Royal AM will make their first of what will be a minimum of five visits to Gauteng this season wthey take on Orlando Pirates in the DStv Premiership in Soweto on Tuesday.
It has been 17 months since they last won a game in the province, and they can expect to be put under severe pressure as the Buccaneers look to atone for losing their opening fixture of the new league season away at Stellenbosch at the weekend.
Royal AM made a stunning start in their first top flight season and a third place finish for a rookie club was unprecedented but last season that lustre faded as they could only manage an 11th place finish. They did not win a single game in Gauteng in the 2022/23 campaign and indeed won only three away games in the league all season.
After Tuesday’s Pirates clash, Royal AM will be back in Gauteng next month to take on Kaizer Chiefs and SuperSport United in October but then only return right at the end of the campaign to face Moroka Swallows and Mamelodi Sundowns
Here is SuperSport.com look at Royal AM in Gauteng, who’s overall record in the province is 11 games, with three wins, two draws and six defeats.
2021-22 season
Royal AM finished third
Record in Gauteng: P7 W3 D1 L3 GF10 GA7
Royal AM’s first game after they bought the status of Bloemfontein Celtic was a fixture at Dobsonville Stadium against Swallows where the home side’s captain Mbulelo Wambi grabbed a stoppage time winner for the Birds.
It was a heartbreaking start to their new status but Royal AM rallied quickly to go on an eight match unbeaten league run that catapulted them immediately up among the DStv Premiership frontrunners.
That run included a sensational 4-1 thumping of Chiefs at Soccer City where Victor Letsoalo scored twice and a 1-1 draw at the Orlando Stadium against Pirates where MaMkhize’s side scored first through Levy Mashiane.
The two results really ‘announced’ the club to the wider South African football supporting fraternity and saw Royal AM make an almost immediate impact.
The run came to an end at Ellis Park where Sekhukhune United beat them 1-0 but coach John Maduka and his players kept the results ticking over.
Sundowns beat them 3-2 at Loftus Versfeld just before Christmas 2021 but when they returned to Pretoria just over two months later, Royal AM beat SuperSport 2-0.
They also got revenge over Swallows in the Nedbank Cup, going back to Dobsonville and winning 1-0 with Kabelo Mahlasela coming off the bench to score the game winner.
That proved their last game in Gauteng for the season, leaving them with a 50 per cent success rate.
2022-23 season
Royal AM finished 11th
Record in Gauteng: P4 W0 D1 L3 GF 3 GA11
Coach John Maduka left for a more lucrative assignment at Maritzburg United and in his place the club appointed a trio of coaches in Dan Malesela, Abram Nteo and veteran Khabo Zondo.
They got off to a relatively good start but then the surprise factor of the previous season looked to dry up and by October 2022, when they got to Gauteng for the first time in the campaign, Malesela had already left.
Instead it was Nteo and Zondo whom oversaw a 3-1 loss at Atteridgeville against SuperSport, followed a fortnight later by a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Swallows. Their match against Chiefs was taken out of Gauteng to the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Limpopo Province while their visit to Loftus in March to take on the run away leaders Sundowns resulted in the club’s heaviest defeat – a 5-1 thumping with Peter Shalulile netting two goals.
The only point they garnered in Gauteng the entire season came right at the end of the campaign as former Pirates winger Menzi Masuku equalised deep in stoppage time against his old club and handed Royal AM a 1-1 draw at the Orlando Stadium.
){kind=link}
