South African Vuka Soweto team players interact with a French team member after their quarter final match during the Grannies International Football Tournament 2025 at Nkowankowa stadium in Tzaneen on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP)
Tzaneen, South Africa: Mbele Nonhlanhla laced up her silver cleats as her coach shouted encouragement to the creaky knees, stiff backs and laboured breathing in a dressing room in South Africa's far north.
At 63, wearing jersey number 10 and sporting brown-dyed hair, the grandmother of seven was far from your typical footballer when she stepped onto the field for her first international tournament.
"I feel like a superstar," Nonhlanhl grinned, revealing a missing tooth. "They call me the goal machine."
Her team, Vuka Soweto, hails from the renowned township of Soweto outside Johannesburg.
It had joined more than a dozen others from across Africa and beyond to compete this week at the Grannies International Football Tournament in the northern province of Limpopo.
The four-day "Grannies World Cup" was held in a stadium with sweeping mountain views.
The 30-minute games were played in two halves at a slow but purposeful pace, between teams from as far as the United States, France and Togo.
"It is all about active ageing. Whether we win, lose or what, it is all about coming here and staying fit," said 62-year-old South African Devika Ramesar, a mother of two and grandmother of five.
Until this week, the Liverpool fan had never stepped onto a football pitch.
Kenyan striker Edna Cheruiyot only had two months to learn the "long list" of football rules before Friday, when she scored her only goal.
She took selfies to remember her first ever trip abroad and send to her grandchildren.
US' New England Breakers team players react after winning their quarter-final match during the Grannies International Football Tournament 2025 on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP)
The old neglected
"I feel nimble. This is the lightest I have been since my first child in 1987," Cheruiyot said, adjusting the blue headwrap covering her greying hair.
At 52, she is a youngster within her team, whose oldest player is 87.
The idea for the tournament arose in 2007 as a way to improve the health of local women, said founder Rebecca Ntsanwisi, 57, who is fondly called Mama Beka.
It came out of her sense of personal challenge following a cancer diagnosis that once bound her to a wheelchair.
"The older women need to come together and enjoy. We are neglected," she told AFP outside the home where she lives with her ageing parents.
Togo's team members sing for the founder of Grannies International Football Tournament, Rebecca Ntsanwisi (C) known as 'Mama Beka' on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP)
She hopes to host the next tournament in Kenya.
Almost 40 percent of South Africa's children live in households headed by their grandparents, according to government statistics.
That is mainly due to poverty, cultural traditions and urban migration.
But grandmothers should not be saddled with the responsibility of raising their grandchildren, Ntsanwisi said.
"This is our time to enjoy and relax," she said. "I will die knowing that I did something."
Chris Matson, 67, took the advice to heart and travelled from the United States to "enjoy every second of the tournament".
"I did not play when I was little so to do it now is wonderful," said the bubbly goalkeeper for the American New England Breakers team.
Rolling back time
The team doctors, however, were earning their keep.
The aches and pains of the elderly players needed constant checking, South African team medic Diana Mawila said.
Some members of her Vakhegula Vakhegula team had to be monitored for high blood pressure before every game.
A general view of a match being played at Grannies International Football Tournament 2025 at Nkowankowa stadium in Tzaneen on April 4, 2025. (Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP)
Vakhegula Vakhegula means "grandmothers grandmothers" in the local Tsonga language and is a nod to the national men's team, Bafana Bafana or "boys boys".
But the team disagreed with Mawila's assessment and burst into heartfelt laughter.
"We are fit!," captain Thelma Ngobeni said, balancing on her head a packet of maize flour that players had received after the games.
"It is not about winning or losing. All that matters is that we showed up, had fun and did our best," she said.
Nonhlanhla's goal was more ambitious. A dream of making it big in football was within reach, she said.
"It's never too late to achieve your childhood dreams. I don't see anything stopping me," she added, walking out of the brick-walled tunnel to face France.
In a scene mirroring professional football, the crowd erupted in applause as teams entered the stadium hand in hand with young mascots and national anthems played.
"I'm halfway there, right?" Nonhlanhla smiled.
