The 2001–02 National First Division was the 6th season of
the second tier of South African
soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
since the reorganisation in 1996.
It consisted of two streams, an Inland stream of 16 teams, and a Coastal stream of 14 teams.
The Coastal stream was won by
African Wanderers
African Wanderers is a South African professional football club, based in the Chatsworth township, a suburb of Durban
Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape To ...
and the Inland stream by
Dynamos, with both earning promotion to the
2002–03 Premier Soccer League.
Two seasons after setting a number of records for worst performing team in the Premier Division,
Mother City were relegated from the Coastal Stream, finishing bottom.
Bribery allegations
The manager of promotion-chasing
Avendale Athletico, Trevor Heinrich, along with the coach, David Byrne, claimed to have been approached shortly before the club's game against William Pescod by a man offering that he could arrange for the game to go their way, for
R6,000. The man claimed that another club, also in the promotion race, had offered the referee R4,500. Avendale refused the offer, and the game was drawn 1-1, with Avendale having a goal disallowed in the last minute.
League winners Wanderers defeated
Avendale Athletico 1–0 in another key game, with a goal controversially disallowed amongst allegations of bribery and corruption.
Coastal stream
League table
Inland stream
League table
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:2001-02 National First Division
National First Division seasons
2001–02 in South African soccer