second-half goals.
The record for the biggest win in South African football history, however, is undisputedly held by Mamelodi Sundowns with 24-0 win over amateur Powerlines FC in the first round of the Nedbank Cup in Kimberley in March 2012.
It bettered by eight goals the previous record, which AmaZulu had twice set during the era of the old NPSL and the National Soccer League.
AmaZulu recorded a 16-0 win at Bizana Lucky Stars at KwaMashu in the Benson and Hedges Cup in 1976 (the forerunner to today’s Nedbank Cup) and 10 years later at King’s Park when they beat Ford Pirates from Port Elizabeth by the same score line in the first round of the Mainstay Cup in 1986.
Sundowns’ deluge of goals some 12 years ago now included a seven-goal haul for Hlompho Kekana, but that was two goals less than the individual goal-scoring record of Hendrick Hardley.
The former Kaizer Chiefs striker, who came originally from Namibia, scored nine goals for Golden Arrows when they beat Richmond Junior Aces 14-0 in the second round of the Mainstay Cup in 1977.