I'm very disappointed by the page 8 report in the past Wednesday edition of Sowetan regarding the president's inoffensive quip about a possible name-change for our perennial whipping boys, Bafana Bafana.

I found the report very petty and small-minded, distastefully personal and deeply patronising from the several snide and cutting remarks made in reference to the person of the president.

How such a simple and casual remark can be confused with matters regarding parliamentary democracy, service delivery and governance, as though it were a major policy pronouncement, boggles the mind indeed.

I believe my favourite newspaper has done public intelligence a great disservice in according the story frontpage and street-poster status, when in fact every individual ought to be allowed the right and luxury to be light-hearted and even flippant.

But shouldn't the name Bafana Bafana actually change to something that will hopefully inspire them into the titans we all pray they will become when 2010 arrives? Is it not time they began to think of themselves as men in pursuit of glory, as mature warriors in the field of sporting greatness, and not as the boys, which the name presently condemns them to become when pitted even against the lowliest of foes? It is time to grow up, Bafana Bafana!

Moemise, Johannesburg.