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Sharuko on Saturday
NEXT year, surviving members of the immortals of the St Paul’s Musami Class of 1966 will mark the Golden Jubilee of that unforgettable year when they shook the football establishment in this country by becoming champions.

Father Anthony Davis’ men remain the only club, to this day, to take the biggest prize in domestic football out of our two major cities of Harare and Bulawayo in the 53 years that the country’s top-flight championship has run.

To understand how special that triumph was, you have to think about the great Hwange teams of the past, which had the likes of Posani Sibanda, Rodreck Simwanza, Amos Rendo, Barry Daka, Nyaro Mumba and company, which tried, but failed, to match such a feat.

Or the great Mhangura team of the past, when the Chieza brothers and a genius called Alick Masanjala made the copperminers such a formidable outfit, which tried and failed to bring the league championship to Mashonaland West.

The great Rio Tinto teams, and you can have your pick here of a number of fine teams that kept being assembled by the Kadoma goldminers, including a very good one in 1983 which only lost the league championship battle to Dynamos on goal difference.

On the eve of the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of that grand achievement by the St Paul’s Musami immortals, our Premiership has its first team, from a similar rural setting, among its members and, boy oh boy, sitting on top of the league table this morning.

It has taken us 35 years, of our journey in Independent Zimbabwe, and 48 years, after the collapse of St Paul’s Musami, for a football club, from a similar rural setting, to make it into our domestic Premiership and, when Tsholotsho FC walked onto Rufaro yesterday, it was an historic occasion in our national game.

Among the people who were there to watch this historic moment was Ndumiso Gumede, a man who has dedicated his life to our football, and it was just fitting that this golden moment be captured by the cameras of SuperSport and be broadcast live across large parts of the continent on SuperSport 9.

In the shadow of the darkness that the blundering ZIFA has cast on our football, in the past few years, and the pain inflicted by our expulsion from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, thanks to another classic case of how not to run a national football association provided by Jonathan Mashingaidze, it’s refreshing to find that romance still lives in our national game.

It’s refreshing to note that there is a flicker of light, in that fog of darkness, which continues to be provided by unlikely sources like Tsholotsho FC, coming to the hallowed turf of Rufaro, where many of their players were playing on that artificial surface for the first time, and proving to us, and the non-believers, that brave David is not only found in the scriptures of the bible.

In the gloom of the uncertainty of the future of our beloved Warriors, with Tom Saintfiet and his US$150 000 pay-off for just coaching our national team for just one day, the latest threat to our future dance with the World Cup, it’s comforting to find that we have teams like little Tsholotsho FC, stubbornly refusing to let our national administrative paralysis destroy a game loved by millions in this country, by giving us this feel-good story as the one we had yesterday at Rufaro.

There they were at the Mecca of domestic football, where Shacky Tauro and Gift M’pariwa, may their soul rest in peace, scored to power us to victory over Kenya as we won the CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup exactly 30 years ago, where the magicians of the DeMbare team of ’76 somehow overturned a 3-5 first leg deficit to beat Orlando Pirates 4-1, in pouring rain, with George Shaya weaving his magic, as the Glamour Boys were crowned champions of Southern Africa.

Where CAPS United and Black Rhinos played arguably the greatest game ever seen on the domestic front, a pulsating 3-3 draw in an unforgettable Chibuku Trophy final in 1987, Maronga Nyangela and Jerry Chidawa putting the soldiers ahead before Tauro and Friday Phiri replied for the Green Machine, Mr Goals, putting Makepekepe ahead in extra-time before their former son Stanley “Sinyo” Ndunduma grabbed a late equaliser.

Of course, where CAPS United crushed Dynamos 7-0 and where DeMbare hammered Makepekepe 6-2, memories that last a life-time, images from a past when our football was played on these green fields and the likes of Tauro, Phiri, Sinyo and M’pariwa were the heroes and not these days when the game is played in the boardrooms, and at a certain house in the capital, and where the newsmakers are Dube, Mashingaidze and their fellow administrators.

And there was that boundless joy, from the Tsholotsho FC players and their coaching staff, when it all ended, celebrating the three points that carried their weight in gold, and one gets a feeling that just about everyone in a rural setting in this country, where they all have their football teams, celebrated with them, finding heroes in every one of those players who put in a shift and showed us, once again, that football isn’t played in Harare and Bulawayo only.

Showing us that you don’t have to be a very rich team to win football games, you don’t have to have the best players that money can buy, you don’t need to have the best qualified coaches, it has always been the magic of this game, its ability to script such great tales, like MK Dons thrashing mighty Manchester United in a League Cup tie or Highdon Raylton knocking out CAPS United from the ZIFA Unity Cup, which has made it irresistible.

TSHOLOTSHO HAVE SET THE TONE, LET’S ENJOY THE RIDE

After yesterday’s sensational start to the domestic Premiership, one will be hoping that there will be fireworks, in most of the games this weekend, to make up for the chaos that has stalked our game off the field, in recent weeks with the Warriors plunging to new depths of mediocrity on the rankings and their expulsion from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers.

There is reason to believe that the domestic Premiership will deliver and that the Big Three — Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United — are all under new coaches, desperate to prove themselves, means that it won’t be business as usual and, as Tsholotsho FC showed us yesterday, the little Davids are also raring to make a mark.

For me, the defining image from Rufaro last Sunday, when CAPS United lost to Dynamos in a ZNA Charity Shield semi-final, after both teams fielded weakened teams, wasn’t that wonder goal by the Ghanaian midfielder in the Glamour Boys ranks who, to his credit, took on the weight of expectations by choosing to wear the Number 10 jersey and then delivered a performance that was a credit to that shirt.

Screening his marker with a clever piece of dribbling wizardry, something that brought back a flood of memories of the days when Vitalis Takawira used to wear that blue jersey, and then having the confidence and power to let fly a beauty, who accuracy had the precision of a heat-seeking missile, from range, was the kind of stuff that draw people to the stadiums.

Remember those years, gone by, when we would say we are going to the stadium to watch Joel “Jubilee” Shambo, and how he will chest the ball today, and The Headmaster would deliver, with a sublime piece of artistry so good it was hard not to appreciate it, even for those supporting the other team, and football was what it should be — an art?

Or those days, gone by, when we would say we are going to the stadium to watch Moses Chunga doing his tricks and Bambo, in the days of his afro-hair and athleticism when he was the Razorman, would deliver even more, scoring direct from corner kicks, dribbling past armies of opponents and, when he wanted, even standing on the ball?

Or when we would say we are going to watch that little boy, from Bulawayo, when King Peter was still just a 17-year-old schoolboy, in his oversized Bosso shorts, and he would thrill us with his lightning change of pace, his body swerve at full pace that used to fool his older and bigger opponents and his full package of skills which, even then, shone like a beacon?

Erick Opoku, the Ghanaian forward at Dynamos, provided a throwback to those bygone days when individuals would illuminate a game at Rufaro and, while it is still too early to embrace him as the real deal, it’s fair enough to say that, when you get Vietnam protesting that you have been pulled out, even when the coach is trying to protect you because he has seen enough to make his mind that you can handle the pressure, it means a lot.

To me, the defining moment on Sunday, came long after the game had ended, the interviews conducted and Vietnam had stopped singing their songs of triumph, when Mark Harrison, the CAPS United coach, was invited by his team’s fans to come to their bay and he was given a standing ovation, a touch of love, even though he had lost to the ultimate enemy.

It meant that the fans not only understood what their coach was trying to do, in trying out a number of players that day, but they also loved what they had seen from him and what he is trying to build to make them a club that wins trophies again.

There are genuine expectations at the Green Machine that they could do very well this year, and that is always healthy for our Premiership, and if they can have a united family, something they have lacked in recent years, they can have a good race.

But nothing can be taken for granted in this league, and Tsholotsho showed us just that yesterday, and that’s the beauty of this game, when it spills onto the pitch, when the players and their coaches are the stars of the show and their names and faces dominate the back pages of newspapers.

THE PSL SHOULD RECONSIDER THE TICKET PRICES

This week I met Kenny Ndebele, a man I consider to be the best football administrator we have in this country today, and I’m disappointed that during our chat, I didn’t tell him that he should consider reducing the ticket prices for the Premiership games.

The cheapest tickets, going at US$3 for a league game, look heavy on the purses of the fans in these tough economic times.

A review of the ticket prices to about US$2, or even US$1, will not be bad guys and we might have more people managing to come back to the stadiums and I have always argued that 40 000 people at the National Sports Stadium, paying US$1 each, are better than 5 000 people paying US$3 each.

And, the good thing is that we will have sights and sounds back at our stadiums and not the empty stadiums that we now see at SuperSport which give an impression that we are not really a football loving nation.

Just a thought, maybe, I might be wrong but that’s the beauty of living in a democracy. As my colleague Barry Manandi will always say, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

To God Be The Glory

Come on United !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Manchester United have never lost a game in which they have led at half-time since 1984, just a statistic for my Liverpool friends.

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