PSL Stats: History of PSL Hat-tricks

Caleb Bimenyimana’s hat-trick led Chiefs to a 3-1 comeback win over Stellenbosch this past weekend. The win took Chiefs to within 2 points of the top of the league, but the story is really about one man. Despite the furore over the match ball, the giant Burundian took home a new record.

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1 – Bimenyimana is the first player in history to score a hat-trick of penalties in one game.

His hat-trick is taking the headlines, and rightly so – this was the first halt-trick seen in the league this season. Last season’s first hat-trick came with just over a month of the season remaining, but this term, it is much earlier. No one is complaining.

0 – Only once before has a PSL season gone from start to finish without a hat-trick, that was 2017/18.

But what is the full history of PSL hat-tricks? The first player to score a hat-trick in the PSL was Roger Lupiya, back in December 1996 for Supersport against QwaQwa Stars. Tied 0-0 at half-time, he came on as a substitute to score three goals past Joseph Sibiya. The last player to do so was Peter Shalulile for Sundowns in April this year. Altogether, 119 hat-tricks had been scored in the top-flight, with Bimenyimana’s effort clocking in at Number 120. That said, he’ll consider it special as it is his first, and also his country’s first.

1 – Bimenyimana is the first player from Burundi to score a hat-trick in the PSL, with Burundi being the 17th different nation represented among hat-trick scorers in the top-flight.

MOST HAT-TRICKS BY COUNTRY
Country	Number of Hat-tricks
South Africa	80
Zambia	9
Zimbabwe	6
Liberia	4
Nigeria	3
Mozambique	3
Malawi	3
Cameroon	2
Namibia	2
England	1
Serbia	1
Senegal	1
Botswana	1
DR Congo	1
New Zealand	1
Ivory Coast	1
Burundi	1

Yes, you read that right – the list includes players from England (James Keene) and also from New Zealand 

(Jeremy Brockie).

PSL HAT-TRICK BY CLUB
Team	League Hat-tricks
Kaizer Chiefs	16
Sundowns	15
SuperSport	10
Jomo Cosmos	8
Moroka Swallows	7
Orlando Pirates	7

On the club level, the Burundian’s hat-trick was the 16th by a Chiefs player, making them outright leaders when it comes to club trebles in the top-flight. Many readers would be forgiven for not recognising the club with the 4th most hat-tricks in the PSL era. That is the once-mighty Jomo Cosmos, whose contributors to the total include the likes of Tico-Tico Bucuane, Essau Kanyenda & Christopher Katongo.

11 – Chiefs have also seen 11 different players score a hat-trick for them in the PSL, the highest number of unique hat-trick scorers of all sides.

On a player level, Bimenyimana is the 90th player to score a league hat-trick, joining a club of 89 other names led by cult-heroes Pollen Ndlanya & Daniel Mudau.

A special mention to Pollen Ndlanya who not only leads the hat-trick charts but is also the only player to have scored a hat-trick for three different clubs (Chiefs, Pirates & AmaZulu). Not only that:

4 – Pollen Ndlanya scored his hat-tricks in four different seasons – 1996/97, 1998/99, 1999/00 and 2001/02.

Very respectful of him to take a break in 1997/98 and 2000/01.

Much much more could be written about hat-tricks, but we’ll round this up with a few quirks on players that scored two hat-tricks. Mabhuti Khanyeza scored two in his top-flight career, with those coming just two months apart (57 days to be exact). It was the shortest gap between hat-tricks by any player who scored more than one until Peter Shalulile had that Haaland-style two hat-tricks in six days earlier this year. Nomvethe also scored two hat-tricks in his (long) career. The first came on 22 February 1998 (hello Nokia) and the last on April 29 2012 (hello iPhone).

14y 2m 5d – Nomvethe’s gap of 14+ years remains a record for time between two PSL trebles by a single player. Side note: the EPL record is 14 years 1 month and 29 days held by CR7, so Nomvete beats Ronaldo by 7 days.

One final EPL-related note. Les Ferdinand was the first player to score a hat-trick in successive English Premier League games. Peter Shalulile was the first player to do so in successive South African Premier League games.

29 – Their second hat-tricks came on the same day exactly 29 years apart: 12 April 1993 & 12 April 2022.

Spooky.