What’s in a shoe?

From black high-cut steel-toe boots with leather studs to light, laceless pink boots with titanium studs, the history of football shoes is a journey from pain to pleasure.

Outside Europe and North America, however, millions of young players from working poor families cannot experience that special feeling of slipping on a fine pair of ‘real’ football boots. That is why this week’s generous gift of high quality boots from Viking Stavanger FC in Norway brought such joy to the boys of the Izichwe Youth Football program in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal.

Izichwe has also been invited to Norway for a major international tournament in May 2011. The solidarity of Viking (est. 1899) is doing a lot to open up opportunities for this terrific group of young South Africans.