The new M-Net TV series “League of Glory’, which was written by scriptwriter Bruce Young and directed by respected filmmaker Darrel Roodt, will be a marketing boost for the university and wine town Stellenbosch. The first of 13 episodes will be flighted today at 19h30.
The series tells the story of three young men Jonathan Grant (Charlie Keegan), Luke Jantjies (Marvin-Lee Beukes) and Kaiser Sigcau (Siv Ngesi), from different walks of life, who all love soccer, and share the goal of “glory through soccer”. The three soccer fans play for a township soccer club and are assigned an ex-Bafana Bafana player as a coach to train them for a soccer competition. The coach plays an important role in the lives of the soccer players. The series tells the story of how the three stars triumph over adversity, and how each of them face their fears. The series is a familiar drama with a modern twist, according to Roodt, with a strong emphasis on the world’s most popular sport, being soccer. The series coincides with the World Cup.
Nook Eatery on Van Reyneveld Street in Stellenbosch, a favourite coffee shop and eatery, was lucky to be selected by the series producers as a location for some of the action. Co-owner Luke Grant said he and his partner Jessie, the delectable chef of the restaurant, were happy to be involved and helped out with the shoot. Multiple scenes were shot at Nook. Stellenbosch’s beauty is captured in the series, and a wine farm is the location for the home of the parents of Jonathan Grant in the series.
FIFA’s strict rules, forbidding ambush marketing, meant that some scenes had to be re-shot when it was discovered that a FIFA soccer ball was used in some of the shots for the series. This affected Nook too. “Upon reviewing Fifa’s regulations around licensing for the World Cup during this time, M-Net and Waterfront Television realised that showing the scenes with the official Fifa ball would be against the regulations” said M-Net, according to the Cape Times. About 9 minutes of the drama had to be re-shot, and thus delayed the start date of the series by a week, to today.
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com
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Pity the series appears to be of a substandard quality. I watched the first episode and it is totally abysmal. Soccer in the Cape winelands? How credible is that?
Re: Emile – ‘soccer in the Cape Winelands’. I have seen many soccer tournaments and events at Stellenbosch. A few IPL players come from Stellenbosch and were recognised from their clubs there. So Emile, what on earth are you saying?
“substandard quality” Broer waar val jy uit ? Are you smoked up or did you not get a part in the series ? As previously Darrell Roodt has shown what can be done !! Was lucky enough to see his last film “Jakhalsdans” at the Cape Winelands Film Festival here at Spier ! What a journey !
Congrats to Darrell and all the League of Glory actors !!
What a pity you did not watch further Emile. I have never been one to watch SA “soapies”, but League of Glory is def. in a league of it’s own. I love it!!