SOWETO DERBY: Stats, facts and records

Five decades of tussles between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates have left a rich history of facts, stats and records.

Saturday’s Betway Premiership clash between the two Soweto giants will be the 182nd time the two clubs have met since their first clash in January, 1970.

Chiefs have a big advantage in the win count between the two clubs with 74 victories to 48 for the Buccaneers.

There have also been 54 draws and five abandoned games.

The goal tally between the two clubs in the previous derbies is 230-196 in favour of Chiefs, who have lost the last four meetings between the two teams.

Here are other facts and figures from the Soweto derby

* The players with the most goals in a derby is Pule ‘Ace’ Ntsoelengoe, with a total of 19 followed by Nelson ‘Teenage’ Dladla, Marks Maponyane and Abednigo ‘Shaka’ Ngcobo on 11 each. Maponyane scored 10 for Chiefs and one for Pirates. He is one of six players to have scored for both clubs in the derby, along with Gabriel Khoza, Blessing Mgidi, Jerry Sadike, Donald Khuse and Marc Batchelor.

* The biggest winning margin in a derby clash has been four goals, starting with Chiefs’ 7-3 triumph in 1972 and then a 5-1 victory in 1975. Pirates matched that with a 5-1 win over Chiefs in 1990.

* The most goals in a derby is 10 when Chiefs beat Pirates 6-4 in the first meeting between the two clubs in 1970 and again 7-3 two years later.

* The fastest goal in a derby was scored by Mabhuti Khenyeza, who only spent one season at Chiefs but netted after 19 seconds in 2007 when the match was moved to Durban to offer visitors a glimpse of the best of South African league football on the eve of the preliminary draw for the 2010 World Cup.

* There have been 11 own goals scored in the Soweto Derby down the years, seven put into their own net by Pirates and four by Chiefs. The last was from Olisa Ndah to hand Chiefs a 1-0 win in February 2023.

*Jerry Sikhosana was the last player to score a hat-trick in the derby in a 4-1 victory for Pirates in 1996.

* Soccer City has hosted the most derbies with a total of 77, including the last seven games. Orlando Stadium has hosted 63 games, including the first between the two sides

* The derby has been played at total of 15 different venues including in Durban, Gqeberha (when it was still known and Port Elizabeth) and Mdantsane, near East London.

* Alfred ‘Russia’ Jacobs and Fani Madida hold the distinction of having scored in four successive derbies. Jacobs’d quartet came in 1970-71 and Madida in 1991-92. Chiefs’ goalkeeper Joseph ‘Banks’ Setlhodi netted penalties in three successive derbies in 1972, Ntsoelengoe scored in three games in a row in1975 and was matched by Sikhosana (96-97) and Dennis Lota (99-00).

* There have been six coaches who have sat on both benchers in the derby with the last being Vladimir Vermezovic. Others have been Kosta Papic, Walter da Silva, Ted Dumitru, Augusto Palacios and Joe Frickleton

* Herman Blaschke, the Namibian-born, was the first foreigner to score in the derby between Chiefs and Pirates, in 1975. Later the same year Zimbabwean Ebison Mugoyo also got a goal for the AmaKhosi.