Zimpapers Logo

Sharuko On Saturday
EXACTLY 50 years ago, on May 25, 1967, Scottish giants Celtic made history when they became the first British club to be crowned champions of Europe after beating Italian powerhouse Inter Milan 2-1 in the final in Lisbon.

The heroes of that campaign, dubbed the Lisbon Lions, provided their city Glasgow, in general, and their club Celtic, in particular, with a truly home-made success story as all, but one of the triumphant 15-member squad were born within a 16-km radius of the club’s home ground Celtic Park.

Only Bobby Lennox, in that squad, was the odd one out, having been born 48kms away from Celtic Park, but like all his teammates, he was from Glasgow and proudly Scottish.

The following year, 1968, Manchester United became the second British club to be crowned champions of Europe and in 1970, to show that their ’68 adventure was no fluke, Celtic qualified for their second European Cup final — in three years — only to lose 1-2 to Dutch side Feyenoord.

Last season, Celtic joined an elite club of Invincibles, the immortals who have completed a 38-game championship season without defeat — Juventus in Italy’s Serie A (2011-2012); Arsenal in the English Premiership (2003/2004) and Barry Town in the League of Wales (1997-1998).

Incredibly, Celtic scored in every league game they played last season, at an average of 2.7 goals a game, and powered to the championship — their sixth league title in a row — with a 30-point difference from the chasing pack and secured the title with eight games to spare.

It’s a measure of Celtic’s greatness that, even though they haven’t been beneficiaries of the crazy money that has changed English football since the dawn of the Premiership, the Scottish giants were last year ranked the ninth biggest British football club.

Only Newcastle (eighth), Everton (seventh), Tottenham Hotspur (sixth), Manchester City (fifth), Chelsea (fourth), Liverpool (third), Arsenal (second) and Manchester United (first) were ranked bigger than Celtic.

This is the giant club that our highly-rated teenage footballer, Kundai Benyu, joined two days ago when he signed a four-year deal, choosing to work with former Liverpool boss, Brendan Rodgers, despite huge interest from a number of English Premiership sides.

Celtics’ biggest rivals are just across town in Glasgow, Rangers, whose fans will certainly tell you all these rankings suggesting their rivals are now not only the biggest club in Scotland, but also one of the 10 biggest clubs in Britain, are just a whole load of nonsense and should never be taken seriously.

They will tell you they have won more league titles (54) than Celtic (48) with their 54 domestic championships being recognised as a world record for professional football clubs around the globe.

They will tell you they have won more Scottish Cups/League Cups (54) than Celtic (53) and their 118 trophies, when you include the number of times they have also won the league, is officially recognised as a world record for a professional football club on the globe.

The Rangers folks brag about the 143 570 people who watched their Scottish Cup match against Hibernian on March 27, 1948, and the Celtic folks will tell you about the 147 365 who crammed into Hampden Park to watch their Scottish Cup final against Aberdeen in 1937.

The Rangers fans will tell you it’s not a coincidence that their club holds the British record for the biggest home crowd to watch a league match when 118 567 turned up for their Old Firm Derby against Celtic on January 2, 1932 and the world record 50 048 fans who turned up for their league match, in Division Four, against Berwick Rangers on May 4, 2013.

With Rangers’ kit being predominantly blue and Celtic kit being predominantly green-and-white, you can probably see a touch of the inter-city rivalry, which plays out in Harare between Dynamos and CAPS United, in the two Glasgow giants’ endless battle for supremacy and the bragging rights that follow success.

Of course, DeMbare are bigger than CAPS United, whatever one choose to consider as criteria to rank greatness — from the success that has come with their ruthless dominance of the domestic Premiership, the massive support base, which the Glamour Boys have, right to their success on the continent.

But only an eternally drunk chap will tell you that CAPS United, for a club their size, haven’t given their bigger rivals a tough challenge, a tough battle that is a credit to this Green Machine’s incredible fighting spirit, including handing them a seven-goal humiliation that remains a stain on these Glamour Boys’ profile which the passage of time has failed to remove and might never remove.

A ZIM GEM MAKES HIS MOVE . . .

You have to give it to successive generations of Makepekepe players for the good fight they have put in which, even though — unlike Sir Alex Ferguson’s successful mission against Liverpool it has so far failed to knock these Glamour Boys off their f***ing perch — it has ensured Harare hasn’t been reduced to a boring town dominated by a ruthless bull where derbies are not part of its football culture.

The next time you hear the DeMbare fans saying “nyikayeseirikufara,’’ or see the hashtag #nyikayeseirikufara trending on social media, as was the case on Tuesday after CAPS United crashed to a shock 0-2 defeat at the hands of Yadah Stars, consider it not only as their joy of seeing their rivals fall, but also as a unique way of expressing their relief that a team they consider real rivals to them for the title has fallen.

It’s a compliment, in its unique way, if you really take time to look at it.

WHEN OUR FATHER ZIMBABWE

WAS DRAWN INTO ALL THIS

FOOTBALL DRAMA

When our colleagues at the Sunday News in Bulawayo this week chose to run a story on their front page under the headline, ‘NKOMO LOVED DEMBARE’, after an exclusive interview two of their reporters, Mkhululi Sibanda and Tinomuda Chakanyuka, had with Father Zimbabwe’s former top security aide, it sent the hashtag #nyikayeseirikufara exploding on cyberspace.

“The late Vice-President Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo was an avid Dynamos Football Club supporter who would always demand to be kept posted on the team’s fixtures, results and log standings, his former top security aide has revealed,’’ the Sunday News said on their front page.

“In an exclusive interview with the Sunday News, Dr Nkomo’s former head of security Nehemiah Nyathi said Dynamos occupied a special spot in Father Zimbabwe’s heart. Nyathi served as part of Dr Nkomo’s security team from May 1980 until 1 July 1999 when the VP passed on.

“He didn’t love football that much, but I wouldn’t say he hated the sport as well. What I know is that his favourite team was Dynamos. He would always ask us to keep him posted on Dynamos fixtures and results. It was part of our duty to keep him updated.

“’Of course he loved Highlanders but not as much as he did Dynamos. He (Dr Nkomo) knew that most of us were Highlanders supporters and when Highlanders was playing at Barbourfields and Dynamos was playing elsewhere he would say, ‘Asambeni eBF, manje iDynamos ke kuzwakalani madoda, kumi njani?’ (Let’s go to BF, but what is happening with Dynamos).

“’He would watch Highlanders just for fun, but the team he really loved was Dynamos. Even until his last days, he would always keep tabs on Dynamos,” said Nyathi.

Wow!

That Sunday News story, as expected, has drawn considerable interest around the world and also generated a lot of feedback with sports journalist Ezra “Tshisa” Sibanda leading the way.

“Father Zimbabwe Joshua Nkomo was a die-hard Bosso fan. It’s unbelievable his ex-security aide has the guts to lie, maybe seeking relevance,’’ Ezra responded this week.

“Joshua Nkomo, whom I had the privilege of spending time with during my four-hour interview, narrated the history of the club. He talked a lot about missing some Bosso games because Highlanders lost games whenever he was there and laughed saying ‘bathi ngisinda iteam.’

“Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo was a nationalist and supported Highlanders FC period.’’

Ezra wasn’t the only one who responded, strongly questioning the claims that Father Zimbabwe was a Dynamos fan, and saying the late Vice President was a Bosso die-hard supporter.

The Joshua Nkomo Foundation chief executive Jabulani Hadebe also issued a statement suggesting Nyathi was probably wrong to claim Father Zimbabwe was a Dynamos fan.

“Nkomo was a staunch supporter of Highlanders, a life member and its patron. Being part of the Bosso family was not only by choice but his birth right, cultural identity and heritage,’’ Hadebe said in a statement.

As is usually the case, when it comes to issues between Highlanders and Dynamos, the arguments tend to be stripped of dignity, by some people, who plunge into the narrative to push a certain toxic tribal agenda for one reason or the other.

To their credit both Ezra and Hadebe chose not to be lured into that web, pregnant with insults, which I have read in a number of other responses, including some so horrible they can’t even be printed in a family newspaper like this one.

The vicious cyber tribal war triggered by that Sunday News article is not only unnecessary but is certainly another indictment of what we are as a people who can’t argue without turning toxic.

For me, what is important here isn’t about whether Nyathi or Ezra is right or wrong or whether Father Zimbabwe supported Dynamos or Highlanders because, as a person, he had a right to back whatever team he liked and it’s a choice I have to respect.

But, what I have picked as key, from all this, is that in both versions the late great statesman provided a template of what a true football fan should be like where supporting one giant shouldn’t necessarily translate into such deep-rooted hatred of its biggest rival to such an extent that when they battle on the field one can lose his or her senses.

Clearly, from all the versions of what I have read, what comes very clear is that Father Zimbabwe, as much as he had this enduring love for one of the two giants, it didn’t transcend into a deep hatred of the other, built along tribal or related lines, to an extent some people even lose their morals and throw missiles when one of the two teams lose.

What comes out of it all, which is what matters to me, is that there was a certain level of respect to the other giant, from Father Zimbabwe himself, and as to which is the giant he loved and which is the other he respected, even if they might have represented the ultimate rivals, depends on which side one believes or is prepared to believe.

For all the drama that has been provoked by that Sunday News article, for me, the real value of it appears to have been lost in the madness that we have allowed to keep us apart, using football as a means of providing the weapon to show our hatred of each other instead of using it as a sport that can bind us together even if our choices of teams are different and the teams we love are huge rivals.

There are huge lessons we can all pick from Father Zimbabwe and that is what matters.

THAT’S THE WAY IT IS BECAUSE I’VE ALSO BEEN DRAGGED INTO IT

One of the enduring accusations that has stubbornly refused to be washed away by the passage of time, in a quarter-of-a-century of my service to this newspaper, is that I am a member of this football cult Memory Mucherahowa calls ‘Seven Million Souls’ in his explosive autobiography.

Repeated efforts, pregnant with both spirit and meaning, to argue that unlike John Mokwetsi, Barry Manandi, Tendai Ndemera and my namesake Robson Mhandu, I’m not a Dynamos fan, have dismally failed to provide the dilution to these accusations.

Incredibly, even my late lovely daughter, of all people, repeatedly fuelled this tale that I supported the football club of her dreams, the one she fell in love with as a little girl and which would be a big part of her life in this garden of the living.

And when I challenged her why she was associating me with her team, when she didn’t have any shred of evidence to buttress her claims, she would respond that either her schoolmates were saying so or she had grown up hearing this being said, again and again, by strangers on the bus on her way home from school.

It’s a belief she took with her to heaven, my pretty little DeMbare-and-Chelsea-supporting girl whom the angels took away from me to grace their lovely garden, this month last year, on the darkest Friday I have ever known in my life.

The one whose spiritual company the passage of time — 12 months to be precise — and the changing seasons, with all the different challenges that come with them, have failed to take away from me.

The one who, no matter where she is right now in that heavenly garden, whether it’s a quarter-mile away or halfway around the world, will always be with me, the one whom a part of me has always carried wherever I have gone and whom a part of me will always stay with her wherever she is.

I realised, at around the turn of the millennium, that the more I tried to argue with those who claimed I was part of DeMbare’s big family, the more I was fighting a battle I would never win because, maybe, some battles in this world are probably never meant to be won.

How I have always wished I could walk in Mike Madoda’s shoes, whose declaration that he is a Bosso fan was not only warmly accepted by our deeply-divided football community but, crucially, didn’t trigger a tsunami of opposition within the game’s constituency.

And how I have also longed for our football fraternity to accept my repeated announcements that only one local top-flight club, the Blackpool side that shook the domestic Premiership in the ‘90s, has come close to seducing me into their corner by providing the attraction which I used to get from my hometown club Falcon Gold.

In an era where my old stable mate, the brilliant Nathaniel Manheru, could finally dump the wig of disguise that used to shield him from his true identity and reveal the man behind the greatest national political blog this country has ever seen, and might never see, how I long for the same acceptance when I tell people, now and again, that I am not a member of the DeMbare constituency.

Of course, it doesn’t mean I am blinded to the romance of being a Dynamos fan – the bragging rights that come with being part of these Glamour Boys, a life generally lived in a blaze of glory, trophies, championships, success on the continent, including being the only local club to reach the final of the CAF Champions League, which all make the occasional barren spell nothing to write home about for these lucky guys in the big tent.

A life lived in a beautiful lane graced by legends like George Shaya, Freddie Mkwesha, Ernest Kamba, Sunday Chidzambwa, Daniel “Dhidhidhi” Ncube, David Mandigora, Japhet Mparutsa, Moses Chunga, Vitalis Takawira, Kenneth Jere, so good they even nicknamed him Computer, Tauya Murewa, so fast they even said he could fly, to name but just a few of the superstars who have been part of their big tent.

But, isn’t the enduring beauty of this game found in the mystery that we can’t all be supporters of one football club, that success alone — as much as we all yearn for it and as much as it remains the benchmark for greatness in this sport — can’t be the sole reason why people support teams and that’s why no one has ever accused Charles Mabika of being a madman for finding romance in supporting Middlesbrough?

However, what I have repeatedly told a lot of people, though, is that I can bet my last dollar that, when I finally leave this seat on this newspaper one day, those will come after me are unlikely to last even three months in this job if they try to test the power of Dynamos, as a massive institution, and pretend as if it just another ordinary local football club.

Maybe, I was privileged to have learnt from the very best, from someone who understood what this massive football institution means to the business of this newspaper, my former Sports Editor Jahoor Omar who, in the days of my apprenticeship would send a photographer into the city just to capture a picture of Moses Chunga back in the days when the Razorman was the ultimate symbol of these Glamour Boys.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

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

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooo!

Text Feedback – 0719545199 (I have migrated to OneFusion, why haven’t you)

WhatsApp Messenger – 0719545199

Email – [email protected]

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.