Rollers made an impact in Botswana football in the 1960s and 1970s, coached by Mr Cuthberth “CAR” Motsepe, who came from a Pretoria, South Africa as a teacher at St Josephs College and then at GSS.
Rollers established a cross town rivalry with Gaborone United. Led by administrators such as Francis van Vuuren and Mokhutshwane Sekgoma, and featuring players of the calibre of Freddie Modise, Clement “Captain Muller”Muthelesi, Morwalela “Pro” Seema, Geoffrey “Sliding” Matsila, Sola “Ace” Mokgadi and goalkeeper Mchuu “City” Manyalela, Rollers made an impact in Botswana club football.
THE BEGINNING: FROM MIGHTY TIGERS TO TOWNSHIP ROLLERS
A group led by Francis van Vuuren founded a football club as Mighty Tigers in 1961, at Gaborone, at the time a tiny settlement that was being prepared to become Botswana’s capital upon the attainment of independence in 1966.
Club founders were largely workers in the Public Works Department (PWD); while others were involved in the trade school at what later became the Botswana Institute of Administration and Commerce (BIAC).
They were later joined by students of St Josephs College at Kgale, and Gaborone Secondary School (GSS) under the tutelage of Cuthbert “CAR” Motsepe, the school principal from Pretoria, South Africa, who was based at those schools and coached Rollers.
The core of the team were PWD workers who became involved in the construction of the first modern roads in Gaborone, as it evolved into a town ahead of independence.
1965 saw the official registration of the club, renamed “Township Rollers,” since Gaborone was then a small town (a Township), and club founders used Rollers compacting equipment in constructing Gaborone’s first internal roads.
An official logo was designed in 1965 by Mr Herbert Keaikitse from Kanye, featuring a map of the early Gaborone roads the club founders built; rollers compacting equipment, a football, a soccer boot, as well as the official club nickname “Tse Tala” (The Blues) and club motto “Popa Popa e a Ipopa” (a Setswana saying about unity in molding oneself towards success).
The 1965 logo was re-branded in 2010 by Kennedy Motang.