Spine Road and West End march to victory once again

Spine Road High School and West End Primary School once again came out on top at the annual marching and drill competition, held over the weekend at the Jan Burger Sports Complex in Parow. The event, hosted by Mitchells Plain LOC in association with South African Police and Midea Marketing and Promotions, featured nine high schools, eight primary schools and seven community teams from as far afield as the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape. West End  made it three wins in a row, impressing judges in various categories, and also taking home the trophy for Best Drum Major in the primary schools division.

Spine Road High repeated their success from last year by winning the overall title again. They took first place in the Grand March Pass and Exhibition March, and were crowned Trash Can Champions. They also came second in the Drum Major category.

Coach Franchkino Booyse understood well what it would take to win back-to-back titles.“Coming into this years competition as champions was a bit stressful but we did our thing as professionally and disciplined as we could,” said  Booyse, who has been coaching Spine Road’s drill squad for the past six years

“Keep in mind that 60% of our team are new to the high school level of drill and our Grade 12s are gearing up for exams,” he said.

He said time was against them leading up to the competition but that they made use of every available opportunity to perfect their moves, including  performing in shows and community events.

”We had to constantly move practice times around, basically limited to only three hours on a Saturday, which isn't always enough with the big team we have,” he said.

West End coach, Dawood Abrahams, a former Spine Road High drum major and a member of the school’s marching squad in 2017 and 2018, said he’d always wanted to become a coach once done being a cadet. 

On Saturday, his side finished first overall and in the drum major division as well as second in the Exhibition, Grand March and Drumline Battle.

“West End Primary gave me the opportunity to do the job and show my talent and passion and we have been victorious thrice in Cape Town and twice in the Eastern Cape edition of the marching drill competition,” he said.

"Look, no one said this competition was going to be easy. It was extremely tough this year because of the level of marching," said Abrahams.

The process of working on routines isn't easy,” said Abrahams. “When returned from the Eastern Cape,  we didn't want to come back to Cape Town competition with the same performance. We tried so many performances and nothing was working,” he said.

Just three weeks before the competition, we conceived a powerful theme for our performance: blindfolds and insulation tape over the mouths, arranged in a cross. This was to symbolise our stand against bullying, abuse, and silence,” he said.

A flare-up of gang violence in Lentegeur, where the school is situated, affected their preparation, said Abrahams, who, like Booyse, had made safety a top priority when orchestrating training sessions.

“We didn't even know if we're going to have an exhibition performance because of all these gang-related incidents, but the squad pulled through. I'm so proud of them,” he said.

Captain Cornelia Louw, chairperson of the LOC, has been involved with the programme since its inception in 2007.

“Feeding the kids and donors dropping you at the 11th hour., can be a challenge, but we remain faithful and always have a Plan B,” she said.

“Our approach has always been to seek partnerships instead of sponsorship,” she said, thanking all their partners, parents and service providers for helping to ensure another memorable event.