OUT-OF-SORTS Jomo Cosmos surprised even Guluva when they beat Bloemfontein Celtic, one of the most consistent and formidable sides in the Absa Premier Soccer League, by an unthinkable 3-0 margin in the first round of the Telkom Challenge at Sinaba Stadium in Daveyton on Wednesday night.

Celtic, today are still wondering what hit them that fateful night. Since their return to the premier league, Cosmos's performance had been lackadaisical at best and atrocious at worst.

Jomo Sono's babes have been unable to match the standard of players who had already established themselves in the elite league, hence their failure to register even a single victory in their first eight matches of the league season.

Which leads Guluva to believe that Wednesday night's empathic victory had nothing to do with Cosmos players' soccer skills, prowess and flair on the field; but everything to do with outside forces.

Sono must have, as he did as head coach of Bafana Bafana ahead of the Soccer World Cup in South Korea and Japan in 2002, hired a "manager of special projects" to secure such a rare victory for his club.

A warning to other PSL clubs: watch out for Cosmos' 12th player.

Night vigils and graves

NIGHT vigils have since time immemorial been held to give community members, relatives, friends, colleagues or schoolmates of the dead one more chance to mourn the dearly departed on the eve of the burial.

Everybody knows that night vigils are sacred occasions. Even the Inconvenient Youth and his charges in the revolutionary party's kindergarten know that night vigils are not a child's play.

So when Juju Boy and the rest of the Ain't Seen Nothing Yet kindergarten gathered for a night vigil at Caledonian Stadium in Tshwane last night ahead of their march to the Union Buildings this morning, they could not have done so for any reason other than to mourn the death of someone they intimately knew.

Somebody must have died

WORD has it that the reason the revolutionary kids gathered at the home ground of the now-defunct (or dead) Arcadia Shepherds Football Club was to bid farewell to the Machine Gun Man, who was certified dead, politically speaking, at the Ain't Seen Nothing Yet kindergarten's elective jamboree at Gallagher Estate in June.

The burial, it is said, will take place in Mangaung in December next year.

But others argue that last night's vigil was in memory of the Inconvenient Youth himself, who dug his own grave when he angered the revolutionary party by mobilising members of the kindergarten to rebel against their own government.

Coming or going?

GULUVA was surfing the net the other day when he decided to visit Inkatha Freedom Party's website to check on his favourite chief, Umtwana ka Phindangene, who had recently been admitted to hospital for exhaustion.

It was while he was reading about the ageing chief's miraculous recovery that his attention was attracted to an item advertising "coming events".

Guluva was expecting to see a long list of cultural and political events ahead of the festive season, only to be confronted by an entry reading: "Elective conference delayed until the end of the year."

What's new there, chief? This is the umpteenth time that Guluva has heard this story over the past five years.

Guluva is doubtful that the much-vaunted elective conference will ever be held in our lifetime.

Email Guluva on: thatha.guluva@gmail.com