Sharuko on Saturday
IT was a relatively short drive, from Harare’s Central Business District to Highlands and on Monday nights, the madness that usually characterises the traffic jungle of our capital would have long died down, replaced by the intoxicating beauty of a city at peace with itself.

We were just the two of us in my car. My passenger was someone I had been asked to pick up in town and bring to Pockets Hill as he was our guest that night on ZTV’s weekly authoritative football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I am one of the pundits.

He was someone very familiar, we had interacted a number of times before and — despite a bad boy image he had crafted on the football pitch in his short adventure on the big stage that had a fair amount of both controversy and trophies — he always handled me with a touch of respect.

It didn’t take long for him to open up to me, during that short drive to Pockets Hill, with every word he uttered in that car releasing the demons that were consuming his soul and the more he spoke, the more his mood started to change, taking a darker shade, while he also became more animated.

I listened, something I usually do on the occasions I find myself in the company of footballers, administrators or fans of this game, as my passenger rumbled on, and on, and on, covering a whole range of subjects, especially the depression that was weighing down heavily on him and slowly destroying his soul.

Rodreck Mutuma is quite a character who deeply divides opinion, depending on which side one is, and there were a lot of things he said that night, where his parade of both his arrogance and self-belief kept gaining a notch with every word he uttered from his mouth, as I humbly listened and performed my ad-hoc role as his chauffeur.

It became very clear to me he never considered himself to be a man of limited football gifts, who needed to work twice as much as the others for him to make a success story from his career, but clearly as one of those who had been blessed with an abundance of talent to propel him into super-stardom.

He told me the best footballers differentiated themselves from the average ones by the way they sparkled on the big stage, the beauty of the gospel which he was preaching to me being that he made it appear as if it’s something that I didn’t know, and he told me it wasn’t a coincidence he had scored the goals in the final that had won the Mbada Diamonds Cup for Dynamos in 2011 and 2012.

He said while the media had suggested he had flopped at Bloemfontein Celtic, leading to the club off-loading him, he didn’t look at it that way and, instead, merely viewed himself as a player who had run into a coach who didn’t like him and playing for a club where losing was very normal and, given he had served his apprenticeship at a Dynamos side where winning was part of their culture, the conflict of cultures affected his form.

Then, just like that, he dropped the big one.

“Blaz, you guys talk about Celtic, some describe me as a flop, that I failed to make the grade in the ABSA Premier League in South Africa forgetting that I have played at a higher level than that and against better players than those I faced during my time at Celtic and did very well,” he told me, the innocence of his beliefs clearly visible in every word he uttered.

“People easily forget that I played for the Warriors against Egypt in a (2014) World Cup qualifier in Alexandria, choose to forget that a German coach (Pagels) saw something in me to throw me into that match, forget that I partnered Knowledge (Musona) in that attack I did quite well against very strong opposition and yet want to label me a flop because things didn’t work out at Celtic.

“It’s not fair Blaz, if I can play in Alexandria against those Egyptians, whose quality is far better than the players in South Africa, and do as well as I did that day, playing away from home in a World Cup match, why should people doubt me?

“If a German coach says I’m good enough to play alongside Knowledge, for the national team in a World Cup match away from home, it means something Blaz because these guys know their football and I get hurt reading all the bad stuff about me in the newspapers or listening to what people say about me on the radio.

“I know my quality Blaz, no one can take that away from me, and I may not be as good as Knowledge, but if I am good enough to be his teammate for my country in a World Cup match that we lose 2-1 in Egypt, that should tell you something and that’s where I want to take my game back because I know what I can do.”

FOUR YEARS LATER, SALAH’s STAR IS SHINING BRIGHTEST WHILE RODDIE STRUGGLES ALONG

What Roddie didn’t tell me that night was that the captain of that Warriors’ side on that World Cup tour of duty in the Land of the Pharaohs was Denver Mukamba.

Musona, as he always does, scored for us in that game which was delicately balanced at 1-1 until Mohammed Aboutrika scored a controversial winner for the Pharaohs with less than two minutes left on the clock.

That Egyptian side also featured another forward, Mohamed Salah, born in the same year as Musona, who was making waves at Swiss side Basel, and although he failed to score in that match in Alexandria, he struck a hat-trick in the reverse game at the National Sports Stadium on June 9, 2013 in a 4-2 win for the Pharaohs.

Musona, once again, scored for the Warriors with the other goal coming from defender Lincoln Zvasiya while Mutuma was an unused substitute with Ovidy, Matthew Rusike and Silas Songani being the subs Pagels used that day.

A year later, Salah moved to Chelsea for US$14,2 million, the first Egyptian to join the London giants, and he struggled to make an impression, featuring in only three league matches, before being loaned to Italian clubs Fiorentina and Roma.

Salah, though didn’t let his disappointment at Stamford Bridge destroy him and, instead, used it as a challenge to prove wrong those who doubted his qualities and sent him out on loan and he thrived in the Italian Serie A so much that Liverpool broke their club transfer record to buy him for a fee that could rise to about US$58 million.

Salah isn’t alone in that bracket — Falcao failed miserably at Man U and Chelsea, but has sparkled in France at Monaco, Mario Balotelli failed at Man City and Liverpool, but has found his touch in France, Iago Aspas was a joke at Liverpool, but has become the main man at Celta Vigo in Spain while Filipe Luis was pathetic at Chelsea, but is now one of the stars at Atletico Madrid.

WHEN A FLYING DOCTOR RULED OUR FOOTBALL . . .

BLAST FROM THE PAST . . . In the week that former Dynamos captain Memory Mucherahowa has said a lot about the 1996 domestic football season, this Soccer Stars of the Year calendar from that year, also brought back a lot of memories

Juan Cuadrado was horrible at Chelsea, but turned out to be one of the star players who helped Juventus qualify for the Champions League final while Jerome Boateng failed horribly at Manchester City, but has flourished at Bayern Munich and won the World Cup with Germany.

These cases probably prove Mutuma was, to some extent, right in his argument, in my car that night, when he said if a player struggles to make an impression at his new club it doesn’t necessarily mean he should be dismissed as a flop and his critics shouldn’t jump on that to use as ammunition to nail him as a lost cause.

It could also be used to justify Mukamba’s argument that he doesn’t believe it’s fair for critics to feast on his doomed mission in South Africa, where he failed miserably to make an impression at about three clubs, and use that as part of their ammunition to say he isn’t as good as some might have been suggested.

What Mutuma didn’t remind me, which he could have done, that night was something that Sir Alex Ferguson said as the media feasted on his big signing, Juan Sebastian Veron, as the Argentine struggled to make an impression at Old Trafford after Manchester United had paid a lot of money for him.

“On you go. I’m f*****g talking to you. He’s a f*****g great player. You are f*****g idiots,” Fergie thundered to the army of journalists.

This week, Mutuma and Mukamba were back in the headlines, some will say for the wrong reasons again, after Roddie abruptly ended his romantic flirtation with Highlanders, after only six months, and made the journey back to the capital.

The same Roddie who, just a few months ago, told us that this was the club of his dreams, the one his instincts had been searching for, and the outpouring of love that he was getting in the City of Kings was just what he had been looking for.

“I am excited by the love the fans have shown me and I have to pay it back by good performances,” said Mutuma.

“The players at Highlanders love me. They are good friends. There is no gossip at Bosso. The team is united and they work very hard.”

And, as if battling not to be outdone by his old teammate, Denver was back in the headlines after snubbing the Warriors, having been given a way back into the national team, and choosing to go and train with Dynamos.

The same Denver who, in May 2014, after being recalled to the Warriors who were preparing to face Tanzania in a 2015 AFCON qualifier told us how grateful he was to be back in the national team fold.

“I think it’s good for me to come back into the national team,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that in my first game (at Bidvest Wits) I got a red card and then when I came back I had too many injuries.

“I pulled a thigh muscle and when I came back after one month things were not the same. Now I am fit and I believe I am up for challenges.”

The same Mukamba who last month was one of the two Dynamos players that Lloyd Mutasa, stung and pained by the omission of his DeMbare players from the Warriors provisional squad for the 2019 Nations Cup qualifier against Liberia, summoned for a candid talk.

The other one was Zvasiya.

“I think if you talk to Lincoln and Denver they will testify that before we played ZPC Kariba I had a chat with the two, they stay in the same room,” said Mutasa.

“We talked to each other and I said ‘look guys we don’t have any representative in the national team and when I look at you I see some former national team players, but when I look at your ages it’s very worrisome for a team like Dynamos not to have a player in the national team.’

“You know, it was like a prayer because the game after that we heard Lincoln is in the national team.”

MAYBE, WHEN YOU GET TO THINK ABOUT IT, WE ARE THE ONES TO BLAME

The easier thing, and that’s what is unfortunate about us, is for all of us to gang up on these guys and label them misfits, outcasts, vagabonds, rascals, losers, failures, whatever word might suit us, might help us condemn them, might help us dismiss them as a pathetic lot who have horribly lost their way and are beyond rehabilitation.

It’s difficult to understand how someone like Denver, who badly needs the rehabilitation that the Warriors could provide for him, to turn his back on a team which is under a coaching staff that includes the very coach, Mutasa, who has helped, in a very big way, to revive his career by embracing him when many were beginning to give up on him.

But, then, we are a sporting family where amateurism is still rife and we don’t place any value to serious issues like clinical depression, something which they say affects one in every five sportspersons and is so serious that some of them ended up taking their lives.

If the most decorated Olympian in history, United States swimming legend Michael Phelps can tell us that he has battled clinical depression why then should we not consider that this could be an issue among our athletes too?

If others in Europe and the United States rally behind their stars, when they struggle with clinical depression, and provide a helping hand to ensure that not only their careers, but crucially, their lives are saved, why is it that we are seemingly in a rush not to embrace the reality of this condition among our athletes and, when they show signs of suffering from it, why are we seemingly desperate to dismiss them as outcasts instead of helping them?

It has been medically proven, now and again, that there is a prize that some of the best athletes pay for their time on the big stage, especially when things don’t start going according to plan, doubts begin to creep into their minds and they are no longer given the celebrity status that they had taken for granted.

That’s when clinical depression kicks in and Robert Enke, a highly-regarded German goalkeeper who played for the likes of Benfica and Barcelona, broke down and killed himself while former Wales international Gary Speed, an English Premiership legend who is only third in appearances to David James and Ryan Giggs, hanged himself in his Welsh hometown at the age of 42 just six years ago.

Andre Waters, one of American football’s hardest hitting defenders in an 11-year professional career, shot himself in 2006 as he struggled with depression and examinations revealed he had suffered severe brain damage during his playing days and his brain had degenerated to that of an 85-year-old man.

Stan Collymore, who starred for England and Liverpool, Paul Gascoigne, you name them, all suffered from clinical depression, but crucially, they received a helping hand from their communities than being dismissed as outcasts and that’s why they still live today.

We might not understand that Denver probably needs help, but maybe we can understand that he has this feeling, within him right now, that he was only there to add the numbers in the Warriors’ squad and the team is better off without him.

After all, he tells himself he was just a last-minute replacement for the trip to Namibia, simply because Ronald Chitiyo had dropped out of the team because his father had collapsed, and Denver might be someone who believes — whether we agree with him or not is irrelevant — that he is better than Rooney.

Having accepted the last-minute call, he was dropped to the bench, only to be thrown into the game after the Namibians had scored and we were trying to find an equaliser and, for him, it’s something that probably hurt and whether we agree with him or not is irrelevant to him.

And, now that Rooney is back in the squad, Denver could be wondering where will he fit now that the player who had been preferred ahead of him, in a team where he was relegated to the bench even in this player’s absence, is back in the squad?

It’s easy, from a distance, to judge and condemn these guys, but in a brutal industry littered with players of a higher profile, who failed to deal with the challenges that come with lives lived in the spotlight, including some who ended up taking their lives, we have to be careful with how we deal with issues of clinical depression.

We might not see it, but it’s probably there in our sport.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0719545199 (I have graduated to OneFusion, why haven’t you?’’

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Tich “Chief” Mushangwe every Monday night at 21.45pm.

Sharuko on Saturday
ON November 13, 1861, an American priest, Reverend M R Watkinson sent a letter to the United States Treasury, petitioning the department to add a powerful statement that recognised “Almighty God in some form on our coins’’.

Watkinson’s argument was that this could be used “as a way of relieving the people from the ignominy of heathenism”, itself a barbaric practice where the presence of God, and the need to worship him, did not exist in their lives.

The phrase, “In God We Trust,’’ has been the official United States motto, since its adoption in 1956, when it replaced the old one, “El pluribus unum”, which had been in existence since 1782 when the Great Seal of the US was created.

Such is its enduring appeal, and acceptance, that it cuts across religions — from Christianity to Judaism and from Hindus to Muslims — found in Psalms and Proverbs in the Bible, in two places in the Koran and in Islam it’s referred to as Tawakkul.

Many American public schools displayed framed posters of the motto, “In God We Trust”, after the 9 /11 terrorist attacks and in a number of states in America — including North and South Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Florida, Arizona — you can use it on special vehicle licence plates.

Given that the US currency has been a big part of us since our Zimbabwe dollar was forced out of circulation, to take a sabbatical, by the pressure of hyperinflation, I guess a lot of you guys have got used to seeing the phrase “In God We Trust” on the money in your wallets, pockets or when you make your transactions.

For Khama Billiat, the phrase “In God We Trust” has provided a shield for him, an escape from the storm triggered by reports in the South African media in the past week, where his image has been tainted by a graphic painting of him as someone who is allergic to the virtues of professionalism.

The South African media vultures have been all over him, feasting on a character which they claim is critically flawed, a prisoner to the lure of alcohol he even allegedly comes to training hopelessly drunk after partying all night the previous day.

In just a week, we have seen Khama being transformed from the Golden Boy, who was the face of the South African Premiership last year when he scooped all the top awards at the annual ceremony to honour the best footballer plying his trade in that country, into the ultimate Bad Boy of Super Diski.

The Super Diski version of Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne, the England superstar midfielder whose life and career were ruined by alcohol abuse and other vices, an athlete who isn’t only an insult to the professionalism expected of a player of his status, but one whose wild lifestyle is a cancer that should be removed from their game before it poisons their kids.

That’s why we have seen some of the newspapers championing the campaign, this week, for Khama to be sold, cast away somewhere in Saudi Arabia or Egypt, far away from their Mzansi, the land of the upright, the land where only model foreign footballers should be given the permit to play on their green football fields, dripping with purity, where monsters like Khama are a curse that should be exorcised.

With no public support coming from his club, Khama has been vulnerable and, in such a very difficult week, he has turned to an American motto hoping to find divine defence amid this media blitzkrieg.

And each and every message he has posted on his social media platforms has been attached with the phrase, “In God We Trust”, even turning to King David’s prayer in the book of Psalms for the Lord to look at his soul and remind him if, indeed, he was messing things up as was being suggested by those who have dedicated pages to his demonisation.

I AM NOT KHAMA’s ADVOCATE, BUT SOMETHING JUST DOESN’T ADD UP FOR ME

Khama’s attachment with negativity, from all those stories about his romantic associations with raunchy dancer Bev and being robbed at gunpoint in a shop in the early hours of the day when model professionals are expected to be in bed, have not helped the cause of those who have tried to jump to his defence.

I’m not Khama’s advocate because, unlike Peter Ndlovu, Moses Chunga or Benjani Mwaruwari, he isn’t someone I know very well even though my admiration for his unique talent knows no boundaries and my belief of his immense value to our Warriors’ cause has and will never be shaken.

It’s difficult for me to provide judgment on him as a person because, away from the football ring, I haven’t interacted with him a lot to provide me with enough material to have an informed position on how he is away from the spotlight that comes with the moments he spends on the football field either representing my country or his club.

Given he is someone who represents the Warriors with distinction, playing a leading role in the team — and by extension my country — as we ended a decade of waiting for a place at the Nations Cup finals, he is someone I have always wished well in his football career.

I am not a Mamelodi Sundowns fan in a league where no club appeals to me because of my preference for substance instead of theatre and for quality instead of comedy, but forced to find some remote love in Super Diski, I would grudgingly find it in the camp of the old lady called Orlando Pirates.

However, Khama’s magical feet — and Pitso Mosimane’s refreshing and successful mission to prove that African coaches aren’t inferior to their European or South American counterparts — has made me find a reason to celebrate the Brazilians’ success.

What I find a bit ironic, though, is the striking coincidence between the explosion of all these so-called dark chapters of Khama’s indiscretions and our Warrior’s refusal to be bullied into signing a contract extension at Sundowns.

The silence from his club who, ordinarily would be expected to support him, has fuelled speculation that this smear campaign is all part of a grand hatchet job from inside Mamelodi Sundowns to significantly damage Khama’s reputation or remind him who calls the shots in Mzansi football.

THE TOUCH OF INNOCENCE . . .

These two vintage pictures of Knowledge Musona (left) and Khama Billiat during their schoolboy days are worth their price in gold

By standing his ground and exercising his rights it means, six months from now, he will be able to talk to potential suitors without them breaking any rules and regulations related to player transfers.

It also means he won’t be burdened by the weight of the crazy buyout clause that has turned him into a virtual prisoner at Sundowns and frustrated potential suitors who could have long plucked him out of Super Diski.

It also means his handlers can also negotiate a deal for himself with a potential suitor who doesn’t need to pay the repulsive buyout clause come July next year?

Of course, that amount is nothing for someone like Patrice Motsepe, the billionaire owner of Sundowns, but for those who earn their living telling the big boss that they have everything under control, employed specifically to ensure star players like Khama don’t get to the last six months without their contracts being extended, it means the world.

Will they tell the big boss that they slept on duty and the prized asset can now simply wait for the end of his contact and escape from the bondage that had characterised his stay with the club and make a lot of money for himself without the team being principal negotiators to where he goes from now onwards?

In South Africa that is dereliction of duty and some people have paid for that with their lives.

Why, I may ask, is that it has become common that any good player, deemed as a special investment by Sundowns, cannot divorce himself from the club without the process turning into a messy affair?

It was the same story with Keagan Dolly when he was courted by a Greek club before he eventually moved to France this year with Sundowns even claiming, at some stage, they had made an error in the buyout clause in the contract that they had signed with the player.

“When they were interested in Keagan‚ we as a family really didn’t want him to go back to Sundowns. Because we had struggled to get him out of Sundowns when he was a junior‚” Ramon Dolly, Keagan’s father, told the SABC at the height of the dispute.

Now, if a club as big as Sundowns, can have the temerity to tell the world that they made a mistake in the buyout figure they inserted in the contract they signed with a player like Dolly, when he tells them he wants to move, what else can they do — using friendly media organisations — to inflict considerable damage on a stubborn foreign boy who is refusing to be bullied?

Khama clearly isn’t a saint, but I don’t think he is the kind of devil they are portraying him to be either and it’s sad that, right now, he is the victim of a relentless and well-oiled machine that will batter him, from all angles, until he is either whipped into line — to sing the master’s song — or suffer severe reputational damage.

That is why, unlike others, we chose not to carry the stories coming from South Africa without testing them.

IF KHAMA IS A DEVIL, WHAT ABOUT WARNER, ROOT, GERRARD AND COMPANY?

At 2am on June 13, 2013, in the Walkabout Bar in central Birmingham, Australian cricketer David Warner punched his English counterpart Joe Root in an altercation which the former claimed was sparked by the latter insulting Muslims, especially South African batsman Hashim Amla’s beard.

The cricketers had been drinking, in those early hours, and the incident made front page news in both the British and Australian newspapers.

Exactly two years later, in August 2015, Warner — who was accused of starting that infamous fracas — was appointed the vice-captain of the Australia cricket team, a position he still holds up today.

Four years after that incident, on February 13 this year, Root was appointed captain of the England cricket team.

“That incident did make me reassess things a bit,” Root told the Daily Mail. “You learn from those experiences and you try to make sure you don’t put yourself or your team-mates in similar scenarios.

“I still like to think I have a pretty good laugh with the other guys in the dressing room and still enjoy a beer and the odd night out. You have to enjoy winning and being part of a successful team, just being a young bloke.”

On 29 December, 2008, Liverpool star Steven Gerrard was arrested outside the Lounge Inn in Southport and charged, along with two others, with assault causing actual bodily harm after an attack, in a bar, which left a disc jockey with a broken tooth and cuts to his forehead.

Gerrard, the former England captain and one of Liverpool’s greatest ever players, who had been drinking in the bar, is said to have been angered by the DJ’s refusal to play a particular song that he wanted.

He faced the possibility of five years in prison, if convicted, and although CCTV footage showed him delivering a series of punches at the DJ Marcus McGhee, a Manchester United fan, Gerrard pleaded not guilty saying he only hit him in self defence.

The jury acquitted him and, a few months later, he was named captain of the England football team.

The point I am making here is that while we expect, or probably demand, model footballers and sportspersons because they should set examples for our kids, it doesn’t always work that way because these guys are also human.

It’s not like I’m a supporter of footballers, or sportsmen, who frequent bars and fight in nightclubs.

But I am saying before we shouldn’t be selective in our condemnation of them, suggesting that Khama is the worst devil the game has ever known, and conveniently forgetting that better and higher profile players have done worse things than this boy and didn’t get half the savage media treatment our Warrior is getting in South Africa today.

After all, unlike Stevie G, Khama — who has this week been portrayed as probably the worst monster ever to roam a football field — has never been arrested for fighting in a bar, or dragged to court to answer charges of inflicting serious bodily harm on his victim.

If Khama is such a monster, then why did the same people who are today scavenging on his character, seemingly turn a blind eye when one of them, Jabu “Pule’’ Mahlangu was being devoured by alcohol while being portrayed as a model superstar on their back pages?

“I’ve never shied away from the fact that I come from a background of alcoholics. Alcohol was part of my life . . . fact,” said Mhlangu, in a refreshingly frank interview.

“I didn’t drink because I became famous, noooo. I grew up drinking while I was becoming famous.’’

What about Lovers Mohlala, what about Steve Lekoelea, what about Masibusane Zongo, the one they told us had the wizardry of Cristiano Ronaldo, what about Mbulelo Mabizela, the one who once played for Tottenham before it started going downhill?

They will probably say they don’t want it to happen to Khama too, fair and fine, but why extend that touch of concern now — given they are telling us he was having similar problems even during his days at Ajax — when the boy has chosen to stand up against the Sundowns’ machinery?

It just doesn’t add up, if you ask me, and I might be wrong — which is human — but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I won’t join that Zimbabwean, in a comment on Khama’s Facebook post this week, described him as a Malawian simply because some sections of the South African media have ganged up against him.

Keep praying Khama, the Devil is a Liar and, you right mate, In God We Trust!

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0719545199 (I have graduated to OneFusion, why haven’t you?’’

WhatsApp Messenger — 0719545199

Email — robsharuko@gmail.com

Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Tich “Chief” Mushangwe every Monday night at 21.45pm.

LIKE BALOTELLI AT OLD TRAFFORD SIX YEARS AGO, WE SHOULD ASK: ‘WHY ALWAYS US?’
NO one excreted as much venom as we did in the painful soul-searching exercise that followed our first experience of dealing with the intensity of the pain that comes with seeing a CHAN qualifying adventure being ended prematurely before reaching the finals of this tournament. “The Warriors were LIFELESS, HOPELESS, SPIRITLESS, TOOTHLESS, DIRECTIONLESS, RECKLESS, COLOURLESS, POWERLESS, VISIONLESS AND JOYLESS at the National Sports Stadium and, to a large extent, deserved their shock elimination from the 2018 CHAN qualifiers,’’ we thundered on this newspaper’s back page.

For nine years we had seen it happen to others — the Namibians in their backyard in 2008 and the South Africans at their home ground in the same year — with us being the ones who inflicted the knockout blow and began to feel this was something that would never happen to us and, boy oh boy, it was good.

Swaziland being beaten by our boys in their backyard in March 2010 and Seychelles suffering the same fate just two months later, Mauritius handed a 0-3 battering at home in July 2013 and the Zambians losing an international game at their Ndola fortress, for the first time since 1968, in a 0-1 loss to our boys in August that year.

Comoros being knocked out by our mean machine in July 2015 and Lesotho suffering the same fate, three months later, as our steam-rolling train crushed everything that came between it and a place at the CHAN finals.

All of them being floored by our troops, all of them falling by the wayside, all of them being forced to surrender, all of them being pummelled into submission, all of them being destroyed by our irresistible force while, from a distance, we enjoyed the spoils of victory.

And, to some extent, we turned into the spoilt kids who expected nothing less, when it comes to the CHAN tournament, whenever our troops went into battle, driven by history to believe that at the end of it all, we would be the ones celebrating.

One African journalist even wrote, with a lot of justification too, that the CHAN qualifiers in the Southern African Zone were football matches between Zimbabwe and others which, at the end of the contest, the Warriors always win.

From a distance, we had seen our opponents endure the pain and found a way to mock their downfall, feast on the spoils that come with success, scripted in offshore fields where the opponent believed home comforts would provide an advantage to them, and boy oh boy, it was good.

Exactly 30 years have passed since American songwriter and singer Julie Gold penned her classic Grammy-winning song “From A Distance”, unaware that the lyrics she was composing would become one of the finest musical compositions ever recorded.

And, from a distance, we had watched them endure their agony, with our beautiful world looking blue and green, the snow-capped mountains white, the ocean meeting the stream, the eagle taking to flight, the harmony which echoed through the land, itself the voice of hope, the voice of peace and the voice of every man.

From a distance, we had toasted our success, basking in the glow that we all had enough, that none of us was in need, that there were no guns, no bombs and no disease, no hungry mouths to feed, our Warriors were instruments marching in a common band, playing songs of hope, playing songs of peace, songs of every man.

God was watching us and from a distance, everyone looked like our victim and they couldn’t comprehend why we were the only ones who were anointed to win, why ours was the only land of harmony whose echoes vibrated through our football fields, providing the hope of hopes, the love of loves, the success of all successes.

And we never thought the sweet music would one day stop, telling ourselves that, like Wallace Hartley and his extraordinary band which kept playing on, amid the chaos on the Titanic that was sinking, the songs of victory would go on and on and on.

That is, until the Brave Warriors of Namibia arrived here two weeks ago and made us pay for the sins we had committed in our CHAN adventure, repeatedly inflicting harm on any opponent who crossed our path, with the football gods somehow choosing the most painful way to lose a football match — the penalty shootout lottery — to inflict that dosage of revenge.

A SUSPENSION OF DIABOLICAL REFEREES THAT CHEERED

OUR SPIRITS

While we were savage in our criticism of our Warriors’ poor performance that day at the giant stadium, when they could only power to a 1-0 win in a game they needed, at least, a two-goal winning margin to avoid the tricky penalty shoot-out, we highlighted that Swazi referee Thulani Sibandze had erred horribly to allow Namibia’s third effort in the lottery to stand.

We made it clear that the way Fredricks Dynamo converted that penalty, stopping at the end of his run-up and then feinting to confuse the goalkeeper before striking the ball, had long been outlawed in the game and that goal should not have stood, but noted as a missed effort.

We knew the rules had long changed, something that those who read our newspapers and expect us to provide them with expert guidance when such controversy erupts, deserve from us and we said, loud and clear, that goalkeeper Herbert Rusawo, captain Denis Dauda and assistant coach Lloyd Mutasa, were right to vigorously protest against the decision by the referee to let that effort stand.

Of course, in a domestic football family that has always been deeply divided to such an extent there are some who revel in the Warriors’ defeat just to further their agenda against a leadership they claim is ruining the game, our decision to highlight the failings of a rookie Swazi referee — who only handled his first international game in February this year — were mocked as being a package of apologies to try and divert attention from the team’s failures that day.

To them, we were not supposed to see any evil, hear any evil or speak any evil related to anything save for the Warriors’ shortcomings that day, which we had boldly highlighted by describing their show as lifeless, hopeless, visionless, reckless, powerless, toothless, visionless, you name it.

They even mocked us as being shameless sore losers when we sent a video of the controversial penalty to the International Football Associations Board, the ultimate authority when it comes to the rules and regulations governing world football, for them to provide us with expert analysis of whether that strike should have stood or not.

But, two weeks is a very long time in football.

On Thursday, news broke out that Sibandze, the referee whose diabolical decision not to disallow that controversial penalty by the Namibians had been suspended, together with his assistant Petros Mbingo — who supervised the lines during that shootout — by the CAF leadership pending an investigation into the mess they created in Harare that day.

The CAF leaders sent the suspension letter to the Swazi Football leaders and requested that the two match officials also provide them with more information related to that controversial incident related to that penalty kick which should not have been allowed to stand.

For us, after all the pounding we had taken from those who had accused us of being shameless crybabies who were choosing to deflect attention from the reality that the Warriors were poor that day, something which we had boldly mentioned, and clutching at straws by blaming our defeat to a penalty we claimed should not have stood, the news from CAF couldn’t have been sweeter.

Rules are rules and they have to be obeyed, that’s what football is all about, and that is why both teams have to field 11 players even when a giant like Barcelona are playing lightweight sides from Cyprus or the Faroe Islands in the Champions League and when the rules are broken, it must be highlighted and a price has to be paid.

The fact that our boys had played terribly was one thing, which we highlighted, but the fact that the opponents had been helped by a controversial goal that should not have been allowed was also another thing which needed to be highlighted and I am glad, even though we were alone on that mission, we plunged into the trenches.

Now, given the way CAF have acted and, by doing so, agreeing with our position that such a decisive moment in the game should not have been allowed to pass unnoticed by the match officials tasked specifically to ensure that rules and regulations are observed, we are having the last laugh as this drama starts to unfold at lightning speed.

Glad, as usual, that we have led the way and others can now join in the feast and glad that our actions had helped further the cause of our national team and even if, we don’t get the match being replayed at the end of it all, we will walk tall in the belief that we were right to fight against the injustice inflicted on our boys by those referees from hell.

Glad that those who inflicted the pain on us when they were supposed to protect us from being victims of gamesmanship that has long been outlawed from the game have now been sanctioned so that they know there is a price one must pay for such incompetence that borders on a deliberate attempt to ensure that the result favours a certain pattern.

Glad, of course, that those who had made it their mission to mock us as being misguided for, in their claims, chasing a wild goose in highlighting the failings of the referees instead of concentrating on the failings of our Warriors now know that we were not wrong, after all, and deserved a little bit of respect rather than ridicule.

The same people who probably don’t know that the same Zambian side that beat the Warriors at the 2016 CHAN finals in Rwanda and topped Group D needed penalties to beat Namibia in the final qualifier after the Brave Warriors had won the first leg 2-1 in Windhoek and then lost by the same margin in Ndola.

THE CASE FOR US AND WEB OF CONSPIRACY THAT IS STALKING US

When FIFA declared on September 6, 2006, that the result of the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifier on September 3, 2005 between Uzbekistan and Bahrain was null and void and ordered a replay, the world football governing body set a huge precedent.

The decision followed a protest launched by the Uzbekistan Football Federation over a technical error by the referee of that match and said their decision was based on the following:

At the score of 1-0 in favour of Uzbekistan, in the 39th minute of the match, the referee decided to award a penalty kick to Uzbekistan.

The penalty kick was taken and led to goal in favour of Uzbekistan.

Before the penalty kick was carried out, an Uzbek player entered the penalty area and consequently, the referee awarded an indirect free kick to the Bahrain team.

However, in such a situation, the Laws of the Game require the referee to order the penalty kick to be retaken

The captain of Uzbekistan team protested to the referee immediately after the mistake had taken place and before the game had restarted. This protest was confirmed after the match.

This technical error was confirmed by the match commissioner and the referee inspector in their respective reports and Uzbekistan protested the decision of the referee in a written request, asking for the match to be “cancelled” and be evaluated with a 3-0 forfeit result.

The (FIFA) Bureau, taking into consideration that the referee in the match in question had INDEED COMMITTED A TECHNICAL ERROR, established that, as a consequence, the match needed to be replayed.”

Isn’t this a replica of our case against Namibia?

But, far more worryingly for us, must be the emergence of this raging army of referee who appear desperate to inflict pain on us by making a lot of questionable decisions against our national football teams.

Others have suggested the old guard in the CAF referees’ appointments — who probably owe their allegiance to the old regime of Issa Hayatou — have been using the match officials in a brutal fight against us for our football leader Philip Chiyangwa’s leading role in deposing the Cameroonian strongman from his position.

It’s hard to disagree with them because in Windhoek, in the first leg of the CHAN qualifier, the Warriors scored a perfect goal, but somehow, Malawian referee Dennis Nguluwe, disallowed it and we ended up losing 0-1.

The same Nguluwe who recently failed a fitness test in his homeland, who handled Bafana Bafana’s 4-0 thrashing of Thailand at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspuit, one of the four 2010 World Cup warm-up matches played by the South Africans which were investigated by FIFA and ruled to have been manipulated.

The same Nguluwe who was suspended by the Football Association of Malawi on November 14 last year after a bizarre incident in a Carlsberg Cup final between top clubs Wanderers and Silver Strikers at the Kamuzu Stadium on September 10 last year.

“FIFA Referee Dennis Nguluwe was allocated to handle the Carlsberg Cup Final at the Kamuzu Stadium on 10th September, 2016,’’ the Football Association of Malawi said in a statement announcing his suspension on November 14 last year.

“He accepted and was fit for the match. It surprised everybody when after having started the match, he appeared to lose composure and claimed to fall sick. He asked to be substituted by the fourth Official.

“The Referees Assessor for the match, Mr Bester Kalombo, asked him to go to the hospital for check-up and treatment. He refused and said he can do the fourth official task. Whilst on the bench, he performed normally, no sign of sickness.

“Therefore he feigned sickness during the Carlsberg Cup Final match on 14th September, 2016 at the Kamuzu Stadium. To feign sickness for the match was for personal unknown reasons. This behaviour is not acceptable. This is betraying the trust that FAM had in him that he could handle the Cup Final.”

The same people who gave us a referee known to help TP Mazembe’s cause Bernard Camille — infamous for giving the Congolese giants those ghost penalties in Lubumbashi against Orlando Pirates in Lubumbashi — for the decisive second leg of the Champions League eliminator against CAPS United in Harare whose mission we foiled with that huge media outcry.

The same people who gave us Joshua Bondo for the key COSAFA group match against Madagascar this year where the Batswana referee somehow pretended not to see the two penalties which we should have been given leading to a huge outcry and his expulsion from the tournament after that match.

The same people who gave us that Burundi referee who somehow disallowed a clear goal by Mighty Warriors captain Felistas Muzongondi in their match against Egypt at the African Women Cup of Nations finals in Yaounde, Cameroon, last year.

The same people who gave us Thulani Sibandze.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0719545199 (I have graduated to OneFusion, why haven’t you?’’

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Tich “Chief” Mushangwe every Monday night at 21.45pm.

I HAVE always had a romantic attachment to the English Premiership because, more than being just a blood-and-thunder theatre of football attrition, its fascinating adventure provides me with a tracker of my journey in the trenches of this profession. Long before it became this multi-billion dollar industry, where one of its clubs can now afford to pay its star player a staggering $380 000 a week, it used to be a violence-ridden league, where fresh recruits were handed contracts of about £800 per week.

But the advent of the Premiership, when the clubs broke away from a century-old flirtation with the Football League in 1992, dramatically changed the landscape and set in motion the stunning transformation that has seen it becoming this massive money-making-and-money-spending mean machine.

For me, on a personal note, the league’s evolution into the Premiership coincided with my year of graduation from the romance of journalism school and a step into the real and tough adult world of the working class, when I landed my first job at this newspaper on November 1, 1992.

A quarter-of-a-century later, I am still here, at the only company I have had the privilege to call my employer in all my 25 years of working life, with the English Premiership, whose first season exploded in August 1992, providing a reminder every year of the time I have spent in these trenches.

As fate would have it, the first championship race in the era of the English Premiership would also provide me and a lot of my Manchester United-supporting colleagues either born in or after 1970, with the joy of finally seeing our club being crowned champions for the first time in our lives.

For others, born before us, it marked the end of a lengthy 26-year-wait for the title and, for us, born in the year the FIFA World Cup was first broadcast in colour on television, it marked the end of a 23-year wait to feel what it means to celebrate your favourite club’s championship success.

Of course, this year also marks exactly 110 years since my beloved Red Devils embarked on a campaign that would see them winning their first top-flight league title during the 1907/ 1908 season — winning 13 of their first 14 games, including 10 wins in a row between September 21 to November 24 that year — and topping the table from start to finish.

That my love affair with United was never shaken by the club’s repeated failings, when it came to the league championship race, is something I have taken as an enduring mark of a true romance and explains why I never find any logic in those who mock Liverpool fans for their long wait for another title, which has been dragging on since 1990.

Or those who mock Arsenal fans for their lengthy barren run, which has now stretched into its 13th year in a fruitless battle to try and return to the winners’ podium reserved for the league champions.

That’s why I will always have a great deal of respect for the fans of clubs outside our two biggest cities — those who support Hwange, FC Platinum, Shabanie, ZPC Kariba, Tsholotsho, Chapungu, Triangle and Ngezi Platinum — whose loyalty and belief have not been shaken by a curse in which no team from outside Harare and Bulawayo have been crowned champions in this country for 51 years now.

That’s why I will always have time for the fans of Mhangura, Gweru United, also known as Pisa Pisa, Rio Tinto, Tanganda, Ziscosteel, Lancashire Steel, Bata Power, Masvingo United, also known as Yuna Yuna, for the enduring loyalty they had in the cause of their teams and the hopes they nursed in a brutal landscape where history was unkind to their dreams.

And why I will always have time for the supporters of Kadoma United, also known as Yematomati, Come Again, Golden Valley, Lulu Rovers, Chegutu Pirates, Karoi United and Shamva, to name but a few, among a group of teams which have battled long and hard to try and crack into the domestic Premiership.

All the time hoping to one day see their team not only dancing with the very best in this country, but like Leicester City before them, one day enjoying that incredible feeling that comes with becoming national champions of our football, in an environment where history is hostile to their cause.

Given my fascination — not with the dominant bull, where success is everything and failure is unacceptable, which made me resist the Liverpool glory of the ‘80s — but with just a football team that cheered my spirits despite its record of doomed missions, I keep asking myself why I didn’t end up being seduced into the arms of Coventry City.

25 YEARS ON, KING PETER REMAINS THE BENCHMARK OF EXCELLENCE

For later-day converts to the English Premiership, whose latest marathon got underway last night, this might sound a bit crazy because Coventry City isn’t a club that rings a bell in them, especially now when it is wallowing in League Two, the fourth-tier league which can be described as Division Four.

But those who have been part of this league’s adventure for years recall a Coventry City that used to punch above its weight, including winning the very FA Cup that has become Arsene Wenger’s saving grace at the Gunners, in 1987 when the Sky Blues beat Tottenham 3-2 at Wembley.

And, in 1991, Coventry City had signed a teenage Zimbabwean footballer, whose greatness I had seen the very first day I saw him in action one afternoon at Rufaro a year earlier in the colours of his boyhood club Highlanders. However, not even the presence of this diminutive genius in the Sky Blues’ squad could woo me into their camp, although I kept tracking the progress of a footballer whom I had long concluded had been born with greatness flowing in his veins.

Some, like this boy wonder, are born great, some, like Bruce Grobbelaar, achieve greatness and some, like Benjani Mwaruwari, have greatness thrust upon them.

On Tuesday, the English Premiership turns 25 and the world has been celebrating the stunning transformation of this league from a lawless jungle dominated by hooligans in the stands and hard-drinking footballers who graced its fields, into this great global football show that has become a huge part of the lives of billions of people.

And, for me, it’s time to celebrate the brilliance of a Zimbabwean football star, who was so good. There has never been anyone like him since and there are some who also argue, with good reason too, that there was never anyone like him in our country.

Peter Ndlovu, the only elephant that could fly, is someone I have routinely called King Peter, a football genius who was simply ahead of his time, a freak of nature, who made this game the beautiful sport that it is and a natural talent whose brilliance was so intoxicating, so overwhelming, he was the ultimate artiste.

The one I always thank God for His decision that he had to be born this side of the Zambezi and not on the other side of his Binga rural home, which the Zambians call their land, that he had to be born on this side of the Limpopo and not the other side, which would have seen him play for Bafana Bafana and not the Warriors.

The boy who rose from humble surroundings in Makokoba to become the national football leader who would, like Moses and the Israelites, lead us from the bondage of perennial under-achievement, where we became the laughing stock of our rivals, to the Promised Land of the Nations Cup finals.

A Warriors skipper, whose leadership was embraced by everyone, whose appeal shattered the club boundaries that divide us into little kingdoms, the one we always turned to for salvation when the going got tough and the one who always delivered for us no matter the occasion, no matter the opposition.

In an era of toxic tribal battles, fuelled by the unregulated space that social media now provides to thugs to peddle their hatred of others based simply because they don’t belong to their tribe or they don’t support their football club or they don’t speak like them, I always use King Peter as a defining symbol of a unifying factor.

A reminder of a time when the football talents of a man made all of us look beyond the little things that divide us, but concentrate on the many things that unite us, the bigger picture that we are all Zimbabweans and we should derive a lot of pride in our unique identity because, no matter what they tell you, we are a special people.

A throwback to a time when the toxic politics that divide us would be dissolved by the sheer athletic powers of a man who, every time he wore the Warriors jersey, would turn himself into a destructive weapon for our opponents and unite us all in finding pride in our identity as Zimbabweans.

Twenty five years on, this merry ride on this English Premiership bandwagon, we have had King Cantona, King Ryan, King Gerrard, King Shearer, King Ronaldo, King Henry, King Lampard, King Bergkamp, King Wayne, King Terry, King Zola, King Fowler, King Cole and a host of others.

But, for me, King Peter remains the enduring benchmark of football excellence, not because he was the best of the lot, far from that, but simply because he is one of us and if I can’t celebrate his incredible journey from Makokoba to become the first visiting player since 1962, when even this football institution called Dynamos hadn’t been formed, to score a hattrick on the hallowed turf of such an iconic ground like Anfield, when he grabbed all the goals for Coventry City in a 3-2 victory for them on March 14 1995, then who will?

Only in this country, where we have allowed ourselves to be prisoners of our fascination with negativity, to be abused by a sickening tendency to be blinded from seeing the purity that exists in those who are our countrymen and women because we have been taught to hurt who we are, for one reason or another, will you find a people taking time, as the world reflects on 25 years of the English Premiership, to celebrate the greatness of someone like Peter Ndlovu.

MAYBE WE NEED TO BORROW A LEAF FROM OUR COLLEAGUES IN BOTSWANA

This week, amid the controversy that saw Botswana sprinter Isaac Makwala being barred from competing in the 400m at the World Championships in London because organisers said they wanted to contain the outbreak of a virus, we saw the entire country coming together and rallying behind their man.

The outrage was loud and clear because they felt cheated, they felt their man had been given a raw deal, their athlete had been abused and Botswana had been robbed of a golden chance for one of them to become a World Champion.

We even saw the political leadership in that country even going to the extent of declaring Botswana was going to hold a national holiday in honour of Makwala should the sprinter go on to win gold in the 200m at the same World Championships.

Botswana’s Sports Minister Thapelo Olopeng told BBC Sport that the country would also pay Makwala the $10 000 he would have received from the government had he won 400m gold despite him not running in that race.

“The man has lifted the name of our country higher and higher, and he deserves this welcome as our hero,” said Olopeng.

“What happened to our athlete has created a lot of displeasure in the country and we are very unhappy. To me it’s a great disappointment.”

Compare that with us, and the reaction in this country that followed ZIFA’s decision to appeal against the technical error by that Swazi referee in dumping us from the CHAN tournament.

Some said this was the work of sore losers, even when there are examples of matches decided by technical errors of a referee being replayed, even when the referees who committed that error have been suspended and even when it was a defining moment of the contest.

Others chose to say we should focus on the fact that we were horrible that afternoon, of course we were, but would we be the first team to progress after a pathetic performance and what did it say about us that, even against the background of such a horror show, we managed to win that match in regulation time?

Come on guys, let’s not hate and hurt ourselves so much because, far from it, we are a special people and while we might decide to blind ourselves from our special qualities, at least, others are watching and, for the avoidance of doubt, this is what English journalist Phil Shaw wrote about King Peter in the Independent newspaper on September 27, 1992, after his wonder goal against Norwich City.

“THE sun may have set on the Empire, but the stunning equaliser by Peter Ndlovu that earned Coventry a point proved there are still rich pickings in transfer imperialism,’’ Shaw wrote.

“The 19-year-old Zimbabwean, whose name is pronounced ‘Un-love’, first came to Highfield Road from the Highlanders club during John Sillett’s reign as manager. When Sillett boasted that Coventry would be ‘shopping at Harrods’, he obviously meant “shopping in Harare”.

“Ndlovu, who idolises Bruce Grobbelaar and sometimes carries his boots in a Manchester United hold-all, cost pounds 10 000. Norwich are not the first to rue his budget-price brilliance.

“Exactly a year ago, he hit a spectacular winner against Aston Villa (who themselves bought Dwight Yorke for peanuts in Tobago). Ndlovu failed to score again all season, and for every flash of class there was another when he looked as if he were playing courtesy of Jim’ll Fix It.

“Saturday’s goal, Ndlovu’s third in six games, epitomised his dramatic improvement: blistering pace and perfect balance as he burst in from his wide-left position, a sublime shimmy in the style of Jimmy Greaves at his peak to make the Norwich keeper Bryan Gunn commit himself, topped off by a wonderfully composed finish.

“Bobby Gould, the present Coventry manager, later claimed that Ndlovu, with Ryan Giggs, was ‘just behind George Best’ in terms of ability.

“That was exaggeration bordering on sacrilege, but you could see what he was driving at. Ndlovu’s lifestyle also gives him an advantage over the young Best, of which more anon.

“Last week’s well-publicised ‘Guinness therapy’ was an example of the new, carefree Coventry.

“The brewers might be less chuffed to learn that Ndlovu, despite a Best-like moment of pure genius, is in a temperance league of his own.’’

Need I say more or can I write any better? DEFINITELY NO!

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0719545199 (I have graduated to OneFusion, why haven’t you?

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Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Tich “Chief” Mushangwe every Monday night at 21.45pm.

A TROOP OF LEGENDS . . . Helping our kids to always know that there was a time when our football fields used to be graced by such legends as (from left) Sydney Zimunya, Netsai “Super Netsai’’ Moyo, Mercedes “Rambo” Sibanda, Titus “Yellowman” Majola, Rahman “Doctor Rush” Gumbo and Tito Paketh — superstars who were ahead of their time in terms of their brilliance — is very important so that they fully understand the history of our national game

Sharuko on Saturday
ON Tuesday, a massive global football party, which has been in the making for a quarter-of-a-century, finally exploded into life — complete with historical fireworks — as the world celebrated the day the English Premiership turned 25.

From Canberra in Australia to Cairo on the shores of the Nile, from Toronto in Canada to Tokyo and from Cape Town to Cape Cornwall, the party was in full swing.

And, from all angles, the globe was bombarded with material — both visual and written — about the life and times of a football revolution in which the Premiership has transformed itself from the locality of being just an English league into this global phenomenon.

The sights and sounds of an adventure that saw a league — weighed down by rioting on the stands, falling attendance figures, the Hillsborough tragedy and Bradford Fire and its best players moving to the comfort of mainland Europe — into what is now the most watched football show on the globe.

There was no way of escaping the avalanche of material, both written and broadcast, fed on us as they toasted this coming of age and how the Premiership had defied just about everything, including the global financial crisis of 2008, which some economists believe was the worst since the Great Depression more than 85 years ago.

In all that merry-making, we were dragged to meet the first footballer to score a goal in the Premiership, which came after only five minutes, with Brian Deane scoring for Sheffield United against, probably fittingly so, the very team that would go on to dominate the league, Manchester United, on August 15, 1992. They even dragged Deane, now 49, to where it happened that day at Bramall Lane, where the retired striker was pictured holding the very ball he scored in that match 25 years ago, which is stored in a protective glass, kept in the Sheffield United museum and could be worth millions today.

They then dragged us to that occasion, in the same first month of the English Premiership, when Eric Cantona became the first player to score a hat-trick for Leeds, who were the then defending champions, against Tottenham on August 25, 1992.

They reminded us that back then the Premiership wasn’t the box-office attraction that it has become today, with full-house crowds at every match, and only 3 039 fans — the lowest attendance in the league’s history — turned up to watch Everton beat Wimbledon 3-1, courtesy of a Tony Cottee hat-trick, at Selhurst Park on January 26, 1993.

And, from the average attendance figures of 21 130 in the first season of the Premiership in 1992/1993, the figure rose to an average 35 805 last season and, for good measure, they told us that 313 million people had paid to watch matches in the league, dwarfing the population of the United States seven years ago.

Oh, yes, they told us the job of managers, back in the first season was a secure one and only one manager, the late Ian Porterfield, whose coaching adventure would eventually bring him here as the Warriors coach in the tail-end of the ‘90s, was sacked in that campaign when Chelsea gave him the boot on February 15, 1993.

The same Chelsea who are the defending champions today, oh yes, the same Chelsea who would sack Jose Mourinho — the first coach to guide this club to their first league championship in 50 years in 2005 — just seven months after winning his third title with them two years ago.

In the madness of today’s Premiership, divorced from the innocence and purity of the first campaign in 1992/1993, they reminded us this week, of how Claudio Ranieri, the only manager to lead Leicester City to a championship crown, was gone after just nine months and Roberto Mancini was fired a year to the day he delivered Manchester City’s first league title in 44 years.

And, of course, they also reminded us that back in the first weekend of the English Premiership only 13 out of the 242 players who started the matches were not British or Irish, whereas today the league has been cosmopolitan, flooded with foreigners, and on December 26, 1999, Chelsea made history as the first club in the league to field a starting XI that didn’t have any British player at Southampton.

FOR US, HISTORY HAS NO VALUE AND WE APPEAR IN A RUSH TO FORGET OUR RICH PAST

You might not like their football and argue, with a lot of reason, that the most powerful club in the world today — the steamrolling Real Madrid machine — is not part of their league, the last four UEFA Champions League winners have all been Spanish clubs, with Real winning three, the last English club to win it was Chelsea five years ago and the best two players in the world, Ronaldo and Messi, are all part of the La Liga show.

But you have to give it to them, if not for the way they have converted a huge part of the world into willing disciples of their football, no matter its inferiority technically to some of the other leagues on mainland Europe, using that to turn it into this money-making machine, then for the pride they have in who they are and what they have.

They have absolutely no apologies or excuses to make for that and it’s a virtue.

This week, I watched from a distance, as Mike Madoda played the role of advocate on Twitter as he tried to defend his views, which I also subscribe to, that Peter Ndlovu is an English Premiership Legend amid a wave of accusations, from a Zimbabwean, who said the Flying Elephant was just a lower league legend in England.

That debate was another reminder of how much we, unlike the English or the Nigerians or the Zambians, have a tendency of finding delight in looking down upon ourselves and the achievements of those whom we call our own.

And, amid the tsunami of material that was directed towards me on Twitter, on television at home, on the Internet every time I went there — of the beauty and history of the English Premiership on its Silver Jubilee — I felt a sense of disappointment with the way we appear not to attach any value to our history, but even twist it to try and remove the richness that will underscore its relevance to be stored for posterity.

I then realised that at this rate, very, very soon, our kids will start asking us “daddy who is this Moses Chunga by the way, daddy who is Peter Ndlovu, who is Ephraim Chawanda, who is George Shaya, who is Ernest Kamba, who is Duncan Ellison, who is Jonah Murewa, who is Charles Mabika?’ and, regrettably, they won’t be wrong and we are to blame for all this.

A football community desperate to forget its golden past that we have already rushed to forget Evans Mambara, as if his golden voice never boomed from our radios back in the days when football commentary was romantic, and gave a meaning and lyrics to our game, a community that has already rushed to forget Willard Mashinkila-Khumalo, taken away from us just two years ago.

A community that has forgotten there used to be someone called Francis Shonhayi, as good a captain both for his club and country as they will ever come, who today lies buried in his home area of Chirumhanzi, where no one among us has dared to go and remember him 11 years after we left him there.

And, while others use the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of their league which has become such a global phenomenon and tell us that our own Peter Ndlovu deserves legendary status, not only for the distinction of being the first African player to feature in that league, but the impact he made as a player, including becoming the first visiting footballer to score a hat-trick at Anfield against Liverpool since 1961, we engage into denial mode because we refuse to believe such heroes can ever be found among us.

We are all to blame for this mess because can someone tell me why, eight months into the year, the so-called celebrations to mark the Silver Jubilee of our modern Premiership season have not even started?

We were told that a special commemorative logo will be stitched on one side of the sleeves of the jerseys to be used by all the clubs in the Premiership this season, to commemorate 25 years of our domestic top-flight league, but eight months into the year we have seen nothing closer to that.

Now, if we find it difficult, if not impossible, to just insert a simple logo on jerseys to celebrate the 25 years that we have travelled in this Premiership, surely can we be then trusted to do bigger and more complex things like improving the lot of the very clubs who expected their freedom from direct control of the Association would mean richer pickings for them?

If we fail to just stitch a simple special commemorative logo into the sleeves of the jerseys to celebrate our journey, how can we then be trusted to value the special contribution of those who played a big part in ensuring that our Premiership is what it is today — just one of two Southern African top-flight leagues to provide the region with a club good enough to play in the CAF Champions League final?

Where the Dynamos jersey this year would feature a special commemorative logo, inserted by the Premiership, saying CAF Champions League runners-up 1998 as a way of thanking the Glamour Boys for the way they raised the profile of our league in the last 25 years with their incredible journey in that campaign.

If we can’t simply stitch a simple special commemorative logo into the sleeves of the jerseys to celebrate our history, how can we then be trusted to remind those who jumped onto the bandwagon in the latter years that, at the very beginning of the show, we used to have a special striker called Agent Sawu before Memory Mucherahowa, Tauya Murewa, the only doctor who could fly, and Stewart Murisa came and ruled the roost.

And that Zenzo Moyo, Maxwell Dube, Dazzy Kapenya, Energy Murambadoro, Cephas Chimedza, Joseph Kamwendo, Clemence Matawu, Murape Murape, Ramson Zhuwawo, Charles Sibanda, Washington Arubi, Denver Mukamba, Tawanda Muparati, Denis Dauda, Danny Phiri and Hardlife Zvirekwi also came on board, after the turn of the millennium?

Can we then blame our kids, who are beginning to ask us who was Agent Sawu, who was Joe Mugabe, who was Shepherd Muradzikwa, who was Boniface Chiseko, who was Uyera Mukorongo, who was Clifford Makiyi, who was Collin Semwayo, who was Webster Kurwaisimba, who was Ian Motondo, when we are seemingly leading the crusade to try and ensure that their great contribution to our game is erased from history?

Can we then blame them for having better knowledge of Doctor Khumalo, Chippa Masinga, the Midnight Express known as Helman Mkhalele, Legs of Thunder also known as Jerry Sikhosana, John “Shoes’’ Moshoeu, when we are the ones in an apparent rush to wipe away the history of our own superstars who probably were better than these guys?

If a little club like Sheffield United can find value in preserving the match ball which Brian Deane scored the first goal in the English Premiership five minutes into their match against Manchester United on August 15, 1992, and keep it in their museum as a piece of art, why can’t we as a Premiership find value in celebrating the sights and sounds of the journey we have travelled in the past 25 years?

Isn’t there a shame in all this, an insult to what all these great players, administrators and fans did for the cause of this Premiership?

IF A 100-YEAR-OLD ROSE CAN REMEMBER, WHAT ABOUT US?

I watched the super movie, Titanic, again this week — something I do once every month — to quench my fascination with how this mega ship sank and as part of my research into everything surrounding that tragedy. Okay, now I know that Rose DeWitt Bukater, the central character in the movie, was just a 17-year-old pretty girl when she boarded the Titanic in 1912 and was a centurion, 84 years later, when she was brought back by treasury hunters to tell her story.

Even after such a passage of time, which had seen her survive the horror of the sinking of the Titanic, make it to the United States, marry Juan Calvert, have lots of children, become a success actress, she never forgot the lover she lost when the giant ship went down, Jack Dawson, even though she never told anyone about, not her children, not her husband, not her grandchildren.

And, when told by one of the treasure hunters that nothing on Jack was found on the doomed ship, not even a record of him at all, she opened with words that should shame us for being such a forgetful lot.

“No, there wouldn’t be, would there? And I’ve never spoken of him until now. Not to anyone, not to even your grandfather, a woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets,’’ she told her grandchild.

“But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me in every way that a person can be saved. I don’t even have a picture of him. He exists now only in my memory.’’

But, then, it would be unfair to just lump the blame on the Premiership alone because one would have expected CAPS United to also commemorate the 40th year of their promotion into the top-flight league back in 1977.

Or Black Rhinos celebrating the last time they were crowned champions, 30 years ago in 1987, or Dynamos celebrating the special league title in 1997 that gave them a ticket to embark on their landmark CAF Champions League journey the following year.

Or the Glamour Boys celebrating the 10th anniversary of the year they ended their longest barren run without a league title, 10 years, in 2007 when David Mandigora and his men finally returned them to the place they believe is where they belong. DeMbare marking the 40th anniversary of the year George Shaya won his fifth and final Soccer Star of the Year award in 1977 — an achievement which might never be matched again — or Bosso marking the 30th anniversary of the first year one of them, the legendary Mercedes “Rambo’’ Sibanda, finally was crowned Soccer Star of the Year in 1987.

In the week that Charles Charamba finally ended his lengthy wait to give us a new album, maybe it is fitting that I should quote lyrics from the greatest gospel musician ever to come out of our country of the value of using the time we have to do the right things because the inevitability of it all is that one day we will all be judged by our history.

“Ko muchaitiiko kana Mwari Baba Vachikubvunzai, Vana Vangu

Ko makaitei, ko makaiteko mazuva ose amaiva panyika?

Ko muchaitiiko kana Jesu okubvunzai, kereke Yangu

Ko makabatei, makaiteiko, neropa Rangu rakadeuka?

Muchatiiko paari mukadzi muSamaria achiti ndaive pfambi ndakatendeuka ndikashumira

Makaiteikooo nenyasha dzese dzaive panyika?

Ko muchatiiko kana Zacheo opupura kuti ndakwakwira mumuti kuti ndimuone Jesu

Makaoneiko, makaoneiko nameso enyu zamaiva panyika?

Ko tichatiiko kana Elijah wopupura achiti ndini ndakapardaza maporofita vaBaairi

Makaietoko, makeiteko nemifananidzo yaive panyika?

You couldn’t have put it any better my good pastor.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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Sharuko on Saturday
IN the summer of 2001, Manchester United were celebrating winning a SEVENTH title in NINE seasons with only Blackburn, in ’95, and Arsenal in ’98, the only clubs to break the Red Devils’ ruthless monopoly in the English Premiership championship race.

And, on those isolated two occasions when Blackburn and Arsenal were crowned champions, United had finished second — just a point behind the winners — in a remarkable parade of dominance.

Life was good, a Champions League trophy in the cabinet, the ghosts of that 26-year barren run without a league title between ’67 and ’93, having long been banished, and the battle to knock Liverpool off their perch having truly gained momentum.

Then, one day that summer, it all changed as an explosion, triggered by words so powerful they shook the Old Trafford fortress that Fergie had built.

“I will be leaving Manchester United at the end of the season and that is it,’’ the Scotsman told the club’s in-house MUTV station.

The timing of his announcement and the sheer weight of its unexpectedness, at a time when United were ruling the roost in English football, shook the very foundations that Fortress Old Trafford had been built on by the Scotsman.

And by the end of the season which the Scotsman said would be his last, United — for the first time since the advent of the English Premiership — completed the campaign outside the top two places, and lost nine league matches for the first time since the arrival of the glitz and glamour of the Premiership bandwagon.

A side which had not finished more than a point behind the only two teams to have beaten them to this crown now had to contend with the embarrassment of finishing 10 points adrift of the Gunners.

 YOUNG, PATRIOTIC AND VERY BEAUTIFUL . . .

THE FUTURE IN THEIR HANDS . . . As much as I try, I have found myself failing to resist this beautiful picture taken at Peterhouse School of these young fans who were supporting the Zimbabwe Under-19 team in their showdown against World Champions, the West Indies Under-19

But, for all the mistakes he made throughout his coaching career, including some crazy signings like Massimo Taibu, Pat McGibbon, Ralph Milne, Doug Fangzhou, Obertan and Bebe and some explosive rows with journalists, infamously telling them “you’re all f*****g idiots,’’ in 2002, Fergie picked his premature announcement of his decision to leave United in 2001 as the worst of his career.

“THE BIGGEST MISTAKE I MADE WAS ANNOUNCING IT AT THE START OF THE SEASON,’’ said Ferguson.

“I THINK A LOT OF THEM (PLAYERS) HAD PUT THEIR TOOLS AWAY.

“THEY THOUGHT, ‘OH, THE MANAGER’S LEAVING.’ IT WAS A MISTAKE AND MY WIFE AND MY THREE SONS CHANGED MY ATTITUDE TOWARDS IT AND I STARTED TO THINK AGAIN.’’

After his change of heart, a United side that had been relegated into a distant third place by the Gunners in 2002 — 10 points adrift of their London rivals — turned it around and reclaimed their title in 2003 with a 10-point advantage over Arsenal.

A hat-trick of titles in 2007, 2008 and 2009, including another Champions League crown in 2008, and further championships in 2011 and 2013 followed before the great Scot, finally, called time on his career.

AKBAY, LIKE FERGIE, MISFIRES AND EVERYTHING GOES HAYWIRE

Dutchman Erol Akbay certainly doesn’t look as hopeless a coach as that Portuguese misfit called Silva, who was somehow smuggled into this country for a safari that went horribly wrong.

Akbay inherited a team which had badly lost its way in 2015, finishing as lowly as sixth in the championship race after losing 11 matches, finishing 20 points behind champions Chicken Inn and 16 points adrift of the very team Highlanders fans measure themselves against, Dynamos.

Given that Bosso had finished with the same number of points as champions Dynamos in 2012 and 2013, including accumulating as many as 69 points in 2012 and losing only one game only to lose the championship race by virtue of an inferior goal difference, 2015 represented a massive step backwards.

And, in his first season last year, Akbay appeared to provide hope for a better tomorrow, with Bosso rising up to third place in an adventure in which, for the better part of the campaign they were even favourites to land the title.

There are some who even argue, and rightly so, that Bosso would have been champions had Bruce Kangwa — who was by far the best player on the domestic Premiership at the halfway stage of the campaign last season — not been sold to Tanzania.

Others also argue that it could have been a totally different story had Knox Mutizwa stayed at Bosso for another season last year, but you can’t fault anyone for the duo’s sale, in an environment where our clubs depend on such financial rewards to oil their operations.

For Akbay to lead Bosso to a double over Dynamos, for the first time in many a moon, taking away that fear factor which appeared to cripple them every time they faced their biggest rivals and replacing it with an ocean of belief, was as impressive as it comes.

The massive black-and-white party that exploded in Bulawayo after Bosso’s 2-1 win over DeMbare in the reverse fixture had to be seen to be believed, and enjoyed, sights and sounds so beautiful they represented the undiluted beauty of what this game should be all about.

Then, just like Fergie, Akbay diluted all that promise for a better tomorrow with an ill-advised announcement, in his final media conference in December, that he couldn’t guarantee he would be back to work for Bosso this year.

Rather than closing a season of genuine promise, on which they could build upon this year to finally challenge for the title, Bosso spent the off-season limping in a haze of both denial and uncertainty, burdened by fear of a future where all the good work which the Dutchman had done would possibly go to waste with the club starting afresh again.

The negativity provoked by the toxic media speculation related to Akbay’s announcement didn’t help matters, in a situation where rather than concentrate on the rebuilding exercise, the club’s leaders now had to fire-fight on different fronts, including a tough battle to convince a sceptical media that all was well in their camp.

I’m not suggesting Akbay has no right to speak his mind, and fight for what is due to him, it’s unprofessional to bring a coach all the way from Holland and then struggle to pay him or meet his demands, if what the gaffer told the media was correct, and you can’t expect him to produce wonders in such a scenario.

But, what I’m saying is that there is a way in which to communicate, especially at such a huge club like Bosso where the interest — from those who working hard to improve its brand in difficult circumstances and some vultures who are willing they fail so that they also get their chance to become the leaders of this huge institution — without provoking some fires.

An institution like Bosso isn’t for loose cannons, especially those in senior positions, because what they say has a huge bearing on a number of things, including destroying whatever good some people might have been doing on the ground to try and ensure everything runs smoothly, and, that’s where I believe the Dutchman falls short.

Some people will say that it’s a measure of his principles that he speaks his mind, fair and fine, but why do I find it rather curious that his outbursts, especially when it comes to threats about cutting ties with Bosso, or issues related to his payment which the club disputes, always come when the club isn’t the one basking in the spotlight of writing a success story?

When he had masterminded that magical double over DeMbare, which sent the City of Kings into an impromptu party, why didn’t we hear the Dutchman — as he basked in the sunshine of that victory — telling the media the challenges he was facing and why he didn’t think he would be around for another Battle of Zimbabwe?

It was only after the quest for a league title had failed to achieve the desired results, as CAPS United celebrated in Harare, when Akbay decided to tell the media about his challenges, something which Bosso official Emmet Ndlovu disputed, at the same media conference telling the journalists the coach would be back for another dance this year.

And, just as Emmet’s said, Akbay returned for another dance this year, the story he sold the media that December day seemingly forgotten despite all the panic that it caused and the derailment it provoked in an off-season of uncertainty and firefighting for the Bosso leadership.

FAST FORWARD TO THIS YEAR, SAME SONG, DIFFERENT OFFICIAL

When Akbay returned this season, as Emmet had indicated, we never heard him tell us what happened to the challenges he claimed last December were forcing him out of Bosso because, after all, the financial situation at the club hadn’t suddenly improved because, unlike Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain, a Sheikh from the oil-rich Gulf states hadn’t arrived to take over this people’s team.

When things seemed to be going to plan and Bosso were on course to challenge for the league championship, we never heard Akbay explode complaining about his working conditions and playing his old song that he didn’t think he will continue being at the club.

When Highlanders went to Maglas and beat Shabanie 2-0 recently, we didn’t hear the Dutchman telling the media that, even in that moment of a sweet victory, he was being burdened by the pain of working under very difficult conditions and he wasn’t enjoying the victory as much as he would have wanted.

Instead, according to reporters at the stadium, he plunged into a wild dance, celebrating that victory, each dance move that afternoon an expression of the happiness in his diminutive frame as Bosso enjoyed a good day on the road at a tough venue for visitors.

In the first week of this month, after Prince Dube had gone and ahead of the home match against Harare City, this is the same Akbay who was telling us that his team was firmly in the championship race.

“There are 17 games to go now, from those 17 games if we have every luck then we can be champions, but if we don’t have luck then we won’t be champions.’’

It was about luck, and not resources, or his pay. The same Akbay who had told us in May, when his team was top of the table ahead of their visit to Chapungu, that he was happy with the depth of his squad.

“I cannot complain about my team, I have lots of opportunities to change the style of the team, I have a lot of different players and that makes my team very strong.

“I have talented young players and that’s why I am very happy . . . They have lots of energy and it is good for us.”

And, then, when things started going the other way, he retreated to his old ways telling the media he wouldn’t be renewing his contract at the end of this season because he was unhappy the club had failed to meet their side of the bargain.

Where Emmet Ndlovu sat, by Akbay’s side last December, to start the firefighting exercise triggered by the Dutchman’s tendency to just explode, without warning, and threatened to walk away, Nhlanhla Dube now occupied that seat.

“He has not informed the executive committee. I just heard it now,’’ said Dube. They (the executive committee) have not heard anything until I tell them. I am sure he is going to inform me in writing if that is his intention. We will consider that and respond appropriately.’’

There is a myth that the other teams are very strong, which is not correct, because Rahman Gumbo is in charge of virtually an old people’s home at Chicken Inn, dominated by players staggering in the twilight of their careers, and only the coach’s brilliance has shaped them into this powerful force.

Lloyd Mutasa is in charge of a team dominated by rookies, but he has found a way to build them into a competitive side while Ngezi Platinum is built around players who were off-loaded from Dynamos as excess baggage only for Tonderai Ndiraya to find a way to make them a tough unit.

Of course, Akbay is a reasonably fine coach, but he has this fatal weakness of being a loose cannon, someone who just explodes without warning, without weighing the gravity of his words and, if he is as professional as he claims, he should know that there are issues better dealt with in-house than with the media.

He appears to send a message, as horrible as it, that he has absolutely no respect whatsoever for those that brought him here let alone the very institution he committed himself to serve when he signed pen to paper?

At least Fergie was wise enough to tell MUTV who were his employers.

That Akbay can even suggest he is open to signing for other local clubs paints a picture of a man who has not found any reason to bond himself to everything that Bosso represent and it lends weight to speculation that once emerged in the local media that he was on the verge of dumping them for DeMbare and, that, if he doesn’t know it by now, is taboo.

For him to say he didn’t see any shame in the loss to Tsholotsho, arguing his men had played well, at Barbourfields of all places, was an insult to the Bosso fans.

That is why those who sit at the Soweto Stand turned against him on Wednesday.

Some say Akbay has been struggling to transfer his earnings to his homeland, but if that is the case, then how does he think he will suddenly find a solution to that puzzle at another local side and, to those who sit in the Soweto Stand, this means that isn’t the reason he had served them with divorce papers.

Akbay isn’t the author of all the challenges that Bosso are facing, but his recklessness in the way he just explodes without a sense of caution to say things that repeatedly weigh down heavily on both this institution and the players who suddenly find themselves confused with a scenario of pulling their weight for a coach who is jumping ship — have had a significant impact on the derailment of their progress.

Fergie did it 16 years ago and it was a disaster, even for a club as big and successful as Manchester United, and the great Scot said it was the biggest mistake he made all his career.

Now, if such premature declarations can derail an institution as massive as Man U, with all the finances that they have needs and all the success this monster has achieved, what about Bosso, really, when you come to think of it?

On Wednesday night, I watched Danish giants FC Copenhagen book their place in the group stages of the UEFA Champions League and what caught my attention wasn’t the raw emotion in the stands but the club’s signature tune — “SUCCESS IS TEMPORARY, LOYALTY IS FOREVER.’’

Loyalty, at such clubs like Bosso and Dynamos, is everything and it’s something that Akbay doesn’t seem to have in abundance and on a scorecard of zero to 10, I will give him zero out of 10 and that, maybe, has been what has crippled Bosso’s leap into the championship winners’ enclosure since his arrival.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199 (I’m back again on Econet)

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A GROUP OF SUPERMEN . . . David Mwanza (kneeling, extreme right), who rose from our small mining town in Chakari to become one of the finest football players to grace Zimbabwe’s stadiums, poses for a group picture with his Warriors teammates when he played for our national team

Sharuko on Saturday
WE didn’t know it back then, being mere toddlers who were totally reliant on the comfort of their mothers to survive the first year of our introduction into this world, after nine months of being shielded away from its brutality, in the bellies of these very special people.

But we know it now, which is the unrivalled beauty of life, that we were the special generation whose arrival on the scene coincided with the World Cup being broadcast in the splendour of colour on television for the first time in history.

The immortal Pele, in his final World Cup finals appearance, leading his star-studded Brazilians — widely acknowledged as the finest group of individuals to grace this global football festival — to a success story in Mexico City.

As this incredible football specimen waved goodbye to the grand stage of the World Cup, after winning a third title in four tournaments, his native Brazil welcomed the arrival of Cafu, a footballer who — with the passage of time — would become the country’s most capped player of all-time.

We arrived just as the world reluctantly said goodbye to the Swinging Sixties and everything that defining decade represented — a global cultural revolution, the Beatles, the civil rights movement in the United States, the Vietnam War and the romance of seeing man land on the moon.

Millions of those who lived through the Swinging Sixties have struggled to deal with adjusting to the end of a decade which defined their lives, in more ways than one, and left memories to last a lifetime.

Canadian rocker Bryan Adams probably best captures that nostalgia, which is still strong 50 years later, on behalf of those millions who have found it difficult to let go of the good times they enjoyed in the Swinging Sixties in his classic song, Summer of 69.

“I got my first real six-string

Bought it at the five-and-dime

Played it ‘til my fingers bled

Was the summer of ‘69

Me and some guys from school

Had a band and we tried real hard

Jimmy quit, Jody got married

I should’ve known we’d never get far

Oh, when I look back now

That summer seemed to last forever

And if I had the choice

Yeah, I’d always wanna be there

Those were the best days of my life

And now the times are changin’

Look at everything that’s come and gone

Sometimes when I play that old six-string

I think about you, wonder what went wrong

Standin’ on your mama’s porch

You told me that it’d last forever

Oh, and when you held my hand

I knew that it was now or never

Those were the best days of my life.’’

 It was back in those Swinging Sixties when the late Sam Dauya, and his colleagues, came together to form a football club which would be a project steeped in the rebellion against the politics of the time and the yearning by the black community in Harare for something special they could call their own.

As fate would have it, Dauya passed away just a day after his Glamour Boys sent shockwaves across the continent by handing the then defending African champions Etoile du Sahel of Tunisia a rare defeat in their backyard in continental inter-club matches in Sousse — to knock them out of the 2008 Champions League.

Benjamin Marere scored that priceless goal in Tunisia, to complete back-to-back victories for DeMbare, who had also won the first leg 1-0 in Harare and in that outpouring of celebrations in the capital, a fitting soundtrack was provided for Dauya to finally take his eternal rest in peace.

A JOURNEY BACK INTO THE PAST 40 YEARS AGO

Thirty one years earlier, in 1977, our Generation of ’70, had turned seven, been accepted into Grade One, back in the days when you needed to be at least seven years old to be accepted as old enough to undergo the first phase of primary school tutelage.

We didn’t know it back then, trapped in the excitement of finally getting a chance to wear those khakhi uniforms, making new friends and mastering the alphabet, that something big was about to be born in our football in our first year as Grade One pupils.

But we know it now, that we were also the special generation whose arrival on the school scene — to receive the blessings that come with education — coincided with the birth of the Harare Derby in 1977.

Of course, we had heard a lot about Dynamos, such has always been the massive influence of this football phenomenon it had already cast its shadow over our sleepy gold mining community we called home.

But for all its national appeal, which even spilled into our little community, Dynamos was something from a distant outpost, of course, very big for it to be known among us, but not powerful enough to dilute the attachment that we all felt for our hometown club.

The elders called it Bwela Ufe, a Nyanja phrase for Come and Die, and it could have originated either from our team’s remarkable success rate at home, where we usually won, or as a response to one of our biggest rivals from a nearby settlement called Martin Spur, nestled between Kadoma and Chegutu, whose team was called Come Again.

I was a Falcon Gold fan by birth, my late dad used to be the team’s goalkeeper and that football used to dominate conversations at home was as predictable as it was refreshing and, being the ‘keeper’s son, it meant I had a guaranteed seat on the team bus — which used to carry the players, coaches and fans — to our away matches.

There was always a sitting pattern, which was followed religiously — the first seat belonged to our head coach George Marabishi, and if his surname sounds bizarre, then you ain’t heard anything yet.

For this was a football team whose stars included players with names, not nicknames, like our ‘keeper Chakumanda (of the graves), Mutambarika, Aidan Sweet, Kamukanda, Bhibho, Aaron Fly, Tetete Nguo, Luke Zhatanga and Didymus Damiano.

Even the names of the Nyau dancers who used to entertain us before our matches — Gomanikwende, Dhinte, Kamwimwi, Chin’omben’ombe, Chimakanje, ChiMaria Chinagwa Bere (loosely translated as Maria with a drooping pair of breasts), Gaurani, Shero — didn’t appear weird ones back in those days.

And some of our team’s biggest fans included people like Don’t Talk Phiri, Sozibury Chirwa, Plan and Iwell Chirwa, Tirire and the sisters Cheinedi and Chewire.

Anyway, back to football.

Our players would then sit just behind their coaches and then, the rest of us, the fans, would occupy the back seats on the 76-seater bus for our trips to the away games which usually came every other Sunday.

I’m not exactly sure as to the exact year my old man started taking me along on that bus for the away matches, but I know that by the time I enrolled for my Grade One, in 1977, I had become a very regular traveller on those trips driven by the desire to always come back and boast to my classmates, on Monday mornings, of the sights and sounds of those away games.

I remember that because it’s something which put me into a lot of trouble, and a number of beatings, from my Grade One teacher, Ms Sinamane, on the numerous occasions she caught me relaying the events of those away matches to my classmates when we were supposed to be paying attention to what she was teaching us.

I guess, when I come to think of it now, all this story telling, trying as much as I could to put the events of what I had seen on the field of play in our away matches to my classmates, played a part in what I now do for a living today.

THE DERBY@40 IN A YEAR MEMORY LAID BARE ALL THE RITUALS

Tomorrow’s showdown at the National Sports Stadium marks the 40th anniversary of the Harare Derby, a contest between Dynamos and CAPS United which started in the very same year that some of us began our primary school adventure.

Time flies, and it just doesn’t feel real that 30 years have come and gone since our group, which was admitted for our Grade One studies back in 1977, completed our Form Four studies in 1987, finally making the leap from what they described as Ordinary to Advanced Level studies.

This year’s Derby, which has been delayed for months because of CAPS United’s Champions League commitments, comes in the year that former DeMbare skipper Memory Mucherahowa laid bare the bizarre world that was part of their life at the Glamour Boys in his autobiography “SOUL OF SEVEN MILLION DREAMS.’’

The man who captained DeMbare to three league titles and a place in the final of the CAF Champions League is widely regarded, for good measure, as an icon at the club.

His real name is Edwin Zindoga Mucherahowa.

“I was christened Edwin Zindoga Mucherahowa after my birth on June 19, 1968, in Harare,’’ he writes in his book. “How on earth I found myself stuck with the mysterious name ‘Memory’, which to me is feminine, I do not know. I loathed the bloody name.’’

Memory, or Edwin, whichever you prefer, laid bare all the rituals they used to do at DeMbare during his days in his book and it made a huge impact he was even invited as a guest on the BBC Focus On Africa programme to discuss the issue.

“Dynamos FC, just like most clubs throughout the world, was deeply entrenched in superstition. I was heavily involved in all this,’’ he writes in his book.

“The team believed more in juju than players’ ability. We believed in collective use of the juju and consulted one traditional healer as a team. In most cases we had the team’s traditional healers who were on the team’s pay roll.’’

There is a lot on that, in his book, including a juju man who came to cut their toes and administer some juju on the eve of DeMbare’s Champions Cup quarter-final showdown against Canon Yaounde of Cameroon in 1987, which they needed to win 1-0 and qualify for the semi-finals for the first time.

As it turned out, the match ended 1-1, and DeMbare were knocked out and Memory says the juju man blamed it all on Gift M’pariwa, whom he accused of having broken the code by making love to a woman two days before the big match when the players had been told not to do so for four days before that game.

Richard Chihoro, the DeMbare team manager, has been forced to defend himself, now and again, that he isn’t the team’s juju man or the link between the club and their juju man with conspiracy theorists saying he owes his place on the bench — where he never gets fired when the coaching staff goes — on his so-called superstitious powers.

Back in 1996, when CAPS United finally found a way to win a league title for the first time after Independence, we used to be told at Raylton Sports Club, that the man behind their mysterious powers was called Afante.

For me, given my background in Chakari, where it was common knowledge that our team also relied on our juju man, who would be employed by the mine specifically for the provision of his specialist services to the club, paid for whatever he was doing to make our Falcon Gold a very potent outfit, this didn’t come as a surprise.

By the ‘80s, when the management at our mine decided Falcon Gold, just like Rio Tinto, should try and fight for a place in the Premiership rather than be content with swinging between Division One and Two, we were told a decision was taken to hire the very best of the juju men.

He was a mysterious chap, without a wife or kids, lived a reclusive life and no one appeared to know his name, or bother to ask him, except his nickname, Yellowman, which came from his very light complexion.

I had long lost the innocence of my Grade One year, having grown into a teenager who could now question some things, when one Sunday morning, we were told Yellowman had directed that the team bus would carry a very limited number of fans, only four to be precise, for the trip to Harare.

Given that we were going to play State House Tornadoes, quite a powerful team back then, at Dzivaresekwa in a Cup game, all this defied logic as the expectation had been that the team would actually need its full contingent of fans for this tough test.

Then, amid our rebellion, the elders told us that Yellowman’s decision was the correct one because our team bus couldn’t afford the weight of the load of a full bus on a day when our juju man was also carrying our home ground on its carrier for our players to use away from home.

It might sound ridiculous, but that’s what happened and, lucky me, being the old retired ‘keeper’s son, I was one of the five fans picked for that trip to Harare and by half-time, our Falcon Gold were leading their opponents 1-0 and Yellowman, sitting inside that stadium, was calmness personified.

The Tornadoes players, though, included David Mwanza, our hometown hero who was now playing for these big boys, and on his way to the dressing rooms for the break, he saw Yellowman.

What we later heard was that he ordered Yellowman’s ejection from the ground and, in a flash, we could see the juju man being dragged outside the stadium with some people sprinkling all sorts of liquids, including urine, on him.

And, in the final 45 minutes, our team conceded five goals, scoring none, and on the trip back home, someone even joked that we had conceded a goal for every fan on the bus and one for Yellowman.

I have always belonged to that camp which doesn’t believe in this juju thing in football because, if it did, why is it that for all our deep-seated beliefs in it throughout the game across the continent, we have never won the World Cup?

The DRC took nine juju men to Germany for their only appearance in a World Cup finals in 1974 and, in one match against Yugoslavia, conceded nine goals — a goal for every witchdoctor who was with them.

That my beloved Falcon Gold never made it into the Premiership, despite all the investment into the juju men, has also convinced me all this juju madness in football really doesn’t work.

And, as the Harare Derby celebrates its 40th year tomorrow, here’s my toast to all the great players, coaches, fans and administrators who helped make this iconic fixture, whose appeal has stood the test of time.

Don’t ask me why I haven’t extended a toast to all the juju men who have been part of this iconic Derby, from its beginning to this day.

•  To God Be The Glory
• Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!
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Sharuko on Saturday
MY social media platforms are an explosive interactive arena, but I have to agree they have never exploded, as far as I can remember, as much as they have been raging this week in the wake of that farcical decision to try and nullify Christian Epoupa Ntouba’s red card.

A decision that triggered a seismic shock in domestic football, the kind of which could be measured on the Richter Scale like an earthquake, and whose tremors are still rumbling up to this day, stubbornly refusing to be tamed by the passage of time.

Where do I start?

Okay, referee Arnold Ncube had a stinker of a game, no doubt about that, one of the worst performances I have seen in this big game, a man who was all at sea, overwhelmed by the occasion he made a mockery of what match officiating is all about.

Ntouba’s first-minute goal was scored from an off-side position, the foul on Bosso forward Godfrey Makaruse was a penalty, defender Benson Dube should have been sent off for slapping the Cameroonian, in an off-the-ball incident, and that he ended up scoring his team’s goal, was ironic.

The Dynamos forward was roughed up by the Bosso defenders, they came with a masterplan to stop him, using both fair and foul means, but you can’t blame them because it’s the job of the referee to pick out such things and outlaw them.

The Cameroonian is one hell of a good player, I like him a lot, but anyone who also tells me he doesn’t push the boundaries of what is acceptable, in terms of physically bullying his opponents, to the very limit, will certainly be lying.

He is a master at roughing up his opponents, subjecting them to a taste of his physical prowess and casting a spell on them, at times stretching the boundaries of the acceptable, and it’s something Bosso coach Erol Akbay must have picked and decided to fight fire with fire.

The brutality of this game is that it has no place for those who take matters into their hands and when Ntouba plunged his head into Peter Muduhwa the die was cast, the red card inevitable and whatever rough treatment he had received cannot be used as an alibi for that.

My Arsenal colleagues from a certain era will remember the “Battle of the Buffet’’ on October 24, 2004, when the Gunners arrived at Old Trafford on the back of a 49-game unbeaten run and with a new shining star in their team, Jose Antonio Reyes.

Alex Ferguson devised a plan to rough him up, including some of the most brutal tackles on a player in the era of the Premiership, Arsene Wenger had to withdraw him after 70 minutes for his own protection.

“Identifying Reyes as Arsenal’s biggest threat, Gary and Phil Neville set about ruthlessly kicking him out of the game,’’ The Guardian newspaper’s Rob Smythe wrote. “It was blatant, outrageous and vicious. The referee did nothing. Reyes did even less, and Manchester United won 2-0.

“Scandalously, neither Neville was sent off, and eventually the only player who left the pitch was the shell-shocked Reyes, substituted for his own good after 70 minutes. No match, no matter how much of a mark it left on you (and Reyes had loads, the Nevilles made sure of that), can be that definitive.’’

Reyes never recovered from that traumatic experience and a special talent, spoken of in the same vein as King Henry when he arrived at Arsenal, went to waste.

Against that background, it’s difficult to understand why ZIFA rushed to plunge into the Ntouba case to the extent of nullifying a red card, which the Cameroonian deserved, and which the referee — for all his shortcomings that day — was right to show him.

IN FOOTBALL, JUST LIKE LIFE, TIMING IS EVERYTHING

The timing of the chaotic way of handling this case couldn’t have been worse, especially with the Harare Derby set for tomorrow, against a CAPS United side who, to their eternal credit, respected the laws — whether they had been wronged or not becoming irrelevant — and didn’t appeal for Dominic Chungwa’s yellow card at Chapungu to be nullified so that he could have played in the reverse Derby.

Or Justice Jangano’s ghost red card, given by a rookie referee when the country’s leading match officials were attending a high-level FIFA course, which ruled the defender out of the first Derby and gave Ntouba the freedom, which might probably have been different had Justice been in the team, to score the two goals that decided that match.

The gravity of the ruling which ZIFA made on Monday is found in the way it feeds into a web of conspiracy that the Association are trying to give DeMbare a helping hand, which these Glamour Boys don’t need, especially given the way they have gallantly fought for the big prize against all expectations, this season.

My learned lawyer colleagues will tell you that justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to have been done and in the Ntouba case, you can’t say it was seen to have been done and ZIFA should not have dragged themselves into a case which was only going to attract controversy, rather than value, for them.

Whether they were doing it in good faith becomes irrelevant because there was too much baggage, which was weighing against such an intervention and pronouncement, they should simply have dismissed that Dynamos appeal on the basis of procedural flaws.

And, the failure by the football authorities to also address issues, which went against Bosso that day, including a clear penalty that wasn’t given and the way the Bulawayo giants’ attacks — in the dying stages — kept being disrupted by balls thrown onto the field by the DeMbare bench, with none of the Glamour Boys being punished for that, feeds into the conspiracy.

To argue, as DeMbare did in their ill-advised protest letter to ZIFA and not to the match commissioner, that Ntouba has a swollen face is at best laughable and, at worst, ridiculous.

After all, this is a game of contact where Arsenal goalkeeper Petr Cech has been wearing a protective head gear for 11 years now since a collision with Reading’s Stephen Hunt in 2006, left him with a fractured skull.

Now, the conspiracy theorists have been having a field day saying it’s not a coincidence the referee in the Derby ignored a foul on CAPS United’s John Zhuwawu in the penalty area, while the score was still 0-1 in favour of DeMbare, only to give Ocean Mushure a ghost free-kick after a perfect tackle from Moses Muchenje from which the Glamour Boys skipper swung in a beauty which Ntouba headed home for the insurance second goal.

And they are saying it’s not a coincidence Makaruse was denied a penalty on Sunday when contact, inside the box that afternoon, was as clear as day and night.

There is a song called, “You Say It Best When You Say Nothing At All,’’ and it is pregnant with a lot of meaning and ZIFA could have said it best this week, in their condemnation of the poor referee and how they deal with him, by saying nothing at all.

AND, AMID ALL THIS DRAMA, THE ANTI-CHIYANGWA BAND PLAYS ON

Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, Philip Chiyangwa and his crew could have done better, far, far better, in all this without triggering all the negativity we have seen this week.

And, as so often happens on our toxic landscape, the regrettable events have opened a window of opportunity for those who have always argued that Chiyangwa has serious limitations — both as a person and as a leader, to be entrusted with the huge responsibility to lead our national football — to feast on the carcass of the controversy.

They are always there, waiting in the wings, bidding their time, waiting for a blunder, a poor decision, and when the Warriors win the COSAFA Cup, as was the case this year, they say it’s a developmental tournament and there is no need for wild celebrations to accompany such a triumph.

But, when the Young Warriors fail at the COSAFA Under-17 Cup, which is itself a proper development tourney, as was the case this year, they say it’s a reflection of a failed leadership.

They will tell you he shouldn’t get credit for the Warriors 2017 AFCON finals qualification, even though four of their six games — which included victories of Swaziland and Malawi to confirm their place in Gabon — were played under his leadership.

The same people who, will tell you the Warriors’ qualification for the 2006 AFCON finals was masterminded by Charles Mhlauri, which is fair and fine, and conveniently forget the big contributions made by Sunday Chidzambwa, who started the campaign by eliminating Mauritania before handing the baton to Rahman Gumbo, whose men picked a big away point in Gabon, a big home point against Algeria, three big points away in Rwanda before his adventure was ended by a 0-3 home defeat at the hands of Nigeria.

They will tell you his liquidation of Tom Saintfiet’s $180 000 debt which he inherited, within a month of coming into office, to ensure the next generation of Warriors would not be burdened by the sins of their leaders by being barred from playing in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers, is not a big deal.

The same people who watched from a distance as the previous ZIFA leadership failed to pay $68 000 they owed Valinhos leading to the banishment of the current generation of Warriors from playing in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

Chiyangwa has a lot of people who just don’t like him, if not for his flashy lifestyle in which he appears to suggest being poor is a crime, then for a life lived in the public glare of online videos and selfies or just simply for his politics which he never hides.

The same people who are ready to salute Bayern Munich as a model of professionalism, celebrating Uli Hoeness’ re-election as the German giants’ president, with an overwhelming 97 percent of the vote on August 8 last year, just six months after walking out of a German prison where he served a three-and-half prison term after being convicted on seven serious counts of tax evasion running into $34 million. They will tell you there is everything wrong in having a ZIFA president who once spent time in remand prison in a case he was eventually cleared.

The same people who will tell you SAFA president Danny Jordaan is their model football leader, claiming Chiyangwa represents everything that is wrong when you mix football and politicians, conveniently overlooking the fact that Jordaan is an ANC heavyweight who just two years ago was appointed by the party to be the executive mayor of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.

The same people who will hail Kalusha Bwalya as a perfect model of a football leader, saying football and politics should not mix, and conveniently overlooking the reality that King Kalu was one of the leading figures who campaigned for Zambian President Edgar Lungu to win the last poll.

The same people who will say Germany, the World Cup, Confederation Cup and Euro Youth Champions, are benefiting from having an FA leader, Reinhard Grindel, who isn’t a politician, conveniently overlooking the fact he used to be an MP for the Christian Democratic Union, the party led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and remains an influential member of that party.

Yes, Chiyangwa is not a superhuman, he has certain flaws — like everyone else — he makes blunders, including some big ones, like the Ntouba one, but that shouldn’t blind us from the reality he has done far more in converting ZIFA into a working organisation again than a lot of his predecessors did in treble the time he has been in office.

THE MYTH ABOUT THE SO-CALLED FOOTBALL PEOPLE

Then, of course, there is that old-school constituency that always argues, aaaahhhhh, but he is not a football man, as if Roman Abramovich, whose arrival transformed Chelsea, has a traceable history in this game.

Amid the blitzkrieg of fury, hate, hurt, insults, jeers, tears of disbelief, toxic messages and even some claims that domestic football was now facing its Armageddon moment, with the internet brigade in full rebellion, the ray of light for me in all this darkness this week was provided by an Englishman l had never met. And, it seems, l will never meet.

Patrick Clyne is the brave owner of Barnsley, an English football club which plays in the second-tier Championship league and last season they won two trophies at Wembley — the EFL Trophy and the Promotion Play-Offs Trophy.

Clyne is terminally ill and his fate is in the hands of a raging cancer that will soon end his flirtation with the world of the living and make him the next addition to the world of the departed.

This week, Clyne wrote this moving letter for his club’s programme for their EFL Cup second round match against Derby which not only questions the whole myth that only the so-called football people should be in charge of this game, but shows why we waste so much time pursuing things that don’t matter at all, driven by hate, while the world is moving on.

“I am living on borrowed time. I live in pain, but living is better than the alternative. Cancer is insidious, cruel and rapacious and I implore everyone to have regular checks to stop it gaining hold.

“Recent months have brought into focus the things that are important to me. I have spent a lot of my life pursuing the ultimately pointless when there were better things to do. My family have always been important to me but I should have spent more time telling them so.

“I do now and it creates joyfulness in our relationships. “Of course, my football club has been important, too, and I am lucky that my family have shared my love of Barnsley FC.

“For much of the time since I became the club’s buyer of last resort, I allowed others to run the club, fearing that I did not know enough to win the respect and support of the ‘football people’. It is ironic, therefore, that we enjoyed one of our most successful periods when I did take up the mantle ending in two successful visits to Wembley.

“Maybe, one day, before too long, I will tell the secrets of how we did it. Certainly, the whole club working as one was instrumental. I don’t know if we will ever repeat the sense of togetherness of that season, which extended also to the fans, their tolerance and incredible support.

“There are many things I wanted to achieve before my custodianship of our fabulous team ended at the hand of the Grim Reaper. Of course, I wanted to see us get back to the Premier League and make some enhancements to the iconic West Stand.

‘’On a personal level, I wanted to bring back together all the 1912 FA Cup final medals, but I only managed to retrieve five.

“Most people realise I was a reluctant custodian but what has made it bearable, against the occasional cruelty of the internet world, is the kindness shown to me by so many fans on a personal basis.

“People are not shy in coming forward and telling me they appreciate my efforts, even if I have fallen short of their aspirations. I receive many letters and cards from fans who share with me their memories and best wishes. I am grateful to them all.

“Regarding this season, I think we will get stronger as it goes on and our team gels, not unlike the double Wembley season. I do not expect to live to see the ultimate outcome, but I travel in hope. I wish you all a good football season and thank you for your kindness down the years.”

So much for the myth about the so-called football people and their mythical kingdom.

• To God Be The Glory
• Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!
• Text Feedback — 0772545199
• WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199
• Email — robsharuko@gmail.com
• Skype — sharuko58
• Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

RAW EMOTIONS . . . Augustine Moyo, a former journalist with The Sunday Mail, who is now the spokesman of the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration, shows his boundless joy as he celebrates the equaliser scored by his beloved Highlanders in their Battle of Zimbabwe showdown against Dynamos at Rufaro two weeks ago. — Picture by Gemazo

Sharuko on Saturday
WE call him the Smiling Assassin and Knowledge Musona, the ultimate sniper whose infectious smile usually cheers the spirits of our national game and whose goals always script success stories for our Warriors, scored twice in the Belgian Cup on Wednesday night.

The Warriors skipper’s second half brace ultimately proved the difference, for his Belgian side, as they powered to a 3-1 victory over a battling Union Saint-Gilloise.

I expected a flurry of activity, on my Twitter and Facebook accounts, from Wednesday night right into Thursday and yesterday, with Zimbabweans feasting on their skipper’s double strike in a proper football game, and a proper football competition.

That his match-winning show came just a few days after some dreaming South African football writer had knit another web of speculation, claiming Musona was set for a return to the retirement zone of Super Diski had fuelled my expectations the Smiling Assassin would be trending.

That this was KV Oostende’s first win this season, in the 14 games they have played in a dreadful run, including four pre-season friendlies, with nine of those games being losses, had triggered a wave of expectations that the social media platforms would be exploding with both excitement and relief from delirious Zimbabweans.

A people happy that their national football team captain, the one whom we have always turned to for salvation since King Peter retired, had played a leading role in helping his Belgian side finally stop the rot.

A united and proud domestic football family basking in the glory of their skipper’s exploits, for his European club, and happy that — after weeks in which his team has resembled a punching bag — our Smiling Assassin would finally enjoy a peaceful sleep.

Sadly, I was wrong, very, very wrong.

Instead, it was the raging army of haters — and there are many of them out there prowling the Internet these days, who bombarded me with messages saying there was nothing special about Musona’s brace.

They said, after all, his two goals had come against a second-tier opponent, Union Saint-Gilloise, who play in the league just below the Belgian top-flight, and are sitting on fifth place on the table in that championship.

Of course, what they conveniently chose to ignore is that KV Oostende have been having a nightmarish campaign this season — bottom of the 16-team Belgian top-flight league, without a win in seven league matches, where they have lost six of those games.

This means, right now, KV Oostende are not in any way better than the top sides in the Belgian second-tier league, where Union Saint-Gilloise are one of the leading sides, and the contest on Wednesday was in no way a Goliath versus David affair.

In sharp contrast, our colleagues across the Zambezi were having a party on the interactive forum, which brings together African football journalists and administrators, celebrating the exploits of Charly Musonda in his first start for Chelsea on Wednesday night.

The 20-year-old midfielder, who is the son of Zambian legend Charles Musonda, impressed for the English champions in the League Cup, capping his fine performance with a goal at Stamford Bridge, as they ran out comfortable 5-1 winners over Nottingham Forest.

That Charly was born in Brussels and has already chosen to represent Belgium, his country of birth, in his international career, and not Zambia, his fatherland, didn’t seem to dilute the wave of happiness among the Zambians who still regard the youngster as one of their own and another example of the football gems that come out of their productive nurseries.

To those Zambians, it’s all about Mother Zambia and although Charly Musonda can choose whichever country he wants to play for, it will never take away the reality that he is a Zambian boy, born in Belgium, and his Zambian roots is something he can never shake off.

You got to love these Zambians, if not for their raw patriotism, then for the way they find value in the positive, something which casts the name of their country in good light, and how they feast on anything that paints them in good stead and spend hours blowing their trumpets, stroking their egos and beating their pumped-up chests.

When some people were accusing them of fielding a number of over-aged players in the COSAFA Under-17 Championships, which they won in Mauritius this year, they didn’t even let that taint their hour of triumph and, instead, they kept hitting back at their critics as bad losers who are a disgrace to what this game stands for.

Imagine, for a moment, if it was us — and our hatred for who we are, our reluctance to embrace the reality that we are a very special people, our obsession with the negativity that doesn’t add value to our nationhood and our fascination with things that paint us in bad light — and you would have seen people from this country scrambling to say that, ohhhhh, yesss, we cheated because, as far as they are concerned, we aren’t good enough to write any success stories.

The same people who said there was no honour in winning the COSAFA Senior Challenge Cup because, in their world, it’s a development tournament yet, when our Young Warriors did badly at the COSAFA Under-17 tourney in Mauritius, which is itself the proper developmental stage, they went ballistic saying such failure was unacceptable.

WE ARE JUST A PEOPLE WHOSE FASCINATION WITH NEGATIVITY SIMPLY KNOWS NO BOUNDS

Last week, my social media platforms exploded, with fury coming from all over the world — from New England in the United States to New Zealand Down Under and all the other places in between — as our extended football family, which includes a huge constituency in the Diaspora, rightly revolted against that sickening decision to try and rescind the red card shown to Christian Epoupa Ntouba.

It was a pathetic decision by our football leaders and the game’s community had every right to cry foul, to fight for the rejection of such a move, to combine forces in refusing to have a game which means a lot to them being dragged through this sticky mud and taking a united stance, where their forces of rebellion became their weapon, in fighting this farce.

Some chose to be sensible, others chose to be diplomatic, some chose to be ruthless in their condemnation of all that, while others — as usually happens in our polarised country — found a window of opportunity to bring in the politics which, sadly, divide us and try and use what had happened to champion their cause.

I understood the anger among the countless Zimbabweans who used my social media platforms, and other avenues I have opened for us to communicate, to register their displeasure at that decision by the ZIFA leadership to try and annul the red card and, in the process, fuel suggestions they were fighting in the Dynamos corner.

What I can’t understand, however, is why we don’t seem to derive similar energy, as a people, to also celebrate the achievements of our sporting ambassadors, as and when they do well in their chosen fields, where their deeds will be helping our nation to be spoken of in good light?

Why do we seemingly appear to be a people who are just obsessed with negativity, a people whose instincts are ignited by negative stuff, and on the occasions that some positive stuff comes along, we conveniently withdraw into a shell and behave as if we didn’t see it happening or pretend as if it never happened?

If the Zambians can go ballistic in celebrating the performance of a footballer, who was never born in that country for goodness sake, and has even chosen to play his international football for Belgium, embracing him as one of their own, clogging the internet with messages pregnant with pride that he did well in a League Cup match for Chelsea, why do we get all this deafening silence when it comes to us, when our Warriors captain also does well, as was the case with Musona on Wednesday night?

When reports emerged in Belgium exactly a year ago, that Musona was one of a number of players who had been caught up in a betting saga, it was the kind of negative stuff that brings the best out of us and, with our instincts having been revved up to the maximum, we feasted on the poor fellow and turned the internet into an arena where we ran amok in our destruction of his character.

We turned ourselves into the complainants, the prosecutors, the judge and the jury and we laid the charges, prosecuted him and found him guilty, choosing — of course — to ignore his club’s backing of him and the player’s pleas that, as far as he was concerned, there was nothing to fear because he had not done anything that would destroy him.

One local online media organisation even went as far as telling its readers that Musona was as guilty as charged and went to the extent of saying his possible sanctions would include, ‘’a fine, suspension or even criminal charges.’’

Of course, as both Musona and his club had argued, the case crumbled but, of course, those who had rushed to lampoon him as a man whose career was on the brink, who was facing a bleak future, simply chose to act as if they had never preached such Armageddon gospel and a year later, they have simply moved on.

On the night that Charly Musonda scored at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, our boy Tendai Darikwa scored the only goal for former two-time European champions Nottingham Forest at Stamford Bridge but, just like Musona’s double strike in Belgium on the same day, Darikwa’s goal wasn’t trending among Zimbabweans celebrating what he had done.

It’s not every day that Southern African footballers get a chance to score at Stamford Bridge but, on the day our boy scored against the English champions, we tried to behave as if nothing had happened because we are a people allergic to such success stories and only want to feast on the negativity.

On Thursday, our Mighty Warrior Rutendo Makore scored her ninth goal, in four matches, at the COSAFA Women Championships at Barbourfields, but somehow her name wasn’t trending as much as the negativity that we throw at each other.

As if she had done nothing and even my colleagues at Soccer Africa, who last week made a feast of that comical decision to try and nullify Ntouba’s red card, didn’t say even a word about the magnificent sights and sounds that have been coming from the City of Kings in the past two weeks on their show on Thursday night.

Talk about being gender insensitive, it doesn’t get worse than this, or, maybe, it’s only news from Zimbabwe if it’s the negative stuff and not something positive like a Zimbabwean footballer scoring nine goals in four matches to take her country into the final of a regional tournament?

But, maybe, we can’t blame them when we, ourselves, don’t seem to see any value in anything positive coming out of our backyard and chances are that there are more Zimbabweans today who know who Ntouba is, not because he is the top scorer in the domestic Premiership or plays for the country’s biggest football club, but because of that red card fiasco while half of them don’t even know who Rutendo Makore is?

Poor us!

AND, THEN, IT DAWNED ON ME, WE SEEM TO HAVE ALREADY

FORGOTTEN JAIROS JIRI

And then it dawned on me this week, as I searched my soul as to why we seem to have this fascination with negativity, that this year marks exactly 35 years after probably the greatest philanthropist to come out of our country, Jairos Jiri, whose work as a hero for the disabled and disadvantaged of our community was out of this world, died on November 12, 1982.

But, true to our colours as Zimbabweans — a people always drawn by the lure of negativity — we haven’t seen anything in this country this year to celebrate 35 years since the death of this hero who was honoured internationally for his outstanding contribution to his nation, granted the Freedom of the Cities of Bulawayo and Los Angeles and an audience with the Pope where he received a blessing for his great world and a papal medal.

Somehow, as we usually do, we seem in a rush to forget Jairos Jiri, of all people, and if we can do that, what chances do the likes of Musona and Darikwa have of getting due recognition, for what they are doing, from their fellow countrymen?

Are we awaiting them to fall, or fail, so that we feast on their troubles?

They are not alone because this year marked the Silver Jubilee of the day King Peter Ndlovu became the first African to play in the English Premiership in August, 1992, but here it passed as if it was a non-event while it’s also the 35th anniversary of the year Bruce Grobbelaar became the first African footballer to be crowned champion of English football, but for the nine months that have passed, no one has seen the value of celebrating that milestone.

We have ignored it as if it didn’t happen and that it did happen back in the days when Liverpool were the best team in the world, by a distance, and one of us — a Bulawayo boy who used to play for Highlanders and whose father used to work for our railways — was part of those special players is an insult to our proud football history and the greatness that this country represents.

Just, for the record, it’s 35 years since Bruce won the first of his three League Cups, 25 years since he won the last of his three FA Cups, 35 years since he won the first of his five FA Charity Shields and 33 years since his heroics in Rome turned him into a European Cup winner.

I have always argued we are a very special breed of people because l have asked you tell me a landlocked African country of just 15 million people that can produce the number one ranked batsman in the world, Andy Flower, the number one ranked golfer in the world, Nick Price, a world diving champion, Evan Stewart, and Olympic hockey champions in their first appearance at the global showcase, our Golden Girls in Moscow in 1980, and I will give you my house.

Two coaches who can guide England to success in the Ashes showdown against Australia.

Show me another African country of 15 million people that has produced the world’s best doubles tennis players, Byron, Wayne and Cara Black, one that beat Australia in their backyard in the Davis Cup and one that went toe-to-toe and with an American team of Andre Agassi and company here in Africa and l will give you my house.

Show me another African country of just 15 million people that has produced winners at Wimbledon, French Open, the Australia Open in tennis, the British Open and the US PGA Championships in golf and I will give you my house.

Show me another African country of just 15 million people that gave the world its first African player to win the English championship, the first African player to win the European Cup, the first and only African player to win six English league titles, the first African player to feature in the English Premiership and the first African player to score on debut for Manchester City in the Manchester Derby at Old Trafford and I can give up my job.

Show me another country that has given the Springboks these legends — Adrian Garvey, Andy MacDonald, Ben-Piet van Zyl, Bobby Skinstad, Brian Mujati, Chris Rogers, David Smith, Des van Jaarsveldt, Gary Teichmann, Ian Robertson, Ray Mordt, Ronnie Hill, Ryk van Schoor and Tendai “Beast’’ Mtawarira — and I will give up my job.

Or another African country of just 15 million people that has given Emirates its A380 super jumbo captain, an Oxford robotics genius who went on to work for NASA and a telecommunications mogul like Strive Masiiwa and I will rest my case.

We must be the only country in the world which brings Twitter and Facebook down celebrating that our FA or country is being criticised on Soccer Africa, but we don’t raise issues when the same programme, a week later, totally ignores the Mighty Warriors qualification for the final of the COSAFA Women Championships.

What a shame!

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

Sharuko on Saturday
FOR Nicholas Munyonga, a long-term Warriors doctor who, is also a sports medicine expert and the regional leader of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the warning signs flashed four years ago in Egypt during a World Cup tour of duty with the senior national team.

They were not triggered by anyone’s extreme behaviour, but by the choice of the Warriors’ coach back then, Dieter Klaus Pagels, to thrust the massive responsibility that comes with captaining the team on the lean shoulders of a rookie 20-year-old still struggling to shed off his milk teeth at this level of the game.

Munyonga, as good a sports medicine expert as they will ever come on the continent, if not in the world, was the special guest on ZTV’s authoritative and immensely popular Monday night weekly live football magazine show, Game Plan, this week. And, as others followed the events at the Emirates in North London, where Arsenal were undertaking a routine beating of West Bromwich Albion that same night, Munyonga preached about athletes, fame, fortune and the dangers that lie in their crazy world.

He did it with the authority of a seasoned expert, dissected the subject with both simplicity — for the benefit of the laymen to get a clear understanding of what he was talking about — and the depth of knowledge that painted a very good picture of what he was saying. He tried as much as possible to avoid using the complicated language that dominates his field like cardiovascular, neurologic, musculoskeletal and cardiopulmonary, you name them, to break all this into simple terms that the ordinary folks could understand.

I have been part of the show’s panel of pundits for years now and, along the way, we have had some fine guests in the host seat — including former Warrior Tinashe Nengomasha — who blew us away with his in-depth knowledge of the game and his passion for his country. But I have to grudgingly admit that, in terms of expert presentation of a subject, Munyonga was just a class apart.

Even our cameramen were blown away by his simplicity and depth of knowledge, despite the complexity of the subject he was dealing with, and there was an unprecedented flood of feedback on my Twitter account from those watching at home as they feasted into the discussion. Munyonga provided the primary and frontline specialist support for Taitamba Chafa, also known as Devon in domestic football circles, when he was banned by FIFA for six months for having used a prohibited substance found in a prescription drug which his family doctor had prescribed for him to cure an illness.

Like a good doctor, Munyonga refused to be dragged into saying whether or not Denver Mukamba is being battered by clinical depression, arguing he hadn’t seen the footballer to provide a diagnosis of the challenges he was facing and didn’t want to be the authoritative voice that would be used as reference to social and mainstream media discussions about the DeMbare midfielder.

Until he could provide a diagnosis on the athlete, Munyonga said, he couldn’t make a pronouncement on national television on the condition of Mukamba and he couldn’t be guided by what he was reading either on the unregulated social forums — where anything can be said by anyone — or the mainstream media sites which have given acres of space to this subject.

But, crucially, Munyonga revealed he raised a red flag about Denver four years ago, not because the footballer had behaved in a way that raised alarm, but because the then Warriors coach Pagels had made the surprise decision to heap the responsibility of the national team’s captaincy on the footballer who was then just a rookie in the brutal trenches of international football.

The good doctor said he even took it upon himself to confront Pagels, in the secrecy of the coach’s hotel room, to not only voice his objection — given the possible consequences he feared as the medical expert in the group on the then youngster — but also to try and understand the rationale behind the coach’s surprise decision to invest all his trust, and correspondingly a nation’s trust, on the shoulders of such a rookie.

Munyonga said while it remained the coach’s responsibility to select his captain, all he could do was provide expert knowledge of the merits and demerits of such a decision, and in this case, his concern was largely centred on the huge load that this rookie, then a baby-faced footballer just a year out of his teenage innocence, who — 15 months earlier — was a virtual nobody at modest Premiership side Kiglon Bird.

MAYBE, FOR THE REST OF US, THE SIGNS SHOULD HAVE APPEARED IN HIS HOUR OF GREATNESS

Maybe, for the rest of us, the warning signs should have flicked in Denver’s hour of brilliance on March 19, 2011, at Rufaro when the then teenage footballer, in his first dance with Champions League football, made a mockery of the game at this level with a show that was a moment of golden theatre.

Something which, half-a-dozen years later, has remained a part of the collective memory of those who were there as privileged witnesses as Denver’s raw talent — before its pollution by a toxic combination of fame, alcohol and the virus called Super Diski — screamed out and overwhelmed seasoned Algerian campaigners MC Alger.

Nine months short of his 19th birthday, in his first real football match, Denver shone like a beacon that afternoon, playing at a level that was a mockery to the combination of his inexperience and youthfulness, running the Dynamos machine as if he was a veteran of these continental football trenches and, crucially, destroying the Algerian opposition with both style and substance.

There are some neutrals, whose opinion I value a lot, who said this was — in terms of individual brilliance — a throwback to that iconic performance by the King himself, Peter Ndlovu, in the colours of his beloved Warriors in that four-goal destruction of Bafana Bafana, at the turn of the ‘90s, which he capped with a goal of such purity it remains a benchmark for artistry in those gold jerseys we call our national kit.

Or, before he was King and was the Prince, the Flying Elephant’s 5-2 destruction of Tunisia in the second leg of the third round qualifier of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics at Barbourfields where the sheer magic of a teenage Peter dragged the Young Warriors to a crushing victory that wiped out the 1-3 first leg deficit and turn it into a 6-5 aggregate victory.

Or, some say, Vitalis Takawira’s manhandling of the Indomitable Lions in a Nations Cup qualifier in which the Digital, then at the very peak of his athletic powers, scored three of the four goals that afternoon when Cameroon crashed to a humiliating defeat at the National Sports Stadium.

Denver produced a man-of-the-match show on that March afternoon in 2011, and fittingly, scored the peak of his team’s four goals, dribbling past two defenders, turning a third marker and then, with both precision and ruthlessness, curling home beautiful effort that nestled into the far post as Rufaro — having been taken to heaven and back by the vintage show of those Glamour Boys — rose in unison to salute this magician. But, in that festival of celebrations, we chose to ignore his shocking tendency to self-destruct, a frustrating failure to value responsibility and a fatal habit of doing the wrong things at the wrong time.

As Denvermania spread that day, in a country still looking for someone to fill the big shoes which King Peter left behind, we all chose to overlook the first signs of Denver’s sickening habit of spoiling all the good work he would have done with one foolish act, a penchant to live on the edge and a deeply flawed character who needed a lot of hand-holding to help him live to all this hype.

No one questioned why Denver, of all people, somehow trooped back to find himself in his own penalty area, in the dying moments of that game when his team was enjoying a healthy four-goal lead, where he then made a clumsy challenge on Nassim Bouchama to provide the Algerians with the penalty, converted by Reda Babouche, which opened a window of hope for them in that carnage of despair.

The demons, which we are seeing today — the lack of discipline to understand the consequences of his childish late tackle that day, the foolishness to even attempt it, inside the penalty area, when he knows his defensive shortcomings are as clear as the difference between Two Keys and Glenfiddich Single Malt 18-year-old Whisky, the temptation to experiment on the big stage — combined for that fateful and ill-advised decision that day.

Yes, in today’s football, attackers are the first line of defence and the attacking players should always come back to reinforce the defence, but they are not told to lunge into rushed challenges, especially when their team is leading 4-0 in the final minute, and poor Denver’s clumsy challenge that afternoon — devoid of any responsibility in such a massive match — gave the Algerians a window of hope.

Which, as it turned out, using both fair and foul means in Algiers, they used to their full advantage, riding on that one away goal — and a helping hand from a referee described by my colleague Makomborero Mutimukulu, who covered that match in Algiers as a clone from hell — to win 3-0 and qualify on the away goals rule.

 AND, IN OUR COMBINED

FAILURE TO READ THE SIGNS,

WE LET HIM DOWN

In our combined failure to pick out the early signs of Denver’s glaring character weaknesses, and instead toast him as that faultless hero whom our football had been waiting for, we ushered him onto this train of doom and being crowned Soccer Star of the Year — something which his performance merited — inflated an ego at a time he needed to keep his feet on the ground.

With the benefit of hindsight, that award — which gave him imaginary wings in which, like R. Kelly before him, he believed he could suddenly fly — was a horrible addition to the instruments of the praise singing band, whose music was making him believe he had suddenly turned into a demi-god of football.

Pagels’ ill-advised decision to hand him the Warriors’ armband that night in Egypt, in March 2013, to lead a team that featured experienced hands like Washington Arubi, Lincoln Zvasiya, Hardlife Zvirekwi, Ovidy Karuru and the talisman Knowledge Musona, who inevitably scored our goal in a 1-2 defeat, provided the fuel to that fire of arrogance, self-importance, assumed superiority and egotism that was already burning inside his lanky frame.

The rising star in Egyptian football back then was Mohamed Salah, an individual born six months earlier than Denver, who had flown from his base in Switzerland where he played for Basel, to play in that World Cup qualifier against a Warriors side captained by Mukamba.

Even when the Pharaohs were given an 88th minute penalty, from which they found their winner that night, the responsibility to take it wasn’t given to Salah, but to Mohamed Aboutrika, who was regarded as the more senior player, with the right temperament to take such a major national responsibility, as taking a last-gasp World Cup qualifying penalty to decide a match.

Salah was down the pecking order, but given he is the same age as Denver and plays in the same position as our footballer who chose to remain trapped in the bliss of teenage-hood, when both his life and his career were crying out for him to become a man, it’s a measure of how much the other has developed, and the other has lost his way, the Egyptian is now the most expensive footballer Liverpool have ever signed.

Pagels, to his credit, quickly picked out the error of his ways and three months after that match in Alexandria, Denver had already fallen from being captain of the Warriors to a place on the bench, in the reverse match against the Egyptians in Harare, in June that year.

We didn’t pick it back then, but the brutality of that rejection, and embarrassment, for a player who three months earlier was now believing in his fantasy that he had touched the heavens, to be not only stripped of that armband, but also lose his place in a starting XI that now featured the likes of Tafadzwa Rusike, was too much to bear for this prima donna, who had grown up being tendered by a loving grandmother who treated him with all the love there is in this world.

Worse was to follow and when it came it was so brutal, and damaging, it has left him resembling a shell, struggling in a hazy world of denial, a man who is at war with himself, refusing to embrace the fact that those who said he failed in South Africa were right, and those who are saying he is no longer the Denver they used to know at Dynamos are also right.

To find an escape from reality, imaginary comfort from the real world, he has retreated into his own world — others say he now finds occasional relief in funny intoxicating liquids like musombodhia, bronco and histalix that only take him away into the fantasy of the reality world for just a fleeting moment before they evaporate from his system leaving him to face the very ugly world he was trying to run away from.

Others say he has found the occasional relief in some funny substances and the more that he has become the subject of jokes on the unrelenting social media sites, the more he has chosen to try and find sanctuary in a world that doesn’t exist and the more he had drifted away from reality and the chance for a redemption exercise.

Denver simply needs a fresh start and that begins with going back into the arms of Gogo Kawinga to ask for forgiveness for letting her down, including not sending her some money during his days in South Africa, going back into the arms of his agent Gibson Mahachi, quite a good fellow who cares for him very much, and going back into the arms of Lloyd Mutasa, a coach whose patience with him has been remarkable. And, crucially, trusting what they tell him.

Finding a pastor, and there are many of them out there, to pray for him, if he doesn’t want the ones who like to publish his visits on television he can go and see a good guy called Doug Mamvura, who repeatedly tells me his love for Dynamos knowns no bounds, who can help him with prayers. His club Dynamos, who also made some money when he went to South Africa, should also help him in his redemption journey, the counselling he needs, and the fact that — unlike Partson Jaure he showed his loyalty to them on his return home than join a rival — should work in his favour.

The Footballers Union of Zimbabwe, Desmond Maringwa and Thomas Sweswe, also need to come in and play their part. ZIFA, too, should play their part because, for goodness sake, this guy once captained the Warriors in a World Cup match and the PSL also need to play their part because, when he was drawing all those crowds to the DeMbare matches a few years ago, he was contributing to the league’s bank account.

Robert Marawa played a leading role in the rehabilitation of David Mkandawire in South Africa and we need to help Denver, make him see someone like Nicholas Munyonga or Edward Chagonda, two leading sports medicine experts who can help him find the right people to help him.

This guy is 24 years, will be 25 on December 21, and turning our back on him right now will be a great betrayal, but he should take responsibility and time is not standing still.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

• Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58
• Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

HIS last dance with the domestic Premiership was covered in a blaze of glory, celebrating the last of the three domestic league titles he won as part of a special group of footballers whose immortality would be sealed — without him in their ranks — just months after his departure. Three league championships in four years and coming within just 180 minutes of becoming champions of Africa, these players can brag about being the greatest Glamour Boys ever without many people accusing them of having probably lost their senses.

Of course, the All-Star Team of ’76, which started an unprecedented domestic dominance in which Dynamos won seven championships in nine years — including four on the trot from the turn of the ‘80s — will always argue otherwise.

They will probably also argue they would have conquered Africa in ’76, if they had taken part in the old CAF Cup of Club Champions and not been frozen out of the tournament by the politics of the day and their 4-1 hammering of Orlando Pirates at Rufaro to be crowned champions of Southern Africa provides more evidence that they were from a different era.

And, they will also say, they had George Shaya.

Kaitano Tembo was just a six-year-old boy in his hometown of Kadoma, back then, still not old enough to be allowed to enrol for his Grade One studies back in the day when one needed to be, at least, seven-years-old — or with the ability to wrap your hand over your head to touch your ear on the other side — to be accepted into primary school.

He was wasn’t there, too, more than two decades later when his teammates finally came of age on the continent, with their appearance in that Champions League final in 1998, having departed months earlier to begin a South African adventure whose chapters are still being written to this day.

Now, exactly 20 years after winning his last domestic league title in 1997, he stands on the threshold of writing a special chapter to his story, by adding the CAF Confederation Cup winners’ medal to the impressive collection which football has given him.

Along the way, of course, there has been some disappointment and tragedy — none bigger than that car crash at the turn of the millennium, on his way back to, which took the life of his lovely wife and left him to deal with the scars — both physical and emotional — of that life-changing moment.

That he was coming from another bereavement, the burial of his mother which had made him drive his family home on that occasion, only amplified the pain for a man who, within a short space of time, had lost the two female pillars he had come to rely upon in his life.

“My wife meant a lot to me, she really supported me during difficult times,” he told BBC Sport. “It made me a stronger person as I had to look after our daughter and as football is my career, I couldn’t give it up.”

His little daughter survived that horror crash, providing him with the inspiration to continue fighting for her to at least get a decent life and after a four-month absence nursing a broken arm and a host of psychological scars inflicted by that tragedy, Kaitano — a tough centreback they had nicknamed the new Shadreck Ngwenya — was back in the trenches.

As if he had not been shaken to the core, by the challenges of life, as if he had not been dealt with a bitter blow by cruel fate and where lesser souls would have been destroyed for good by these cocktail of tragedies, never to find the focus to play as well as they used, Kaitano used this as a springboard to plunge into another world and like a navy seal, refused to buckle under the punishing weight of these challenges.

Instead of cursing fate and spending the rest of his life asking the Lord why this had happened to him, he celebrated the second chance he had been given and rather than moan and mourn endlessly, he decided to fight for the betterment of his life and the lives of those who looked up to him to provide a helping hand, especially his daughter.

And fought he did, with both the raw passion and qualities of a thoroughbred fighter and by the time he became part of the a special group of footballers who helped his country end 23 years of pain inflicted by repeated failure to qualify for the Nations Cup finals, as Peter Ndlovu’s right-hand man as the vice captain of that team, Kaitano had defied the odds in a way only a hybrid athlete like him could.

IT’S A MEASURE OF HIS GREATNESS EVEN MEMORY SINGLED HIM OUT FOR SPECIAL MENTION

Memory Mucherahowa, one of the greatest, if not the finest, Dynamos captain of all-time, recently put together his life story, dominated by his time at the Glamour Boys, into a very interesting autobiography entitled “Soul Of Seven Million Dreams.”

Gwenzi, as Memory was called by his teammates and fans, was the leader of that DeMbare side of the mid-to-late ‘90s in which Kaitano was one of the key players and it’s a measure of Ngwenya’s value to that side he was one of the special players singled out by the captain in his book.

“What a brilliant defender Kaitano Tembo was. With him in the heart of defence, we were assured of steely cover at the back,’’ Mucherahowa writes in his book.

“HE WAS ALSO A LEADER WHOM WE LOOKED UP TO AS HE CAPTAINED SOME GAMES BEFORE I WAS APPOINTED THE TEAM’S CAPTAIN IN 1994.

“One thing I liked about Tembo was his maturity. He was a mature guy.”

Maybe, on reflection, Memory will also realise he forgot to mention that Kaitano has always been a bastion of loyalty and that he had played all his domestic top-flight football for just one club, his beloved DeMbare, proves just that.

He also had this pedigree as a man who never wilted on the big occasion, but used it to bring out the best out of himself, usually displayed by the way he seemingly always reserved his finest performances, including even scoring a goal, in matches against their biggest city rivals CAPS United.

He was on target in that explosive Harare Derby in 1996, the defining game in that season’s race for the league championship, where a Dynamos win would have changed everything, but a late equaliser by Mphumelelo Dzowa from a free-kick meant that honours were spoiled and on the basis of performance throughout the season and player quality man-for-man, the best team that year — CAPS United — rightly won the championship.

But, being the gritty fighters that they were, those Glamour Boys quickly fought back and retrieved the championship from the biggest rivals the following season as Kaitano and his teammates returned to familiar surroundings as the champions of domestic football.

It’s his value for loyalty that has seen him remain an employee of South African side SuperSport United since arriving at that club in 1999 after a short stint from the defunct Seven Stars who had plucked him away from here for his adventure in Mzansi.

God willing, in about 14 months’ time, Ngwenya will be celebrating 20 years of uninterrupted service for SuperSport United whose blue-and-white colours have probably provided the comfort and a reminder of the Glamour Boys he left back home.

What Memory also didn’t mention is that there fewer nicer guys like Kaitano, both in this game and in this life, and while his physical built — the dark features and muscular frame gives a picture of a welterweight boxing beast — it hides the soul of a dove, a good man who will never injure even a church mouse and who loves his fellow human beings with all the love one can expect from a man.

Never one to brag about how God has blessed him to transform himself from a poor boy from Rimuka in Kadoma into a man now living his dream and with enough financial resources to get just about everything he wants — thanks to a combination of his long service to the game in South Africa and a good brain that helped him understand the value of investment in things that matter — Kaitano finds joy and comfort in living a very private life.

You will never see him posting the picture of the mansion he has built on his Facebook page or the picture of the houses he has bought and built on his Twitter pages and, on the occasion he comes on social media, it is to either wish his Warriors good luck or to celebrate the success of his beloved SuperSport United.

You will never see him post pictures of posh cars he has acquired or driven in his adventure in South Africa on social media or the companies he now runs where he employs a sizeable number of his countrymen and women because to him, that is tantamount to showing off — a culture of bragging that won’t add value to his life.

And where many in his position would have sulked, after being overlooked repeatedly for the job of head coach at SuperSport United despite showing, now and again, he has the qualities to handle that responsibility, he has just embraced his fate and continued to do what he knows best — simply work for the good of his employers in whatever role they give him.

He could have complained he was being overlooked, simply because of the colour of his skin — which is probably only lighter in its shade of darkness than that of Young Warriors manager Patrick Mutesva and just a rung below someone like Mafero Mafero social club’s Douglas Chigwida and mine, something we collectively derive a lot of pride in as African boys — at a club that has a history of hiring white head coaches, and in a country still reeling from the horror of apartheid, there are many who would have bought his story.

A COACHING GENIUS IN THE MAKING WHO HAS BEEN LEARNING FROM THE VERY BEST

Instead, Kaitano Tembo has simply kept a cool head, just content to work as ordered and never to aim too high, and too fast, ending up destroying a reputation he has been working hard to build since he plunged into coaching after a recurrent knee injury finally drew the curtain on his playing career.

Even when the SuperSport United bosses hired some questionable coaches like Calvin Johnson where giving the job to Kaitano would have been a better decision, the Zimbabwean didn’t cry foul and continued to give his all in whatever capacity the club wanted.

Rather than waste his time on things he can’t control, he chose to take full advantage of the extended apprenticeship his bosses have given him, to learn as much as he can from the various coaches who have been brought to head the technical department in all these years.

Pitso Mosimane spent seven seasons at the club before leaving to become the Bafana Bafana coach and an African champion with Mamelodi Sundowns, Gavin Hunt won three straight league titles at the club before leaving to become a champion at Bidvest Wits, Stuart Baxter also came and left to become the Bafana Bafana coach while now Kaitano is under Eric Tinkler.

And Tinkler believes there is something special about Kaitano.

“I think he has a great future ahead of him as a coach‚ he has a good head on his shoulders‚ he understands the game very well and he did extremely well with the team against TP Mazembe and Horoya AC when Stuart Baxter was not here‚” Tinkler said of Tembo

“I definitely see a bright future for him in the game and I am looking forward to working with him . . .”

There are some who will see Kaitano as someone who lacks ambition and those who accuse him of being a coward just enjoying the comforts of being part of the backroom staff where his coaching skills will never be tested against the very best and who doesn’t want to take the responsibility that comes with being the main man.

They could have a point because, at 47, Kaitano Tembo has already come of age in a career that is now being dominated, more and more, by the young coaches as the era of the old dinosaurs who used to rule the roost comes to an end.

After all, Pep Guardiola is a year younger than Kaitano and has been on the frontline as the head coach of bigger teams for years now, winning three La Liga titles with Barcelona, two Copa del Rey titles, three Super Cups, two Champions League titles, two UEFA Super Cups and two FIFA Club World Cups with the Catalan giants.

He has also won three German Bundesliga titles with Bayern Munich, a German Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup and is now taking charge of a Manchester City revolution that could possibly make the club the best in Europe and the world soon which, coming from someone like me as a Manchester United fan, carries its weight in gold.

Steve Komphela is just three years older than Kaitano, but he has taken the challenge of coaching South Africa’s biggest football club while Ian Gorowa, who is a year younger than Kaitano, has already taken charge of Mamelodi Sundowns — a far bigger club than SuperSport United — and the Warriors.

But those who support Kaitano, who include me, see a patient vulture who knows exactly what he is doing and, given his close brush with death in that tragic accident at the turn of the millennium, views every new day as a blessing and isn’t in a rush to destroy everything he has built in the second chance the Lord gave him that night when his car crashed.

Where we view him as someone born in 1970, he probably sees himself as born again in 2000 and has only been in the trenches of his new life in the past 17 years and still has a lot of time on his side to eventually stand on his own as a coach one day.

Those who doubt he can really succeed as the main man, away from the shadows of being an assistant, just need to look at how he inspired SuperSport United — after being given caretaker charge of the team — in that 2-2 draw against TP Mazembe in Lubumbashi in the CAF Confederation Cup this year.

Any coach who can get a draw in Lubumbashi against Mazembe in either the CAF Champions League or Confederation Cup deserves respect because, as many will testify, it’s a venue that has turned into a slaughter chamber for various visiting coaches.

Now, Kaitano Tembo stands on the threshold of helping SuperSport United win the Confederation Cup — should they beat Mazembe in the final — but whatever the result in that showdown, there is no doubt that what we are seeing, or probably not choosing to see, is the making of a coaching genius who could one day even take charge of the Warriors and become a success story.

If that happens, it couldn’t happen to a nicer chap.

Some people are born great, like the immortal Peter Ndlovu, some have greatness thrust upon them while some — like Kaitano Tembo — have to achieve greatness.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58. Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.30pm.

THERE HAVE BEEN SOME GOOD TIMES AND SOME BAD TIMES, BUT THAT’S THE WAY IT IS
WHETHER by design, or by default, it had to be the year this Brazilian shanty town on the shores of the Atlantic, welcomed the birth of a boy who, with the passage of time, would become the world’s most expensive football player. When Neymar da Silva Santos Junior was born in the poorest neighbourhood of Magida Cruzes, a slum in Sao Paulo, he was introduced into a world of grinding poverty so much that his father says their part of town was where this community ‘‘threw their garbage.’’

Life was so tough and just to try and make ends meet, Neymar’s father had to do three jobs a day but that wasn’t even enough and the entire family was driven to find refugee in his grand parents’ house where they were all squeezed into one room.

But from such humble settings, a community which time had seemingly forgotten and left behind to feed on crumbs, emerged a footballer with immense talent he would – 25 years after his birth – shake the world with his outrageous record-breaking $263 million transfer from Barcelona to French side PSG where now gets $34 million a year after taxes.

A boy who went to one of the worst schools in Brazil, if not in the entire world, was this year bought for a transfer fee enough to pay the tuition fees for 1 004 students to complete their four-year degree programmes at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the best universities in the world, where students pay around $65,000 a year in tuition fees and living costs.

Or the tuition, room and boarding fees of 4 157 students at Harvard or educate 8.4 million kids in India for a whole year.

A boy who grew up in a shanty town, and whose family was even forced to squeeze into one room when they moved to his grandparents’ house, was now signed for an outrageous fee that could buy 137 properties London’s most expensive area of Kensington.

Ironically, a person who somehow escaped death as a four-month toddler when he was thrown out of a run-down car his family was travelling in had now been signed for a world-record fee enough to buy a Boeing Dreamliner passenger plane.

Or pay the costs of the US military, who have a proposed 2018 budget of $639.1bn, for about three hours, cover about 0.013 percent of the money lost every year to corruption, buy a puppy for every resident of Columbus, Ohio, in the United States and pay off most of the national debt of Seychelles.

The transfer fee could even run a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey, with about 14 000 inhabitants, for 11 years.

Try to convince me that God isn’t great and I will tell you that you will be fighting a losing battle, from the very start, because these are some of the miracles, happening in our time which, for one reason or another because of our obsession with denial, we choose to rather ignore.

It also had to be the year Sadio Mane was born, in the humble settings of Sedhiou, a small remote town in the south-western part of Senegal with a population of about 24 200 people, situated on the shores of the Casamance River, where poverty stalked him so much he played football in torn shorts.

At 15, he convinced himself to make the 300km trip to Dakar, where he didn’t have any relative and was taken in by a family he didn’t know, to try his luck in football – the beginning of a journey that would eventually see him becoming Africa’s most expensive footballer when Liverpool signed him.

It also had to be the year Phillipe Coutinho, Mohamed Salah, Stephan El Shaarawy, David Alaba and Mario Gotze, who scored the goal that won Germany the World Cup at the Maracana in Brazil three years ago, were also born.

It had to be the year the Warriors revived their romance with their fans, after about half-a-dozen years in which their appeal had sunk to rock bottom and, like the Bafana Bafana of today, didn’t provoke interest among their supporters for them to come and watch the team represent their nation.

On August 16, 1992, the foundation of the Dream Team and its love affair with the people of this country was built when the Warriors – inspired by the brilliance of a Peter Ndlovu still to cut his romance with teenage hood – crushed Bafana Bafana 4-1 at the National Sports Stadium in an AFCON qualifier before 51 000 fans.

King Peter, slaloming past the dazzled Bafana Bafana defence – Steve Khompela and company – his artistry casting a sell over them as he performed his magical dance of absolute brilliance, the kind of which only the best of the ballerina dancers are capable of, and then having the presence of mind to finish it off with a beauty of a goal to send the stadium into a frenzy.

It’s on iconic moments like these that legends are made and on that fine summer August afternoon in 1992, exactly 25 years ago, a teenage footballer blessed with an incredible talent that had taken him out of Makokoba and into Coventry and who, at the ages of 17 and 18, had been crowned the best player in the domestic Premiership, had now completed his graduation into a Warriors superstar.

Somehow, whether by design or default, this had to happen in 1992.

And that Dream Team, which routinely used to lure 60 000 fans to its home matches at the National Sports Stadium, took no prisoners as it marched in the jungles of African football, saying a number of continental heavyweights like the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon and the Pharaohs of Egypt – along the way – and coming within just 90 minutes of reaching the 1994 World Cup finals.

A collection of players who went for 10 matches, in both the World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers, without losing a game for their country, winning six times and drawing four, during a purple patch in which their bond with their fans grew with each passing game and their reputation around the continent, as real and fierce Warriors, was established.

Somehow, whether by design or default, this all had to start in 1992.

THE ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP REVOLUTION AND HOW IT CHANGED THE WORLD

Just three days after his National Sports Stadium masterclass, King Peter plunged into the history books of world football when he became the first African footballer to play in the revamped English Premiership in the first weeks of a revolution that would transform this league from a top-flight entity into the multi-billion dollar industry that it has become today.

Ravaged by falling attendance figures, blighted by chaos and hooliganism and stalked by tragedy on the stands and a sickening drinking culture among its stars, and having just emerged from a five-year ban from European football because of the wayward behaviour of its hooligans, the English top-flight was a league in turmoil.

Even the wages of its professional footballers were not something to write home about because in 1982 – by the time the likes of Bruce Grobbelaar and company were making their bow – the average weekly pay for the players in the English top-flight league was just £750 per week.

By 1991, when King Peter joined Coventry City, the average weekly pay for the footballers in English top-flight league had risen to about £1 600.

However, this all changed with the arrival of the Premiership revolution as tens of millions started flowing into the league and today a club like Manchester United can even afford to pay Paul Pogba a staggering £290 000 a week while the league has transformed itself into the world’s most-watched football league viewed in over 212 territories, broadcast to over 643 million homes and watched by over 4.7 billion people.

Whether by design, or default, the revolution that now sees the English Premiership paying the world’s best players millions of dollars per week had to start in 1992.

And it has also changed the world of football in that it applied a lot of pressure on the other major leagues to also start paying their stars such huge sums of money and the best footballers around the globe are now some of the best paid athletes in the world.

Talk about football today and if that conversation doesn’t include Barcelona – whether you are discussing the purity of this game on the field, the financial muscle of the game’s heavyweight clubs, success, global support or the influence clubs have had in the revolution of this game – it would not be complete.

Barca, the team whose tiki-taka provided a beauty to this game and influenced a generation of some of the finest coaches, led by Pep Guardiola, who are leading the quest for perfection in this game, has become a very fashionable heavyweight club in the world.

But it’s hard to imagine, for the later day recruits to the Barca Brigade, that this club did not win the European Cup, which today is known as the UEFA Champions League, until they triumphed at Wembley in 1992 after beating Italian side Sampdoria 1-0 in the final.

By then, Barca had been around for 93 years and had all along lived in the shadows of their major Spanish rivals Real Madrid, who had perfected the art of winning titles in Europe, and not even the acquisition of such players like the great Diego Maradona, could inspire the Catalan giants to European success.

‘‘There was a time when Barcelona fans did not expect success. To wallow in pessimism was the accepted norm. Trophies? Titles? They were for others, usually the reserve of the grandiose club of the capital, Real Madrid,’’ CNN, in their feature article dubbed – The Game That Changed Football – argued on March 19, this year.

‘‘The European Cup was as elusive as the unicorn: talked about, looked at with wonder, pictured with others but never seen in this Catalonian city by the Mediterranean sea.

‘‘A club like Barcelona, the nihilistic fans would say, would never reach the zenith of European club football. There was no bombast, no peacocking, just fatalism.

‘‘The iron-handed years of General Francisco Franco, whose dictatorial regime had crushed Catalonia’s earlier limited autonomy, had ruined the spirit.

‘‘Barcelona had been able to sign football greats such as Johan Cruyff and Diego Maradona, but two European Cup finals – in 1961 and 1986 – had ended in defeat and between 1961 and 1990, the club won just two league titles in Spain’s top flight, finishing runners up 13 times.

‘‘But that all changed on May 20, 1992.

‘‘That was the day Barcelona won its first European Cup. That was the day the club, its city, and football was transformed.’’

Of course, 1992 was also the year FIFA decided, after the negative football displayed at Euro 1992, that back passes to the goalkeeper – from that year onwards – would be outlawed to try and stop teams from just keeping the ball in their area in a game that is at its very best when its attacking instincts are in full display.

The final back pass in English football that year, of course, had a Zimbabwean flavour after Steve Nicol passed the ball back to his goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar in the 1992 FA Cup final in the final moments of that game with the Jungleman holding onto the ball on his chest, as if to send a message about how the game would soon all this, now that the practice was being outlawed.

EVEN HERE IN ZIMBABWEAN FOOTBALL, 1992 BROUGHT A WIND OF CHANGE

Zimbabwe ensured it would not be left behind by the winds of change that were blowing across world football in 1992 and Chris Sibanda, Morrison Sifelani, Victor Zvobgo and Wieslaw Grabowski came together to moot the idea of forming the Premiership and weaning the top-flight clubs from the direct control of ZIFA.

The Association had run the old Super League for a long time but despite the threats of being kicked out of a game by a ZIFA leadership that did not want to lose control over the country’s biggest clubs, Sibanda and his crew refused to be intimidated and dug into the trenches as they laid down the foundation for the Premiership as we know it today.

That was around the time, and year, I arrived on the Sports Desk of this newspaper as its latest fresh-faced recruit from the Journalism School of the Harare Polytechnic back in the days when this institution attracted students from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and across Southern Africa.

Back in the days when homesickness meant every other weekend I would board the bus at Mbare Musika for a trip back to Chakari and I would pay $4.10 cents on the Tauya Coach Services bus for the trip from Harare to Chegutu and then another 60 cents on the Rutendo bus for the last leg of the trip back home.

When, on every trip back home, I would ensure I had $20 – $10 for my eldest sister and another $10 for the sister who comes just before me – and just three days after my return to the capital, they would both write me letters to thank me for being such a generous brother and wish me all the best in my new career.

Back in the days when the lure of watching my hometown club Falcon Gold, even though they were just a Division Two side, I would ensure I followed them, on the days they were playing their away games on Saturday, which is an off-day at The Herald, to support them.

And, given the opposition didn’t know me back then as they know me now, I would join the band of our team’s supporters, sing with them, swear at the referees with them if I felt they were giving us a raw deal, celebrate with them when we scored or won and then ride on their team bus, if it passed through Harare, where I would drop off to go home.

I remember how reaching the capital, for the imminent divorce from my hometown crew, used to pain my heart endlessly and, at times, as I dropped off the bus and waved goodbye to the gang, tears would drop down my cheeks.

That was in 1992 and I will be lying to you if I tell you that, back then, I expected to still be in this city today – 25 years down the line – and not having fled back to home sweet home, let alone still working for this very same newspaper and on the same Sports Desk, I would be lying.

But here I am, the guy who arrived on this Sports Desk in 1992 straight from my humble hometown of Chakari, working for the same employer, on the same desk, for half-a-century, something my colleagues celebrated on Wednesday when my association with this newspaper clocked exactly 25 years.

Ten years ago, the City Press newspaper of South Africa offered me this same job, and we agreed terms, but – at the very last-minute – I decided to stick around, to be closer to my extended family in Chakari, something telling me this newspaper was my home.

There have been some good times, some bad times, some great times and some horrible times, but I have no regrets because I have put my fate in the Hand of the Lord.

I have made mistakes, like every human being, I have created friends and enemies alike, which is normal in this adventure, but that is the way life and life will always be.

Somehow, whether by design or default, my association with this newspaper had to come in the year world football, and domestic football, changed forever.

Here’s, with God’s grace, to another 25 years.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo! 

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

WHERE does one really start after the intoxication of the sights and roaring sounds of that unforgettable Sunday summer afternoon when domestic football paraded the full spectrum of its enduring beauty — the smiles in the packed bays and the songs that provided a fitting soundtrack to this spectacular carnival? Maybe, I should start with the beautiful and rare sight of legendary footballers in the iconic blue-and-garnet colours, known as the Blaugrana in Catalan which have been the primary identity of the Barcelona jersey for more than a century, showcasing their skills on our turf at the National Sports Stadium.

Or watching Patrick Kluivert who, just two months short of his 19th birthday, scored the priceless goal that powered Ajax Amsterdam to victory in their ’95 UEFA Champions League final battle against Italian powerhouse AC Milan in Vienna, Austria, showing that at 41, he has lost none of his predatory instincts as he twice converted with headers for the Barcelona Legends.

The second headed goal, when he timed his run and leap to perfection, to direct an unstoppable bullet header into the roof of the nets, a replica of the goal he scored for the Dutch late in their ’98 World Cup semi-final showdown against Brazil, which took the game into extra-time and then penalties which the Samba Boys won.

Now, just months before the 20th anniversary of his World Cup goal that almost took the Netherlands into the ’98 World Cup final, the same package was being delivered by this Dutchman, who still has the same baby-face that charmed the globe when he proved the hero of his Ajax Amsterdam side in the ’95 UEFA Champions League final, at the National Sports Stadium.

Or, maybe, I should start with the joy of just seeing World Cup winner Rivaldo, one of the greatest players of his generation, playing football in the stadium we call our home or the ageless Edgar Davids showing us that, even at 44, he remains as nimble-footed, visionary in his range of passes and athletic as he used to be back in the days when he starred for Juventus, Inter Milan, Spurs and Barcelona.

Maybe, the explosive joy of just seeing Peter Ndlovu, the greatest Warrior of all-time, with that armband on his left hand and all the memories that it brings — the slalom goal against Bafana Bafana, the great battles in which he led from the front and the leadership he provided for the Warriors to finally reach the Promised Land of playing at the Nations Cup finals and the goals he scored for you and me, at that big stage.

And there he was, my captain, your captain, whose appeal was national, never regional, who commanded respect all over the country, to whom we always turned to in times of desperation to produce something magical to lift us from the gloom of despair and who, more often than not, in a century of appearances for his beloved nation, always delivered, usually with a touch of style.

As true a Warrior as they will ever come, the one whose distinguished service provides a benchmark for greatness in our national colours, the one whose skills touched the heavens, whose brilliance instilled fear in the opposition and shattered their walls of resistance and the one whose greatness finally powered us to a dance with the aristocrats of football on the continent.

The one anointed by this grand old newspaper, which is still going strong at the grand old age of 126 years, as the King of our football, we derive a lot of pride in referring him to as King Peter, without any need to apologise to anyone.

Because — in today’s toxic world where social media has bundled us into fragmented tribes who appear to be fighting each other using the good name of football — he remains the shining example of a past when his mere presence provided us with that powerful uniting tool for our nation.

And, on Sunday, we gathered as one united family, as it was back in the days of the Dream Team and that Madinda Ndlovu was the most popular player on the field in the 20 minutes he entertained us with his deft touches told a big story of the beauty of that special occasion where our proud identity as Zimbabweans overwhelmed the prophets of doom who want to divide us on the lines of our tribal links.

The weather forecast had not been good, the experts who have knowledge in telling us how tomorrow will possibly look like, had predicted a miserable rainy day on Sunday, but our good Lord blessed us with a beautiful summer day fitting for such a grand occasion when the homecoming of many of our football heroes turned into a beautiful carnival.

It was like a replay of that journey which David Livingstone took in early November 1855, travelling down the mighty Zambezi River — itself a massive feature of who we are as a people — to see for himself the area the locals called the “smoke that thunders.”

As the travelling party approached the magical spot, which is one of the world’s seven natural wonders, in their canoes, they could spray of water and hear the thunderous roar of these majestic falls and, less than half-an-hour later, Livingstone was blessed with the miracle of being the first white man to ever cast his eyes on this spectacle.

“The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of colour and form,’’ Livingstone wrote.

“NO ONE CAN IMAGINE THE BEAUTY OF THE VIEW FROM ANYTHING WITNESSED IN ENGLAND. IT HAD NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE BY EUROPEAN EYES, BUT SCENES SO LOVELY MUST HAVE BEEN GAZED UPON BY ANGELS IN THEIR FLIGHT.’’

OUR MZANSI CREW AND

A GENIUS CALLED GIDIZA

Even with the massive commitment of a CAF Confederation Cup final battle against TP Mazembe this weekend, Kaitano Tembo, the SuperSport United assistant coach, chose to fly home to be part of the carnival for the sake of the fans and his country which had come calling for his services.

In an era where Willard Katsande even has the temerity to go on social media and somehow use the word “we” in rallying for Bafana Bafana in their campaign for the World Cup which was always doomed from the very start because of a crippling lack of quality in their ranks and an investment in the services of a coach of limited capacity, Tembo’s arrival home for the exhibition match — just days before the big CAF Confederation Cup final showdown — was a great advertisement of patriotism.

Of course, some will say there was the lure of the $2 000 appearance fee, but for someone like Kaitano — who has not only earned a substantial fortune as a loyal servant for SuperSport United, but has used a lot of it wisely in investments across the country — that money is small change.

Benjani Mwaruwari was struggling with a hamstring strain in the weeks preceding Sunday’s match and when he went to seek advice from his South African doctor if he could play just the first half, the answer he received was a firm “NO.”

But, consumed by fear that he could be seen as having betrayed his teammates, nation and fans, Benjani chose to go against the advice of his doctor and played in the match against the Barca Legends for the sake of being part of the crew that found value in representing their country again.

Speaking to him after the match, Benjani said the match was just, but a part of a huge get-together where, for the first time in this country’s history, the former football stars, especially those based outside the country, came together to share ideas on what they could do for the betterment of the game in this country.

He said it was a landmark event with frank ideas being shared which will be forwarded to those who are running football here and he expects to see some changes, some improvements and a growing bond between these stars and the administrators.

Until this reunion, so much had been said about the bad blood that exists between Benjani and Peter, which is typical of us as Zimbabweans in that these are the stories that really fuel our conversations, but the camaraderie between the two former captains was there for everyone to see and somehow they chose to be close to each other in the training drills.

And when the match exploded into life, every time Peter had the ball, he seemed to be looking for Benjani and vice-versa, as if to prove wrong those prophets of doom who had been preaching that they rarely talk to each other and hate each other with a passion.

William Mugeyi, another former Warriors skipper, also heeded the call to come home for the match and the Golden Fox, wide on that left channel, brought back memories of that time, at the turn of the millennium, when our football’s fortunes turned for the better as he laid the foundation by leading his charges to that COSAFA Cup triumph with Benjani scoring one of the goals.

Those Warriors humiliated Lesotho 3-0 in their backyard in Maseru in the first leg of the 2000 COSAFA Cup final on August 13, 2000, with the Golden Fox scoring straight from a corner-kick and Luke Petros also on target to add to an own goal by the hosts.

The return leg at Barbourfields, two weeks later, provided a similar script, a 3-0 win for the Warriors and a 6-0 aggregate victory with Petros, Robson Chisango and Benjani on target in the City of Kings.

That their reunion last Sunday came just days after the latest crop of Warriors, minus Musona, Billiat, Costa, Mushekwi etc, crashed to a surprise 0-1 defeat at the hands of the same Lesotho side in a friendly international, appears to show the gulf in class that exists between those yesteryear stars and those who are representing us today.

For the avoidance of doubt, take time to again watch Ronald “Gidiza” Sibanda’s show last Sunday — the close control, the incredible vision, the pin-point passing with accuracy that ball appeared to be guided by a laser gadget, the playmaking brilliance that we have been crying for in our Warriors today so that Khama and Musona can feed off the service to provide the killer punch.

It’s a pity we don’t make them this good anymore when it comes to ball-playing midfielders whose artistry makes the ball work for them and who, in one movement and pass — including the assists from range — can change the match.

“The whole package was extremely beautiful, the range of passes, the close ball control, the grace in the movement, the vision was all impressive,” I would have reported, back in the days when I covered domestic football matches, plucking a leaf from David Livingstone’s diary.

“NO ONE CAN IMAGINE THE BEAUTY OF THE VIEW FROM ANYTHING WITNESSED IN THE ENGLISH PREMIERSHIP. IT HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE BY THE EUROPEAN AND SOUTH AMERICAN EYES, BUT SCENES SO LOVELY MUST HAVE BEEN GAZED UPON BY ANGELS IN THEIR FLIGHT.”

THE PROPHET AND MY GREATEST MOMENT OF THE MATCH

You have to give the Zimbabweans credit for their sense of humour — all the images they have been creating of Prophet Walter Magaya achipinda pamamonya ipapo after his cameo appearance for the Warriors Legends on Sunday sharply divided opinion among the fans.

Those against his appearance questioned why he was allowed to play in the match, arguing that he was not a former member of the Warriors Brigade, yet forgetting that, in such matches, ZIFA have the freedom to choose a guest or guests, to play in the match.

Maybe, on reflection, the blame should be put on the local media for failing to provide adequate explanation to the fans about such exhibition matches and telling them that it is within the rights of the organisers to invite their guest, or guests, to play in the games.

Why Magaya, some could still ask?

Because he is a ZIFA benefactor, who hosted both the Warriors Legends and the Barca Legends at his complex ahead and after the match, and once the Association opened a window for him to be their guest, first as the liaison officer of the team and then as a player, he accepted both duties.

There is nothing wrong with that, just like there was nothing wrong with a 14-year-old Neymar playing for the Brazilian Legends in a charity match organised by Romario and Robinho in 2006 when the teenager had never played for the Brazilian national teams.

“Neymar Jr. was seen doing step-overs, outfoxing opponents and linking up with midfielders before joining the attack. One such foray forward saw him send in an inch-perfect cross that saw the goalkeeper block the shot on goal,’’ reports sportskeeda.

“But he combined with Romario like they had a telepathic understanding. Receiving the ball in the box on a counter-attack, the Brazilian wonder kid first faked a move to the right to fool both the defender and goalkeeper. With quick feet, he shifted the ball to his left to leave the opponents flat-footed and then proceeded to roll the ball into an empty net.’’

Just like there was nothing wrong in David Beckham substituting himself, for his son Brooklyn, to play for the British and Irish Legends at Old Trafford and just like there was nothing wrong in the Manchester United Legends extending an invitation to Jamaican spring king Usain Bolt to play for them against the Barca Legends.

There are some people who don’t like Magaya with a passion and they have their rights to do so, but one thing he can never be faulted is his boundless love for our football, for the Warriors and the Mighty Warriors and to help make a change to the game.

For that, he will always have my enduring support and whether that creates enemies and critics for me is irrelevant because that is the way the world is and who am I, a mere Manchester United-supporting boy from Chakari, to try and have the whole world agreeing with me when this very same world didn’t universally embrace my Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew 11 verse 2-7 tells us that, “when John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask Him, ‘Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?’ Jesus replied, ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

But for me, the finest moment from Sunday’s carnival wasn’t seeing King Peter making those runs again, Gidiza spraying those passes, two midfield kingpins — Desmond Maringwa and Johannes Ngodzo — whose skills we lost before their prime or Prophet Magaya justifying his inclusion with one of the best individual performances by the players on our side.

Instead, it was the sight of David Mandigora, on crutches after his leg was amputated, barking instructions from the touchline and, for me, given what Yogi has gone through in the past few weeks, that was simply priceless, just for him to get the feeling that we have not forgotten him during these trying times.

Even as I write this, I’m struggling to contain my tears from flowing, and thank you Zimbabwe for coming in your thousands and let the critics, like barking dogs which seldom bite, continue with their tainted gospel.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

Paul was the one they looked up to, when it came to telling their story, telling the story of their community, telling the story of fate, cruel as it always is, had to somehow rule that Mundandi, whose pen and camera did more in bringing the sights and sounds of football in Zvishavane, had to die exactly two weeks before one of the clubs from his adopted hometown celebrated its coming of age by being crowned champions of Zimbabwe

SHARUKO ON SATURDAY
THE only big disappointment was that when it finally happened, with more than half-a-century of history melting away in the heat of a platinum furnace, someone very, very important wasn’t there to see all this drama unfold at Ascot exactly a week to this day.

For that person to capture images from the touchlines he roamed with both aggression and conviction, looking for a perfect spot to get an angle the right photographs he wanted, on an historic afternoon for domestic football and his adopted home province of the Midlands.

For him to try and squeeze an interview, after the game, with the victorious invading platinum brigade — a chat with the triumphant author of that amazing tale or one or more of his successful troops who had come to Ascot, fought this iconic battle and won it with something to spare in their tank.

Or for him to take a fine collection of those delirious FC Platinum fans in dreamland, who had painted Gweru into a sea of green-and-white colours, in what appeared to be a replay of the last day of last season when another invading army with a similar identity came there, conquered and were crowned champions.

And for him to capture some vintage images of that amazing group of DeMbare fans, which refused to cut off the music even when it became clear the mission had been doomed — like that band on the Titanic which kept playing while the Titanic was sinking below them — kept singing in those Ascot stands in a celebration of a season, which didn’t promise much at the beginning, but almost delivered gold at the end.

Even amid the madness which saw the football writers being quarantined from conducting post-match interviews by some overzealous PSL officials seemingly plucked from hell who treated them like a bunch of unwanted guests at this party, you would bet your last dollar he would have somehow found a way to smuggle an opportunity to steal an interview or two with the partying visitors.

After all, those who were partying on that Ascot field that memorable Saturday afternoon — like someone from New York’s Bronx or from Compton in California relating to the explosion of hip-hop music in the ‘70s — were the “Boys From The Hood.”

Like reporters from The Source magazine asking for an interview with the Notorious B.I.G in New York in the mid ‘90s or the deejays from Radio Los Santos asking for a chat with members of Niggerz Wit Attitudes, he was always guaranteed he would be granted his wishes by the FC Platinum crew.

But even an N.W.A reunion of Dr Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella today — just like that FC Platinum victory party at Ascot on Saturday — will have a distinct ring of a big missing link without Eazy E who passed away on March 25, 1995.

Pity, no one at Ascot that Saturday, amid the wild FC Platinum celebrations, remembered to play Simon Chimbetu’s smash-hit song, “Pane Asipo” for those who were partying to take a moment to reflect on the absence of this fellow who was missing from the big occasion, especially those words, “mavaudza amai vake here, kuti mwana wavo akashaika, akafira musango kure, igamba rehondo.”

For all the romance of last Saturday’s events at Ascot, the powerful chapter of history written on that day, the refusal by FC Platinum to be choked by the punishing weight of expectations and a past that was hostile to their cause, the onus of all this to be achieved by a coach whom some believe is domestic football’s version of the “Special One”, the absence of Paul Mundandi at that party could be felt on all sides of the pitch.

Fate, cruel fate, somehow had to ensure that Paul Mundandi — the voice of Zvishavane — had to die exactly two weeks before his adopted hometown club, FC Platinum, finally exorcised the ghost which had haunted clubs from outside Harare and Bulawayo when it came to fighting for the ultimate prize of being champions of domestic football.

That his death was as sudden as they come, taken to hospital the previous day and then being pronounced dead the following day, having shown little or no signs of illness before, really hurt, it came like a bolt from the blue, shocked everyone who received the news because Paul never looked like someone who was about to die.

His boundless energy had taken him all over the country, as he usually did, in the preceding weeks — Gibbo in the Lowveld to cover Triangle, Nyamhunga on the northern tip of the country to cover ZPC Kariba, Dulivadzimo on the southern tip of the country to cover Tsholotsho, the Colliery on the western tip of the country to cover Hwange and Sakubva on the eastern part of the country to cover the Division One teams.

But, like the Emirates passenger planes that always fly back to Dubai no matter where they would have gone, Zvishavane was the centre of his life and had become his home since he arrived there from Mhangura, as part of the immigrant community that had left behind the dying copper mine in Mashonaland West, to try and find greener pastures which the platinum fields of this Midlands mining town now represented.

John Phiri, Victor Phiri, Gerald Phiri are some of the football community who left Mhangura, as part of that human wave which left Mashonaland West for the Midlands, driven by the quest for a better life, the desire for better conditions of service and lured by their former boss Obed Dube who had moved from the dying Mhangura copper mine to Zvishavane.

And Paul was part of that group, long before FC Platinum became a force on the domestic football scene, at a time when Shabanie Mine were emerging as a powerful football force in the country, at around the time the likes of Thomas “Chauruka” Makwasha, him of that pony-tail, and Asani Juma, him of that awesome scoring ration, were propelling this team into writing some success stories, including a famous 1-0 win over Dynamos in the BP League Cup final in Harare in 2001.

SADLY, WHEN IT HAPPENED, PAUL WAS NOT THERE

Paul Mundandi was my age, even though I had been his long-serving boss and we had a lot in common — we were born in 1970, the landmark year when the world, for the first time, had the privilege of watching World Cup images being broadcast on television in colour.

We largely grew up in mining settlements, with Paul spending a lot of his time in Mhangura and Zvishavane while, of course, the first 20 years of my life were spent rooted in my hometown of Chakari where the dominant industry there was the Dalny gold mine.

He replaced me as the reporter who covered Mhangura’s league matches at the copper mine back in the days when this mining community had a powerful football team, when horses would be sent to graze in the stadium as part of some queer rituals meant to strengthen the home side.

While I was a touring reporter, back in the ‘90s, the one who was always sent to Mhangura every other weekend on assignment to cover their home matches, Paul became a resident correspondent, the one who lived within that proud community during the days when its copperfields provided a living for its people.

Paul began his journalism journey covering a team whose community believed fate had cursed it — just like the people of Cam and Motor Kadoma who supported Rio Tinto or the people of Hwange in the western coalfields who supported the local football club — never to be champions of domestic football.

In Mhangura, of course, they talked about the good old days of the ‘70s when their powerful team had the Chieza brothers providing its spine, but even though they could win a number of knockout tournaments, in the top-flight league, the giant leap towards transformation to be champions, somehow, was always a step too far, a hurdle too high.

Yes, they could celebrate having the best player in the country in Tendai Chieza, who was crowned Soccer Star of the Year in the very year Paul was born, but — for all the accolades they received on the individual front and success in the knockout tournaments — Mhangura never won the domestic championship.

By the time Paul left for Zvishavane, just before the turn of the millennium, the football club at Mhangura, just like the mine itself, had collapsed under the weight of challenges with the community not having been afforded the chance to celebrate winning the league championship.

And, not even the change in base could bring a change of fortunes for Paul and when FC Platinum self-destructed in the penultimate match of the 2011 championship race, at home of all places when an own goal by Daniel Veremu spoiled the party, Paul had every right to feel that, maybe, just maybe, this was never meant to be.

But, six years later, the long wait came to an end on Saturday when FC Platinum, a club that Paul has covered more than any other local football writer since this team landed in the domestic Premiership, finally got it right by winning the league championship at Ascot.

Sadly, when it finally happened, with more than half-a-century of pain and disappointment being washed away by a 90-minute show of both resilience, when they were put under pressure, and efficiency, when they converted the two early chances they got, it’s sad that Paul wasn’t there to witness the golden moment when history was made.

It was like the late journalist Lovemore Musharavati missing from a party where his beloved Rio Tinto, a club he covered with both authority and passion more than any other football writer in this country, were being crowned champions of this country.

And like the late Jabes Lefani missing from a party where his beloved Kadoma “Yematomati” United were celebrating their promotion into the domestic Premiership, it was clear, very clear, someone very, very important was not there at Ascot on Saturday.

I feel the pain, as I write this piece, because — just like Paul all these years — I have waited a lifetime to write a piece, just one, celebrating the arrival of my favourite hometown football club Falcon Gold, the one I have always supported with all my heart, in the domestic Premiership, something that fate has not given me a chance to do.

To write about a past in which our star goalkeeper had a queer name his parents called him Chakumanda (the one from the graves), when our star midfielder was called Mutambarika, when our best defender was called Aidan Sweet, when our rightback was called Kamukanda, when one of our best forwards was called Bhibho, when our left winger was called Aaron Fly and the leftback was Tetete Nguo, Luke Zhatanga, Didymus Damiano.

A COMMUNITY WHERE EVEN CHARLES MABIKA PLAYED SECOND FIDDLE

Charles “CNN” Mabika is the doyen of football journalism in this nation, by a country mile, but down in Zvishavane, Paul Saul Mundandi is (or was) the King.

The emperor of his little constituency, the first name that just about comes on anyone’s lips when they talk about this profession, a big part of the soul of FC Platinum, the one who told their story — the trials and tribulations — better than anyone else, the authoritative voice that told their story better than any other around this country.

The one they looked up to, when it came to telling their story, telling the story of their community, telling the story of fate, cruel as it always is, had to somehow rule that Mundandi, whose pen and camera did more in bringing the sights and sounds of football in Zvishavane, had to die exactly two weeks before one of the clubs from his adopted hometown celebrated its coming of age by being crowned champions of Zimbabwe.

The one who walked with FC Platinum from the very beginning of their dance with the domestic Premiership, from their past when they came onto the scene with the arrogance of calling themselves Kugona Kunenge Kudada to its present when they realigned themselves to the sober nickname of Pure Platinum Play.

The one who provided the voice of reason to criticise them when they were losing their way, not because he hated them, but because he wanted them to do things in the right direction so that their potential could be realised, the one whose pen helped shape their journey which culminated in that landmark triumph at Ascot on Saturday when, finally, they came of age.

There were moments when his relationship with them was not good, when some of the club leaders felt he was hostile to their cause, but that is what great journalism is all about and that is what separates this noble profession from public relations.

Sadly, Paul was missing at Ascot on Saturday as the champagne bottles were being opened to celebrate this landmark achievement by this team, something he had always dreamt of writing about — from his days in Mhangura to his adventure in Zvishavane — and something that fate, cruel fate, denied him an opportunity to do.

Paul Saul Mundandi, the one whose parents chose two religious rhyming names for him, would certainly have loved this grand occasion when, finally, after all that frustration in which he had never used the phrase “defending champions” to accompany any of the reports he did for Mhangura, Shabanie Mine and FC Platinum, he could now have the freedom to do that whenever he was going to write about Pure Platinum Play.

It’s sad that on the day that FC Platinum were celebrating their coming of age at Ascot on Saturday, Paul Mundandi’s body was lying 300km away, in the depths of Mother Earth, at Zororo Memorial Park near Chitungwiza where he was buried just weeks after domestic football went there to bury Friday Phiri.

There will never be anyone like Paul Mundandi for the people of Zvishavane because no one ever dedicated himself to working for them, in terms of telling their football story, the way this guy did and it’s sad that on the day they celebrated their finest hour, he wasn’t around to see the moment.

The guy who had told their story to the world, more than any other journalist, the guy who had narrated their challenges, the guy who had penned articles that provided a ray of hope for this community during the moments when days were dark — like that afternoon when everything collapsed before them at Mandava in 2011 — the guy whose pen had helped shape them and played in a big role in the process that culminated in the celebrations that rocked Ascot last Saturday, was sadly not there.

He wasn’t around to describe the events, the tears that flowed among some of the fans, players and coaching staff, to record the unity which this city showed in pursuit of this dream with Shabanie Mine being the first to congratulate the new champions, to celebrate with them because, beyond his job as a journalist, he was one of them, too.

Maybe, just maybe, these lyrics from this classic by Mike + The Mechanics, The Living Years, released in 1988, captures how I am feeling right now:

I wasn’t there that morning

When my friend Paul passed away

I didn’t get to tell him

All the things I had to say

I think I caught his spirit

Later this same year

I’m sure I heard his echo

In my baby’s new born tears

I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Say it loud, say it clear

You can listen as well as you hear

It’s too late when we die

To admit we don’t see eye to eye.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

Sharuko on Saturday
THE last time this blog appeared in this newspaper, only a week had passed since the inauguration of President Mnangagwa as Zimbabwe’s new leader — the culmination of landmark events in a dramatic year in which powerful winds of change swept across the domestic political and football landscape.

Just a day after the National Sports Stadium provided the majestic setting for the swearing-in ceremony of President Mnangagwa as the leader of this country, bringing to a close a 37-year-old chapter in which former president Robert Mugabe had ruled this land, domestic football also celebrated the dawn of an era.

Finally, after more than half-a-century, the pillars that had held together a Harare/Bulawayo Alliance in its ruthless domination of the local Premiership, collapsed under the weight of a sustained attack from the most powerful football club to come out of the Midlands since Gweru United.

The locals called their team Pisa Pisa, a very powerful football force which used to be the pride of the Midlands, during an era when some of the finest talented footballers to emerge from this country —Nobert Zimuto, Roseman Drago, Ashton Mhlanga, Takesure Tito, Knight Mate and Peter Mazarire — were part of this club.

And, of course, there was the quicksilver Wonder Chaka, a goal-scoring winger who scored 25 goals in 1981, 27 goals in 1982 and 24 in 1983, playing with a consistency that only his fine talent could guarantee, the brilliant Collin Semwayo, who had such a wonderful football brain they nicknamed him Computer, and the immortal Jonah Murehwa.

But not even these superstars, who in today’s football world roamed by many average footballers would have been feted like kings, could help break the powerful Harare/Bulawayo Alliance in its dominance of the domestic Premiership.

That is until Norman Mapeza came along last year and not only fittingly provided the technical genius that finally ended this Harare/Bulawayo Alliance dominance, but also carved his name into the history books as the first coach to win more than one league championship, since Independence, without riding on the back of the country’s Big Three clubs — Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United.

It took 37 years for the country’s leadership to change, the same number of years it also took the old dominant Harare/Bulawayo Alliance to fall in domestic football, with the leaders of both the new political and football order.

The last time this blog appeared on these pages, Ronaldinho was still playing football in a stellar career that had taken the Brazilian from the backwaters of a poor neighbourhood in Porto Alegre to the big time and money of the European game where he played for Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and AC Milan.

This blog marks its return today in the week the two-time FIFA World Player of the Year, Ballon d’Or and World Cup winner, one of the finest natural talents to grace this game, whose silky skills used to provide this sport with a beaming smile, announced his resignation from football.

Of course, just like the landmark political changes that happened in this country and FC Platinum’s demolition of the Harare/Bulawayo Alliance domination, the great Brazilian’s retirement came at the age of 37.

AND THIRTY SEVEN YEARS AGO, A JUNGLEMAN ARRIVED AT ANFIELD

In two months’ time, Bruce Grobbelaar — the Jungleman who emerged from among our ranks to grace the biggest stages of world club football — will mark the 37th anniversary of the day he made his breakthrough move by signing for English giants Liverpool on March 17, 1981, on a £250 000 transfer fee back in the days of football innocence before big money had polluted the world’s most beautiful game.

Grobbelaar made his debut for the five-time European champions on August 28, that same year, in an away league match against Wolverhampton Wanderers to start a romance that would see him winning 13 medals in 13 years at Liverpool, including six league championships, a European Cup and many others on the domestic front.

This week, the Jungleman returned home, for the first time in more than a decade, from his base in Canada and his return revived memories of a time when he was a key member of the Dream Team, which came within just a final-game victory of qualifying for the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals and the pride of that golden era when the two established African players in the English Premiership were both Zimbabwean.

In an era where the absence of our Warriors from any of the major Big Leagues of Europe has become a huge talking point, with some analysts saying it should provide us with a reality check of our bloated expectations when it comes to our beloved senior national team, it was inevitable that Grobbelaar’s return home this week was always going to ignite the raging debate as to why our production line no longer produces the quality that used to walk into the likes of Liverpool or the English Premiership.

Much of the focus, in recent weeks, has been on Warriors captain Knowledge Musona, amid a flurry of arguments — from the reasonable ones to the emotional ones and from the good ones to the outrageous ones — provoked by the possibility that he could have ended up playing in the English Premiership had things turned out differently.

That Musona today finds himself stuck at a modest Belgian football club, KV Oostende, at a time when his former teammate at German Bundesliga side TSG Hoffenheim, Roberto Firmino, has established himself as one of the best players in a star-studded Liverpool strikeforce, has provided fuel for the debate.

Grobbelaar this week threw his full weight behind Musona and refreshingly explained, in detail, that there is a lot more that is involved in getting a player to a major European club, than just his mere talent and not all the best players end up at such clubs and, interestingly, even some of the average ones with the right connections get such big breaks.

What Grobbelaar didn’t mention, though, is this disgusting tendency by most of our players to find refuge in the arms of some foreign managers and agents, once they cross the border into South Africa, in the process dumping their local agents and foolishly believing that their interests would be better served by those foreigners.

Once they get to South Africa and believe they have made it, they start feeling they have outgrown the local agents and managers who helped them take that baby step into Super Diski and they start dining and wining with strangers who don’t even care a damn about their future, but are only interested in using them, or rather abuse them, as objects to make money.

King Peter Ndlovu stuck with Winston Makamure throughout his career and we all saw how this good gentleman managed the Flying Elephant’s career because to him, Peter was not only a footballer, but a brother and a fellow Zimbabwean whose progress at club level was always going to have a huge bearing on the success of the Warriors, a team this manager supported by birth.

Incredibly, despite all the contacts which Winston established during his lengthy spell managing King Peter in England, we have never seen any of our new crop of stars turning to him to help them find a club in that country, something he can do merely by lifting his phone and calling a certain number out there.

Somehow, our later day stars — either because of their foolishness or their lack of advice — believe they have outgrown the likes of Winston Makamure, because he is a black man who stays in Harare and, instead, we have seen them jumping into the arms and stables of foreign managers, most of them white, who have no interest in their welfare save for the agent fees they will get in the event that a move crops up.

People who don’t treat them as brothers, something that someone like Makamure would do, but treat them as objects in a potential money-making venture, people who won’t care a damn about their plight the moment they sign their last contract and won’t even care to visit them here as and when their playing careers are over.

People who don’t know how Highfield, Zengeza, Makokoba, Mbare, Mzilikazi, Mkoba, Sakubva, Mufakose, where all our stars come from, look like, to provide the guidance to them to ensure these stars don’t go back there when their careers, which are very short, come to an end and the tap that was providing a shower of those dollars on a regular basis is switched off.

It’s a shame, whichever way one looks at it, that a country like ours which was blessed with a manager of such repute like Winston Makamure, who started this journey a very long time back, doesn’t have players queuing up at his office to ensure he provides them with the guidance needed for them to possibly strike a deal with a major club in England.

There is a reason why virtually all the big name Portuguese football stars, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani and coaches like Jose Mourinho, invest all their trust when it comes to their welfare to one of them, Jorge Mendes of the GestiFute company, which he started in 1996.

It’s because they know he is one of them and he knows their interests better than some foreigners, knows their challenges better than the foreigners, he speaks their language, understands their culture, what is good for Portugal because he is also Portuguese, and so far the results have been there for everyone to see and together they have built this football empire.

Ironically, as Bruce revealed this week, none of our current stars have even cared to pick up the phone and ring him for advice, despite the huge network that Grobbelaar has all over the world, to help them make that leap into a major European club.

Instead, they are all content to be stuck with their foreign managers, being repeatedly told that the local ones aren’t good enough, when we have a lot of powerful figures who could have changed the course of their careers even without getting a cent from the deals.

Isn’t it ironic that the agent who helped Firmino make his £29 million switch from Hoffenheim to Liverpool is a Brazilian, Marcellus Portella, used to be a dental surgeon at the footballer’s local club Clube de Regatas Brasil, where he first spotted the potential of this star when he was a mere 15-year-old?

“Yes, it’s true, he’s a dentist, but he no longer is,” Firmino told the Liverpool Echo. “After he spotted me he became an agent.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

This time, last year, just about every serious African football analyst and commentator was speaking very highly of Khama Billiat and saying he should move to Europe there and then, but 12 months later, our golden boy is still stuck in the retirement zone of Super Diski.

It can’t all be just a coincidence, as Ginimbi will say it, my guys.

MAYBE, A PRAYERS ARE JUST WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW

Thirty seven is a special number because it’s the normal human body temperature when measured in degrees Celsius, the number of plays William Shakespeare is believed to have written, when one counts Henry IV as three parts, and the prefix for the international dialing code for the Vatican (+379).

The four gospels in the New Testament — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — record 37 miracles which were performed by Jesus, with Mark recording the most, even though it is widely accepted Christ performed far more miracles than that.

“Genesis 37 — Joseph thrown into a pit but is lifted out of it (saved); Exodus 37 — perfection of furniture in tabernacle — things of pure gold, made perfect, anointing oil; Psalm 37 — the Lord will save his people; Isaiah 37 — God will save Jerusalem, ‘for I will defend this city to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake,’’’ the Amazing Word bog argues.

In such times, I usually turn to Charles Charamba’s music and I can hear the lyrics of his hit song, ‘Makaitei’ ringing in my ears right now and I have twisted its lyrics a bit to try and suit the situation with our footballers right now.

“Ko muchatiiko kana Mwari Baba vachikubvunzai ‘Vana Vangu, ko makabatei, makaiteiko, mazuva ose amaivapanyika?’

“Ko muchatiiko kana Jesu okubvunzai kereke yangu, ko makabatei, makaiteiko nezvipo zvenhabvu zvandakupai?

“Ko muchatiiko kana Benjani wopupura kuti nyangwe ndanga ndisina chipo chakanyanya ndakashingirira kusvika ndatambira Man City?

“Vana Kaitano, chipo chizhinji vakange vasina, kana tariro chaiyo, pekutanga chaipo vakanga vasina, chavaingovenacho ishungu chete nekushanda nesimba mumutambo uyu.’’

After all, Luke 1 verse 37 says, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

And, that’s true because, along the way, during the absence of this blog from these pages, in the past few weeks, I had the special privilege of experiencing the beauty of a church wedding, as I tied the knot with my long-time partner Florence, in a ceremony conducted by the hilarious Father Karombo of the Roman Catholic church.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199; WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199; Email — robsharuko@gmail.com; Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

THE first big hint came in the main reception of the Yadah Hotel, one bright moonlit evening last year, the sound of water oozing from the giant water wheel, as it crashed into the pool beneath, occasionally breaking the tranquillity that had replaced the madness generated by a relentless wave of the human traffic earlier that afternoon. There were only the two of us in that main reception that evening when, for the first time since I had started to interact with him from close quarters and on a regular level, he released a volley of emotions in a graphic portrayal of both his disappointment and disbelief at what had happened.

The source of his explosive frustration that day was the news that the leaders of the corruption-ridden Chitungwiza Municipality had just turned down his offer to renovate Chibuku Stadium for his team to use as their base for their league matches.

The second big hint came one afternoon, a few months later, on the concrete stands of the football stadium which sits in the shadows of the northern main wing of this same state-of-the-art hotel in the Prospect area of Harare’s Waterfalls suburb.

There were five of us on this occasion — a lawyer who had been handed the responsibility to lead his football project, his closest lieutenant in his ministry who had been tasked with the role of chief executive of the team and a guy who was the club’s consultant — and when I joined them the discussions had been going on for about an hour.

His team had just lost a game he maintained they should never have lost, if his coaches had followed the strategies they had discussed in training all week and saying his good name was being now being dragged into the mud by a bunch of losers who didn’t stick to instructions, told us he was getting fed up with this football project and how it was not only tainting his image, but wreaking his emotions.

The third big hint came in the snooker area, adjacent the luxurious VVIP suites at the same hotel complex, where — more often than not when he wants some relaxation after a typically busy day of different engagements — he derives a lot of joy playing the eight-ball pool game.

There were more than a dozen people there, which is usually the case when he is playing, a number of his aides making the biggest chunk of this constituency but, when he decided to express his feelings, he asked me to accompany him for a walk.

Away from this group, he told me he couldn’t understand why there was so much toxicity in domestic football, a beautiful game that should be used as a huge unifying weapon and even though his project was providing the players, their coaching staff and their families with salaries to live a decent life, the amount of hatred this was generating for him from some quarters was surprising.

The rampant belief in juju by a lot of the characters in the game, which was duly confirmed by legendary former Dynamos skipper Memory Mucherahowa in his autobiography “Soul Of A Seven Million Dreams,’’ was something that really disturbed him.

Surrounded by the walls of his hotel complex, away from the razzmatazz that usually follows him everywhere he goes, he usually cuts a figure of a man happy to once again get the freedom of privacy, of course, fully aware that this is just, but a temporary reprieve from a life in which he lives in the public domain and every step he makes out there is closely watched and every word he utters is intensely scrutinised.

Of course, along the way, there were a number of other hints, here and there, but none as pronounced as was the case on those three occasions.

Like one Sunday April morning when, after having received a call from one of his aides asking if it was possible I could come to their training ground, I arrived to find him busy conducting drills for his players just a day after they had returned home from an away assignment in Gweru the previous day where they had held Chapungu to a 1-1 draw.

When the session was done he came to where I was sitting and started complaining about how the PSL leadership were rejecting his pleas for his team, then unbeaten in their first four league matches, to fulfil their next fixture, a blockbuster home showdown against Dynamos, on a Saturday when he could invite some of his ministry’s followers to come and watch that big match.

Instead, he said, the PSL bosses remained adamant his men should play on a Sunday because SuperSport had already booked to cover that game on that day, an arrangement he wasn’t comfortable with because it’s a day they reserve for their main weekly church service.

“How much do we get as a club from this SuperSport deal?” he asked one of his club’s officials.

“About $5 000 per year,” came the reply, itself loaded by the uncertainty of the accuracy of the amount, but all the same not very far from the truth of the meagre annual pickings from that deal.

“Okay, so we are being sacrificed for $5 000 that comes once a year?” he said. “Then tell the PSL that we don’t want our share and they can donate it to a children’s home and make sure that Yadah TV will also bid for these rights when this deal ends.”

A MAN WHO SHARPLY DIVIDED OPINION, BUT WHO CAME WITH

GOOD INTENTIONS

Walter Magaya, the football-loving prophet who announced this week he was terminating his sponsorship of his Premiership club Yadah Stars after just a year of their flirtation with the top-flight league, endured it all in the turbulent world of our top-flight league in the season it celebrated its Silver Jubilee.

From his team’s “Miracle Goal” against ZPC Kariba, enjoying the beauty of the romance that comes with even going to the top of the table in the championship race, the joy of beating the defending league champions (CAPS United) good enough to eliminate five-time African champs TP Mazembe from the Champions League, to parading a teenage forward good enough to be invited for trials with a Benfica side still looking to mine the next diamond as good as the immortal Mozambican Eusebio from Africa.

Then there was the humiliation of that seven-goal battering at the hands of Bantu Rovers at Luveve — when his men were so ordinary their performance that afternoon was both an aberration and an insult to everything that the Premiership should represent — to their flirtation with relegation at the end of the season.

And the controversy generated by his decision to send his men into battle against Bantu without their head coach, coupled with their massacre, provoked a wave of fury from both the domestic football’s coaching fraternity and a number of journalists who argued he was reducing the Premiership into something close to a social league.

But rather than weigh him down, this condemnation enlisted a streak of defiance from him as he even issued a public statement he considered himself to be even a better coach who could do a far better job coaching his team than the majority of the CAF A licensed coaches.

And all this simply added to feed the script of a theatre rich in far more than what this game had expected when his team came into the elite league.

Magaya’s one-year flirtation with the domestic Premiership might have sharply divided opinion, and understandably so for a man of such a huge public profile, and even now, after the announcement he was stepping away from sponsoring Yadah Stars, there has been a chorus from some who have been saying his pockets have run dry in a game where running a club, especially for an individual, is quite a very expensive thing to do.

After all, they have been saying the history of the domestic Premiership is pregnant with a number of characters who came as individual sponsors of their clubs and ran into serious financial troubles, including some who slipped into bankruptcy, at the end of it.

I don’t know about Magaya’s financial muscle because he has never publicly claimed to be a very rich man, something which he repeated in that sober reaction to radio claims by socialite Ginimbi that he was richer than the prophet, telling our sister tabloid H-Metro his only wealth was his strong relationship with his Lord and the people who believe in his ministry.

But what I know, having had the privilege of gaining his trust and confidence during his time in the top-flight league to enable me to go up-close-and-personal with him on a number of occasions, is that he was a good man to our domestic Premiership.

Like everybody else, he might have made mistakes, sometimes letting his fiery passion to ensure that his team quickly established itself among the giants of the game in the league get the better of his usually calm judgment, by making some controversial decisions related to its coaching set-up.

But that should not, in any way, cloud the fact that he really cared for the game, and to me that is what matters the most, because it’s a terrain where the romantic era of the individual owners of local clubs has been seemingly coming to an end.

He badly wanted to make a difference and that is why he adopted the scientific approach to training sessions for his team from the word go, including using a drone that would collect all the material about who was doing what, which would be analysed later with those who were not performing to expectations being asked to do more.

That is why he invested in the building of his stadium at his hotel complex, which became a training ground for the Warriors when he opened doors to them to camp there for free, and when you consider that some of our biggest football clubs have never realised the wisdom of investing in building their stadiums all these years, content with the set-up where they are fleeced by the ruthless municipalities, you can see he was not cut from the same cloth of mediocrity that makes some of the football leaders we have become used to.

I don’t know if, in the next 10 years or so, we are going to get someone who comes into our Premiership and says that he wants to renovate Chibuku, he wants to renovate Sakubva, he wants to renovate Mucheke, he wants to renovate Luveve because he wants his team to play in a stadium that is consistent with their status as a Premiership club.

It might happen, but I doubt that.

There will be a lot said about Magaya, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and in our poisoned environment, if you see something good in someone whom the other person doesn’t like for one reason or another then you are being paid to do that, but for some of us who had the privilege of gaining his trust during his flirtation with our Premiership, he was certainly an exceptionally good man who was ahead of our times, didn’t accept the mediocrity we have come to accept as standard and wanted to lead the way in making some big changes.

The domestic Premiership will be poorer without him and as Barry Manandi would say, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it, even though I know there will be whispers and even tweets to my boss to suggest I’m singing for my supper.

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

EXACTLY five years ago, the finest cricket writer and broadcaster of our time, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, finally lost his brave battle with cancer and died surrounded by his close family members at home in Essex at the age of 67. For all his mastery of the analysis of both the written and spoken of the gentleman’s game, CMJ – just like every other human being – was not a perfect specimen.

Also known as the Major, his biggest weakness was a frustrating habit of never keeping time and repeatedly arriving late not only for the very assignments he was supposed to cover, but for just about everything he did in his private life.

That usually meant, in his rushed attempts to make up for lost time, he made a number of monumental boobs like arriving at Lord’s Cricket Ground when the match he was supposed to cover was going on at the Oval, which in our football case is like going to the National Sports Stadium when the game was at Gwanzura.

Or, as the case one day during a tour of Jamaica, taking the remote control of his hotel room television with him under the innocent assumption that it was his mobile phone, which he had left in that very room as he rushed out to try and catch up with others on a road trip from Kingston to Montego Bay.

“The late Christopher Martin-Jenkins. We always said it had a pertinent ring to it because that is what he generally was. And that’s what he is now,” Mike Selvey, The Guardian’s cricket correspondent wrote in probably the most powerful opening paragraph of an obituary l have ever read.

“Farewell my dear CMJ, broadcaster, writer, colleague, friend, travelling and dining companion and golfing partner.

“Throughout his entire working life, the Major championed cricket and cricketers of all abilities. The game has lost perhaps the best friend it ever had.

“For many years, he had not just been colleague, but friend, travelling and dining companion and golfing partner. If ever I write an autobiography, I once told him, I shall call it ‘WAITING FOR THE MAJOR,’ because that is what I seemed to spend much of my time doing. To this day, I have a text template specifically for him that reads: ‘Where the f**k are you?’”

This week, the British media bombarded the world with stories about that plane crash in Munich 60 years ago to this month, which wiped out a generation of some of the finest footballers to play for Manchester United.

And of course, a number of special articles were reserved too for the journalists who perished in that crash, including Donny Davies, The Guardian’s chief football correspondent in Manchester, whom we were told was the son of an orphanage boy, went on to survive a German Prisoner of War camp during World War II, only to lose his life in the wreckage of Flight 609.

We were told, this week, of how Donny loved classical music, poetry, art, theatre and ballet and, before he became a football writer, he used to be a headmaster.

Henry Rose, the Daily Express journalist, who also died in that crash, was a larger-than-life Jaguar-driving character, while Tom Jackson of the Manchester Evening News, Frank Swift of the News of the World, George Follows of the Daily Herald, Archie Ledbrooke of the Daily Mirror and Eric Thompson of the Daily Mail also perished in that crash.

Follows, we were told this week, even made 510 appearances for Manchester City and had 33 caps for England, who was even persuaded -without success – by the then Manchester United manager Matt Busby to come out of retirement and play for the Red Devils.

You have to give credit to these British fellows, if not for the way they value the lives of those they lost along the way, then for the way they defiantly refuse to let the memories of these people to be washed away by the passage of time.

On the fifth anniversary of the year the Major died, his colleagues within the English cricket writing stubbornly fraternity refuse to let the legacy of their colleague to be buried by the changing of the seasons and the passing of time.

“The air of chaos that followed him at every turn merely added to his popularity. When he wrote in his autobiography that he had ‘never grown up’, he meant it as a compliment to cricket’s capacity to keep him young,’’ The Daily Mail noted.

“CMJ was always generous, even when he would have been forgiven for running out of generosity altogether.’’

THEY REALLY MAKE A MOCKERY OF US, DON’T THEY?

While 60 years down the line, the current generation of English football writers have defiantly refused to let the memory and work of their colleagues, who perished in that plane crash in Munich while accompanying Manchester United on that tour of duty, we seem to be in a rush to ensure the memory and work of colleagues we lost just a few years ago be drained away by the passage of time.

No one among us, as a sports journalism community, dares to remind the current generation of listeners of football being commentated on radio, as boring as it has become these days, where both quality and substance is in short supply, that we used to have someone as good as Evans Mambara, who could make fans take their little radios to Rufaro and watch the game while also listening to his commentary of that match at the same time.

Boy, oh boy, he was good.

He copied his style from legendary Zambian commentator Dennis Liwewe during his stay in that country, a high-pitched narration of events pregnant with both colour and a voice to suit, and was particularly at his very, very best when he was commentating a game featuring his beloved Black Rhinos, the successful Chipembere side of the ‘80s that won two league championships.

“To Stanley Ndunduma, this is Sinyo, Rhinos attack down the right flank, Sinyo, Sinyo, wide on the wing, takes on one man, beats him clean, what a player, what a talent, driving into the heart of the opponents, this is Sinyo, the cross comes through, to the The Bomber, Maronga Nyangela, a flick, to the Dzunguman, this is Jerry Chidawaaaaaa, it’s a goalllllllllllllllllllll.’’

The lasting impression I will always have of Evans Mambara was one very hot afternoon at the Accra Sports Stadium on July 13, 1997, when he invited me to join him in the commentary box and provide the analysis of the match, he was commentating a game between the Black Stars and the Warriors in a 1998 AFCON qualifier.

He had stripped off his shirt in those steamy conditions and he appeared to be inspired by some kind of supernatural powers, his voice booming in a way as I had never heard it before, his passion for the national team clearly evident, his emotions exploding as he provided a powerful narration of the events unfolding on that field to millions of listeners back home.

And when Shepherd Muradzikwa, the Dragline, as good a midfielder as they will ever come on the domestic football scene, powered home a trademark thunderbolt from a distance to bring us to parity just two minutes after the legendary Abedi Pele had thrust the Black Stars into the lead, Mambara’s explosion at that moment, producing echoes in the silence inside that stadium, was something I will never, ever forget.

Tragically, he was gone a few years later.

The great Choga Tichatonga Gavhure, “kunonoka Moses, vamwe vanga vatopinda nechekare,’’ as he boomed about Moses Chunga on Radio 2 before it became Radio Zimbabwe, what a voice, what a commentator, what a great man.

And we rush to forget the memory of the works of some of the finest football writers whose talents used to provide this country with graphic images, using the power of words of what would have transpired at our football stadiums.

The immortal Alan Hlatshwayo, a pioneer football writer for all black Zimbabweans, who opened avenues for all of us to pursue our dreams, his competency as a very good journalist breaking the barriers of the racist colonial establishment that used to be in charge of this country back then and helping him gain acceptance among those guys who thought the best we could do was to live in Marimba Park, as a genuine professional.

He started his journey on this newspaper, isolated by whites in the newsroom and distinguished himself as a very, very good writer and his promotion to the post of first black Sports Editor of this newspaper – a position that has only been occupied by two other fellow blacks since him, including yours truly, in an extraordinary statistic for this 121-year-old iconic establishment.

He ended his journey surrounded by many fellow black journalists, who respected him, if not for his professionalism, then for how he blazed the trail for them, a great man from Mbare, who – like George Follows of the Daily Herald, who was among the journalists who perished in that Munich plane crash with a record of having made 510 appearances for Manchester City and had 33 caps for England – had once starred for Dynamos.

He mentored a lot of those who have become legends in their own rights, like my colleague Collin Matiza and Charles “CNN’’ Mabika, who – just like Hlatshwayo – are boys from Mbare.

But no one writes and talks about this great man anymore, as if he never existed, as is he never blazed a trail the same way that we tend to be in a hurry to forget Tinaye Garande, Sam Marisa, Phillip Magwaza, Ephraim Masiwa, Lovemore Musharavati, Juzzman Chakamanga and the same way we will soon forget about Jabes Lefani and Paul Mundandi.

In contrast, 60 years down the line, our colleagues in England refuse to let time wash away memories of how their colleagues – who did a lot for this profession and died in that plane crash in Munich – helped define this profession.

SADLY, OURS IS A CLUB FILLED WITH JEALOUSY AND POMPOUS INDIVIDUALS

The sad truth is that ours is a club filled with individuals, whose DNA is dominated by jealous and who are so pompous that they believe they are God’s only gift to this profession and anyone else – before or after them – is irrelevant on the domestic front.

They will tell you Robert Marawa, the SuperSport anchor, is pure class and his closing slogan, “Fala kum shele le,’’ is pure magic while dismissing Charles Mabika as average and his closing slogan, “Remember to take care of yourself and your loved ones, I’m Charles ‘CNN’ Mabika,’’ as pathetic.

They will tell you Sizwe Mabena, the Soccer Africa anchor on SuperSport, is pure class and his closing slogan, “Click, click, bang,’’ is pure magic while dismissing Barry Manandi as average and his closing slogan, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,’’ as pathetic.

It’s a community somehow not happy that one of them, Mike Madoda, is on SuperSport, dismissing him as someone who doesn’t know the game and whose presentation is poor even when he has shown pure class in his presentations and is miles better than many of the foreigners these guys believe are good.

A community somehow not happy that one of them, Steve Vickers, is on SuperSport, dismissing him as a guy whose understanding of local football is limited and whose commentary is poor when he has shown pure class in his presentations and is miles better than many of the foreigners we hear on television.

If we can’t embrace these guys when they are alive, what is the chance of us celebrating their work when they are gone and ensuring that time won’t wash away what they have done for this profession, the way our colleagues in England have been doing this week to mark the 60th anniversary of those who died in that Munich crash?

Amid all this gloom and doom, I retreat to the good world of the good guys, whose good world value what others, who are no longer with them today, made a big impact in this profession and, exactly five years after Christopher Martin-Jenkins, also known as CMJ and the Major, died, I find myself going back to that classic about him by Mike Selvey of The Guardian.

“The 1992 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand became known as the karaoke tour because of the evenings spent seeking out karaoke bars,’’ Selvey writes.

“After the final, in Melbourne, we persuaded the Major to join us and within half an hour of saying he would never do anything like that, he was perched on a stool, crooning ‘Love Letters In The Sand,’ including a whistling bit in the middle.

“God, he was happy that night.’’

To God Be The Glory

Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback — 0772545199, WhatsApp Messenger — 0772545199. Email — robsharuko@gmail.com, Skype — sharuko58

Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www.sportszone.co.zw. You can also interact with me on the informative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika and producer Craig “Master Craig’’ Katsande every Monday night at 21.15pm.

Congratulations to Kenneth Mhlophe, the new chairman at Highlanders, and hopefully this good man will help this iconic football institution to get back on its feet and end its longest barren spell without a league title since the advent of the domestic Premiership. A dozen years without a league title is too long for such a massive club and, hopefully, Mhlophe, a self-made successful businessman, will get it right for Bosso to return to the podium of champions.

What I can’t understand, though, is how the powerful position of chairman of Highlanders doesn’t attract a lot of people – given it’s a very important seat in domestic football – to vie for it every time elections are around the corner.

Why should it attract, as has become the norm in recent years, only two people to vie for such a big post with the chairman usually elected unopposed when the expectation should be that scores of competent individuals would really want to lead this powerful institution? Why are some of the most competent leaders, who belong to this institution, suddenly not finding it attractive to throw their hat into the ring and fight for the right to lead this massive football club?

Our colleagues at the Chronicle even noted this week that just 180 members were part of the Bosso Congress last Sunday – the lowest number in four years – and why is there this growing apathy towards issues that can really define the future of this institution?

They said 268, 88 fans more than the number of those who took part in Sunday’s congress, were actually turned away from a similar meeting in 2009, when Themba Ndlela took over as chairman and 350 members were present at the 2012 congress.

Highlanders is part and parcel of the DNA of Zimbabwean football and it’s very worrying when such apathy, both in the race for its leadership and the numbers coming to define its future, become the norm.