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IT has to be one of the finest pieces of movie production in history, the way Fast & Furious 7 provides a fitting and touching farewell, to the franchise’s leading actor Paul Walker, who died in a car crash midway through the filming.

Using Paul’s brothers, Cody and Caleb, who have a striking resemblance to their late brother, the Fast & Furious producers put together moving scenes where the ending of the film provides a touching farewell to Paul.

From an idyllic scene on a beach, where Paul leaves his crew to play with his wife and kid, in a powerful message indicating his time with them is up, to that moment when he pulls up, at a crossroads, alongside Vin Diesel for one final drive along the California hills, it’s all mind-blowing.

As the duo stare at each other on that intersection, the emotional scene is punctuated by the words, in the background, from Vin Diesel, “NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, WHETHER IT’s A QUARTER MILE AWAY OR HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD, YOU’LL ALWAYS BE WITH ME AND YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BROTHER.”

Then, the duo then sets off on one final race which ends with a separation on a fork, the two buddies separated for good and the camera follows Paul’s car into the hills, as if he is driving into Heaven, the screen fades and then the words, “FOR PAUL”, appear in the middle in black.

This week, as fate might have it, I arrived home on Tuesday night to find Fast & Furious 7 being screened on DStv’s M-Net 101 channel and watching that movie again, especially its parting shots with Paul Walker who didn’t live to see the completion of its filming, I could not resist, but find links between the movie and that accident which claimed the lives of DeMbare fans last Saturday.

Just like those Dynamos fans, Paul Walker was merely a passenger in the Porsche 2005 Carrera GT, which slammed into a light pole in Southern California on November 30, 2013 and then burst into a fireball, taking the actor’s life and that of his friend, who was driving the car.

I thought about Cain Nyambuya, who survived that crash at Battlefields, who provided the sounds for the survivors by telling this newspaper that he will, forever, be traumatised by the tragic scenes he witnessed on that horrible afternoon.

The horror he painted when he told us of the trauma he endured that day, moments after the crash, seeing “people you were talking to just a few moments ago lying there, with crushed skulls and brain tissues, scattered all over the place,” after six members of their group died instantly.

And, then, watching helplessly as a seventh member of their group died on the scene.

Then, a few days later, losing Garikai Gwasira who lost the battle for his life at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals, a day after he had looked out of danger as he greeted his comrades who had paid him a visit, the eighth member of that group to be consumed by the tragedy of Saturday afternoon.

And, a week after that tragedy in Battlefields, the tears are still streaming down the cheeks of Dynamos fans, who lost colleagues who — just like them — derived a lot of pride in their identity as part of the Glamour Boys family.

Tears have been streaming down the cheeks of CAPS United fans, dissolving the animosity that usually defines the intensity of their bitter rivalry with Dynamos, knocking down the barriers that divide them in their endless inter-city battle for supremacy as the sheer magnitude of Saturday’s tragedy provides sense and a wave of sympathy, where the devil of enmity usually resides.

And tears have been streaming down the cheeks of Highlanders fans, their hearts overwhelmed by what happened to their colleagues, their emotions crushed by a tragedy that consumed men and women who were part of domestic football’s extended family.

More than a year since Fast & Furious 7 was released on April 1, 2015, raking in excess of $1,5 billion in box office receipts, reports still emerge of viewers coming out of theatres around the world, drenched in tears, after watching that moving final segment of the movie when it’s time to say goodbye to Paul Walker.

And, those parting words of Vin Diesel to Paul Walker, in that final chapter of Fast & Furious 7, came thundering back in my mind this week, as I thought about Gwasira, “NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, WHETHER IT’s A QUARTER MILE AWAY OR HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD, YOU’LL ALWAYS BE WITH US AND YOU’LL ALWAYS BE OUR BROTHER.”

LIKE RONALDO IN 2005,

KING NASAMA REFUSED TO

BE BURIED BY TRAGEDY

Fate chose to torment King Nasama, in such a cruel way, with the teenage forward scoring his first league goal for his club, which turned out to be the winner against Chapungu, on the afternoon his mother — who was coming to see him in action — was battling for her life after surviving that crash.

And, in an era of the social media explosion where King was repeatedly told his mother had died in that accident, one has to give credit to the young man for having the strength of mind to block all that from his thoughts — where lesser mortals would have crumbled in that web of confusion — and to have the spirit to not only play that afternoon, but score the decisive goal.

And, by choosing to play, King Nasama provided us with a throwback to that day on September 6, 2005, when the then Portuguese coach Luiz “Big Phil” Scolari, walked into Cristiano Ronaldo’s room in Moscow, on the eve of a vital 2006 World Cup qualifier against Russia and broke the news that the superstar forward’s father, Dinis, had died back home in Portugal.

Amid a storm of tears, Ronaldo, then just 22, chose to play for his country the following day, saying “my dad would want me to play, he always did,” and starred in a goalless draw as Portugal booked their place at the 2006 World Cup finals.

“When I win something, I always think about him. I know he’s around,” Ronaldo said of his father in his autobiography. “He’s always looking at me and out for me. He sends me messages in my dreams because what I am today is thanks to him and to my mother.”

Spain’s biggest selling newspaper, Marca, this week ranked Ronaldo’s decision to play for Portugal, while burdened by the emotions of his father’s death, as the second “most defining moment in his international career.”

Big Phil says the decision by Ronaldo to play for his country, carrying the weight of the emotions generated by his father’s death the previous day, turned the Portuguese forward from a boy with an incredible talent into a superstar with a huge national responsibility.

If King Nasama develops into the player that his coach Lloyd Mutasa believes he can become, which the Dynamos fans pray he will become, maybe he will have to look back at the events of last Saturday as the defining moment when he shed off that teenage baggage and in that demonstration of a strong character, transformed himself from a boy into a man.

King Nasama will, certainly, never forget the events of last Saturday — a mother who was rushing to Gweru, with his new pair of boots, who never got there, the rumours that floated around about her fate, the psychological battles he fought and won and how his DeMbare teammates and his coaches, stood with him in those trying times.

Thankfully, there was a happy ending to it all, with King’s mother surviving that fatal crash, living to learn that her beloved son had scored a priceless goal for this football giant that has been struggling to make an impression this season, crying out for a result like the one they got at Ascot on Saturday which they believe could kick-start their campaign.

BUT, SADLY, OTHERS

WERE NOT SO LUCKY

Sadly, others were not so lucky and paid the ultimate price, with their lives in a cause for their favourite football team and that is what hurts.

A pain amplified by the fact that these people met their death on a mission to serve our football, to provide sights and sounds to our national game, to provide the colour in the stands that our game badly needs, the voices from the stands that provide the life in the stadiums that make football such a beautiful game.

These were not fair-weather supporters, those fans whose visibility at the stadium is only seen when their team is doing well, who only love the good times and have no room for the rainy days and grey and cold afternoons when their men are at the receiving end, when their clubs are having a miserable season and success is being recorded elsewhere.

These were true supporters of this football giant and not even their club’s misery this season, including a comical flirtation with a certain Silva who couldn’t provide a silver lining to the gloom and even in a season where their team finally tasted defeat, for the first time in a league match against bitter rivals CAPS United, their bond with their team was never shaken.

Even in the week when their club’s fans were under the spotlight, with that judgment for them to be barred from watching tomorrow’s league match because of the chaos that rocked Rufaro after the league match against FC Platinum, these true Dynamos supporters still chose to show the authorities a different and beautiful side, of themselves — their unquestionable loyalty to their club and this game.

Not even a premonition that he would die in that trip to Gweru, as Spencer Gwasira somehow appeared to have seen when, in a touching Facebook post, he asked for people to take care of his kids, saying “muchengete vana gen’a rangu, muchengete vana avo . . . zvatanga zvekare paAscot apoooo,” could stop him from travelling to the Midlands capital to support his beloved team.

If there is a love affair between a football fan and a club that represents all his dreams, stronger than that, better than that, bigger than that, purer than that, then I have yet to see it and given that I have been around for a long time — both as supporter, when my beloved Falcon Gold, my hometown team we called Bweraufe — and as a football writer for a quarter-of-a-century, I hope that says a lot.

Maybe I’m just being naïve and, if that is the case, then accept my apologies because in these tragic times I guess you can understand the difficulty of finding the usual range of reasoning, but I have been telling myself, all week, that I might never see a stronger, purer or bigger love affair between a football fan and his club, in my lifetime.

And, oh yes Spencer, like Vin Diesel saying goodbye to Paul Walker, in that final chapter of Fast & Furious 7, I have to repeat the words that have touched millions of movie fans since they first saw that film, “NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE, WHETHER IT’S A QUARTER MILE AWAY OR HALFWAY ACROSS THE WORLD, YOU’LL ALWAYS BE WITH ME AND YOU’LL ALWAYS BE MY BROTHER.”

OF COURSE, IT’s A DOZEN

YEARS AFTER WE SAID

GOODBYE TO YOGO YOGO

Exactly 12 years have passed since that tragic car crash, along the same highway, which claimed the lives of CAPS United stars — Blessing “Yogo Yogo” Makunike, Gary Mashoko and Shingi Arlon — as they made their way back home after a league match in Bulawayo.

Two CAPS United fans, travelling in the same car with their heroes, were also killed after that car exploded into a fireball.

I will never forget the funeral service at Raylton that brought Harare to a standstill as thousands of football fans, on a day when the capital’s football community stood as one, not one divided by the different identities of their clubs, to mourn the three CAPS United stars and their fans.

And, a dozen years later, I was overwhelmed to see the coming together of our domestic football community in its hour of grief, their realisation that there comes a time when the picture is bigger than what divides them and that is what made me feel very proud.

This week I was severely criticised, if not slaughtered, by my fellow Zimbabweans on Facebook when I questioned if it was right that the BBC and other major international news organisations, including SuperSport Blitz — where I regularly pay a considerable amount every month to maintain my subscription — could go to town with the coverage of the death, in an accident, of an Irish football fan at the UEFA Euro Championships while virtually ignoring the death of eight Dynamos fans in a road accident.

Some of them turned political, which isn’t my area of specialty, so I didn’t understand their insults, others turned personal, something which I can take given that a quarter-of-a-century working in the public domain has made me acquire some immunity against such battering, while others accused me of being a DeMbare apologist.

My response to them was that we have become a very polarised society that not even such a tragedy can bring us to our senses and the moment one talks about the BBC all they think is politics, their politics and not mine.

And it’s ironic some of these guys sing along when Liverpool supporters, to their eternal credit, remember their 96 colleagues who perished at Hillsborough while they feel the death of eight Dynamos fans isn’t a major story.

Refreshingly, as I have since found out, I wasn’t the only one who questioned the BBC because a Malawian sports consultant, Felix Sapao, also did the same in a tweet sent to Farayi Mungazi, who works for the corporation, which read, “@BBCFarayi 1 Irish fan dies in an accident, it’s hot news on BBC and all over, 7 (make it eight now) Dynamos FC fans die in an accident, there is nothing on BBC!”

So, someone in Malawi, who has nothing to do with our politics, felt the same and all that we do is throw brickbats at each other when one just simply questions why he does he gets an impression that black lives don’t seem to matter that much, exactly what those Boer policemen were thinking when they slaughtered South African schoolboys and schoolgirls, exactly 40 years ago, in the Soweto uprising.

Thanks John Mokwetsi, at least you saw the point I was trying to drive home.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!

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

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooo!

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