Assembly Relegated Again
It’s happened again. It’s happened again! For the fifth time from 2007, National Assembly has been relegated. Its official after the Parliamentarians lost away to Forest Rangers 3-1 and with Lumwana Radiants beating already relegated Nchanga Rangers in Chingola, it became reality that Assembly would once again, walk that disappointing walk back to division one.
Assembly will play in Division Zone One next season if the structure remain the same .
This is the fifth time they are dropping to division one from the super league from 2007 and a lot of its fans were hoping they would manage to survive relegation as they did in 2014 before getting relegated in 2015.
Assembly has had history of relegation and their longest stay in the super league was from 2003 to 2006 before being relegated in 2007. They came back in 2010 were they again were relegated and bounced back in 2012, again failed to stay up. Their next survival hunt was in 2014 but failed to maintain the super league status the following year.
As this Soka25east article points out in fantastic detail, these are harrowing times for theAssembly and it’s sponsors will have to live up to the new trends of football signings if there is any hope for this club.
Assembly pulled off several stunning escapes to avoid relegation over the past year but the club did nothing to fix its issues, and Forest Rangers were not going to be merciful and allow them to still continue in the super league with a lot of work to do.
Time has struck with a vengeance. Unless new sponsors revitalizes Assembly , the dream to continue thinking they are a super league team might be over as we know it.
The players were excellent but management looks to have let them down. The push was clear to see but the bridge was too far for any reasonable fight back.
It’s back to the drawing board and parliament needs to decide if they want this team or not and if they do, a lot will have to change.
Other teams that saw red in the 2018 season are debutants New Monze Swallows and Kabwe Youth Soccer Academy. Experienced Nchanga Rangers closed the bracket as they all walk back to the lower league .
What a season!
