Township Rollers

The Gaborone Derby is a significant fixture. Township Rollers and Gaborone United have shared the capital's football since long before either club counted honours by the shelf, and the Rollers have always treated Mochudi Centre Chiefs, from the village up the road, as the other fixture worth circling on the calendar.

The club began as a works team for the Public Works Department of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, and its first name, Mighty Tigers, lasted only until 1965, when it became Township Rollers, after the road-rolling equipment the men who founded it operated. The nickname Popa comes from the same era, from the motto "Popa Popa e a ipopa"; Mapalastina, the Palestinians, arrived later, in the 1990s.

Relegated to the First Division in 2003, Township Rollers won that division the following year under Banks Panene and went straight back up to take the Premier League and the FA Challenge Cup together in 2004–05, a double completed the season after the club had not even belonged in the top flight. Sixteen league titles in total make them the most decorated side in Botswana, though the club's own boardroom has given them almost as much trouble as any opponent: a 2012 attempt by Jagdish Shah to take the club private ended in 2015 with a High Court ruling handing control back to the members' executive committee, and Madinda Ndlovu resigned as head coach that same year after supporters turned on him.

In 2018 the Rollers reached the group stage of the CAF Champions League for the first time, beat KCCA of Uganda, and finished bottom of a group that also held Al Ahly and Espérance de Tunis. None of it has done much to soften the derby. Gaborone United remain the fixture that decides bragging rights in the capital, and Mochudi Centre Chiefs the one that decides them beyond it.