Zimpapers Logo

again – two live games on SuperSport, a battery of sponsors coming on board and a rise in attendance figures.
This time, last year, there was nothing – not even a mere penny – to give to Motor Action, for winning their first Premiership title, after a riveting duel with Dynamos, decided by goal difference.
This time, last year, the footballers of the domestic Premiership faced a bleak Christmas, with nothing in their bank accounts, to show for a season spent showcasing their skills on our football fields.
This time, last year, Washington Arubi was cursing his lucky stars after being controversially disqualified from a Soccer Star of the Year race he was bound to win for a finger gesture at Barbourfields that was only seen by an interested few.
This time, last year, Arubi was so heartbroken by the poor treatment he had received at Dynamos, during the course of the season, he decided it was time to make a move and joined Highfield United.
This time, last year, only one sponsor stood in the Premiership corner but there were no guarantees that the good guys at BancABC would still be around in the New Year after their Sup8r Cup was tainted by a damaging dispute between Dynamos and Highlanders.
This time, last year, we waved goodbye to an unbranded Premiership race and as the Mighty Bulls celebrated their finest hour, there was a depressing feeling that this was all empty and, soon, the main actors to that triumph left their boat.
This time, last year, the country’s football writers were the subjects of some sick jokes for their comical choices in choosing yet another class of Soccer Stars of the Year that had more controversy than the few good things that could be picked out of its mountain of shame.
This time, last year, everything looked bleak not only for the top-flight league as a brand but also to the big teams with both Highlanders and Dynamos losing a number of players to emerging teams, rich in finances, who offered the players a window of hope.
This time, last year, it all looked gloomy for a top-flight league that had lost another chunk of its star players – Method Mwanjali, Nyasha Mushekwi, Tafadzwa Rusike and Lionel Mtizwa – and with attendance figures plummeting to record low levels, the future looked bleak.
But a year is a long time in football.
And, suddenly, everything has changed.
Dynamos scooped more than US$200 000 in prize money for the four trophies they won this season, missing only the BancABC Sup8r Cup, for a clean sweep of honours.
Where Motor Action had stood penniless last year, after being crowned kings of the Premiership, with noone ready to help them fund their Champions League campaign, Dynamos had a US$75 000 cheque for winning the league and a US$165 000 subsidy for their Champions League show.
Where Charles Sibanda had stood penniless on the podium after being crowned Soccer Star of the Year last season, with only a pledge from the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority to give him US$3 000, Washington Arubi had by Wednesday night pocketed a cool US$12 000 in prize money for winning various awards.
Where Twine Phiri, as leader of the Premiership, had stood looking helpless, if not hopelessly, into a future that appeared as dark as the year that was fading to an end, he now stood proudly as the head of a top-flight league that was clearly on the move.
Where BancABC had stood alone – the last sponsor standing – last year, in a league that appeared allergic to sponsorship, Mbada Diamonds, Delta Beverages, through their Castle Lager brand, and NetOne, all now stood proudly in the corner reserved for sponsors, in a league that was alive and well.
Where only one knockout tournament had been played the whole season last year, and been tainted by a dispute between DeMbare and Bosso that spilled into the courts, there were four trophies, from knockout tournaments, on offer this season and Dynamos won three of them.
You will have to take a bow to 2011 because it was the year when our beloved domestic Premiership discovered its soul again.
Two live games on SuperSport, a battery of sponsors coming on board, a rise in attendance figures, including a spectacular road show by DeMbare fans who traveled from Harare to Zvishavane for a do-or-die game against FC Platinum, good football on show in a number of the games, a riveting championship battle that went to the wire, the Premiership could not have asked for more.
Even Rahman Gumbo found our Premiership to be attractive again, he came back home from his foreign adventure.

Cheers In Harare
For a team that virtually had one player, Desmond Maringwa, at the beginning of the year, after a horror off-season in which even Murape Murape decided to walk away, Dynamos’ comeback story to win the league and cup double was the stuff that dreams are made of.
It has always been the mark of these Glamour Boys, their ability to defy the odds, move mountains and write scripts fit for fairytales and, long after they have waved goodbye to their 50th anniversary celebrations, true football analysts will remember the Class of 2011 as a special group.
They were special because, for whatever they lacked in the raw quality that used to be seen in the likes of Moses Chunga, Vitalis Takawira, Memory Mucherahowa and Tauya Murewa, they made up for in their ability to play beyond their capabilities, especially in games that mattered.
There have been a number of great Dynamos teams in the past and, if we were to classify them in terms of greatness, I have my serious doubts whether the Class of 2011 will even be able to find a place in the top 10.
After all, their best player was – unlike most Dynamos teams of the past that were driven by the genius of a Chunga, the industry of a Mucherahowa, the defensive class of a Chidzambwa or a Shonhayi, the dribbling wizardry of a Digital Takawira or the attacking brilliance of a Flying Doctor – a goalkeeper.
Their forward line, until the late arrival of Cuthbert Malajila, was led by a rookie rebellious forward, who appeared clueless at the beginning and you have to give credit to Lloyd Mutasa for his bravery to stick with him, when everyone appeared to doubt his ability, to deliver in the trenches of the Glamour Boys.
For a guy playing in his first Premiership season, Rodreck Mutuma eventually turned into a sensation, exploding in the second half of the year with a big game temperament last seen when Evans Gwekwerere arrived at the start of 2006, but for all his 14 league goals and more, this guy wasn’t anything near Charles Chirwa or Gift Mpariwa.
His double against CAPS United, in the second edition of the Harare Derby, was the highlight of his season and, crucially, he can get better, and it is to his eternal credit that he scaled all those barriers and, when it mattered most, Mutuma did well in the most demanding of all Dynamos roles outside the goalkeeper.
The Dynamos midfield looked okay but it lacked the experience and while Denver Mukamba and Archie Gutu were capable of one or two blinding shows, to do it consistently over the marathon proved too much for them and both men saw themselves spending time on the bench as the heat of the battles took their toll.
But what DeMbare lacked, in cutting edge, in its attack, and what they didn’t have, in terms of experience in the two young midfielders – Gutu and Mukamba – on whom a lot of great expectations had been built, this group of Glamour Boys made up for it with a defence, so punishing, Zifa would have been right to launch match-fixing investigations in the event they conceded more than three goals in a game against Barcelona.
Arubi has taken all the plaudits, and deservedly so after a great season as the last line of that defence, but someone will have to write a beautiful story to give credit to the great contributions from the quiet George Magariro, the Facebook comedian Guthrie Zhokinyi, the unassuming Gift Bello, the relaxed Thomas Magorimbo and the ageless David Kutyauripo.
In the sum of their defensive parts, Dynamos built its success story, never conceding a goal on their way to glory in the Mbada Diamonds Cup, never conceding a goal in head-to-head matches against FC Platinum, not conceding a goal against Bosso at Barbourfields and, in the final analysis, conceding the least number of goals in the campaign.
Mutasa assembled a team from scratch and, in the Champions League game against MC Alger at Rufaro, his boys really hit the heights with a performance so vintage it would probably rival, for sheer class, the one George Shaya and his Class of ’76 turned against Orlando Pirates at the same stadium one unforgettable rainswept afternoon. But in Algiers, Mutasa and his rookie Champions League lieutenants were given a ride so rough the majority of the stars of that first leg, including Mukamba, failed to recover from that nightmare and, trying to push them back on track, became a huge task for the coach against a background of the weight of expectations, in the stands, created by the performance of that first leg.
That the post-Algiers Dynamos struggled would probably not have surprised a number of sports psychologists and, sadly, when Mutasa needed an experienced hand like Malajila, just to bring in the stability his team needed and to breathe fear into the opponents, the transfer window could not open soon enough.
It’s easy to forget the huge part that Mutasa played in this Dynamos success story because football fans, football writers and football officials have very short memories and usually sail with the wind.
He started the race, ran into turbulence and Callisto Pasuwa had the guts and, crucially, the strategy that his team needed to stage the great comeback story and while the latter had a Midas Touch, losing only one league game when he didn’t have the services of his first choice goalkeeper, both men played a big part in the success story.
The Class of 2011 might not be remembered as a vintage Dynamos team.
But true fans of the Glamour Boys will fondly remember these guys as a group that gave them back their respect, a group that fought with the true spirit of Glamour Boys, a group that made them believe with that unforgettable win at Mandava, everything was again possible.
Just like that unforgettable ride into the final of the Champions League in 1998.

Tears In Zvishavane
FC Platinum shook the establishment in their maiden season in the Premiership and, to many neutrals, they became the team of choice because they were viewed as professional, different, classy, visionary, everything that most of our top-flight teams have not been all these years.
Suddenly, we had a Premiership club with so much money it could buy all the players it wanted, could hire the best coaches Zimbabwe could provide, could afford to turn a forgotten stadium into a first-class facility in just a few months and could give its players decent apartments and enough money to buy cars and live good lives.
Some critics have said that it’s not correct to label FC Platinum an entirely new club in the Premiership given that virtually all the players who fought in the trenches for its cause this season, save for Donald Dombo, were veterans of the top-flight league.
According to these guys, the only thing that was new was the identity of the club but the faces were all familiar and Charles Sibanda was the Soccer Star of the Year and, with his former Motor Action teammate Bekhi Ncube, they brought a championship-winning touch to FC Platinum.
If these guys could inspire Motor Action to the championship, in an environment where the financial incentives were not as good as those at FC Platinum, and combine their efforts with the likes of Marere, Maroto, the Ngodzo brothers, a Menard Mupera who appears to be getting better every year he becomes older, Norman Togara in a place where his focus is not affected by financial challenges, you name them, surely a championship could be secured.
To their credit, FC Platinum came close. Very, very close.
And, while their management team chose to stay in denial at their awards presentation ceremony last Saturday, preferring to describe themselves as joint leaders of the last Premiership race rather than second-place finishers, the reality is that they were runners-up and, in this brutal game, a miss is a good as a mile.
There is a feeling at FC Platinum that The Herald’s coverage of the final countdown of the championship race, especially when we introduced the graphic images that showed the gap that was disappearing between the miners and Dynamos, had a huge bearing on the outcome of the championship race and helped DeMbare.
Those who attended the club’s end-of-year awards ceremony last Saturday spoke about a number of veiled attacks, aimed at this newspaper, from the club’s management as they took turns to reflect on a season in which they came agonisingly close to success but came out empty handed.
Some have even said the animosity, repeatedly directed at Dynamos that evening, was a timely reminder that beyond that public relations masterstroke that came with an FC Platinum advertisement congratulating their rivals for their success, was the grim reality of the anger that still exists.
Incredibly, our journalist, Grace Chingoma, invited officially to the FC Platinum awards ceremony, was the only football writer who was denied an interview by Rahman Gumbo because, in her words, he doesn’t speak to The Herald. It’s his choice and we have to respect it.
But FC Platinum did not lose the championship in our newsroom or because of what we printed but, if they really care to analyse their season with the same professionalism they have invested in the running of their club, they will realise that they lost it that day at Mandava against Dynamos.
When you are at home, where you have never been beaten in the Premiership, and all you need is just a draw to be virtually assured of the title, and the opponents do not score but you inflict the damage by scoring an own goal to lose it all, you can’t look further than your camp for explanations.
I sincerely hope FC Platinum will be a better team next year and they can erase bitter memories of what happened this year by winning the league.
They are a good team and have set standards, in terms of how clubs should be run in this country, and you feel their efforts deserve something to go with it.

Feels Good CAPS Are United Again
Twine Phiri and Farai Jere found common ground this week and CAPS United didn’t waste time to invest in new players with Chris Samakwere the pick of the crop that arrived in the last few days.
I have always said it again and again that this Premiership needs a healthy and competitive CAPS United because it brings life to the scene.
If CAPS United were doing well this season, and Dynamos were on that roll that swept them to the championship, we would have had a more fascinating finale than the one we had in the last season.
But with CAPS United having long faded out of the picture in the championship race and having been knocked out in the first round of the Mbada Diamonds Cup, something was missing from the countdown as the battles reached the home stretch.
CAPS United have a huge obligation to win trophies for their fans who, at a crucial stage in the team’s history, chose to stay with the project managed by Phiri and Jere rather than support the cloned one that had been launched by CAPS Holdings.
When Dynamos do as well as they have done this season, there is nowhere where it hurts the most than in the CAPS United camp and, as the Green Machine fans will be expecting a response from their team come next season.
They can only do it if they are united and, just as well, the principal characters at the club have found common ground and, hopefully, everything will work out and CAPS United can end seven years of waiting for the league title by winning the big one next season.
For a club that spent 16 years waiting for its first post-independence title, seven years looks rather a short time but then it’s a measure of how ambitious and bullish CAPS United have become, after the turn of the millennium, that the current barren run is viewed as a crisis.

Bosso Got It Wrong
For a leadership that is set to ask for a fresh mandate from the electorate next month, with no guarantees that such a mandate will be given after what has happened to this great club in the past two years, the decision by the Bosso executive to fire coach Mkhuphali Masuku was premature.
Worse, still, was their decision to engage former player Kelvin Kaindu.
I can’t judge Kaindu because I have very little to base my judgment on and, who knows, he could turn into a great success story at a Bosso that badly needs technical inspiration and an overhaul of its playing staff.
But why would an executive, which could be out of office come next month, burden the incoming regime with a coach that was not their choice?
It’s a tricky situation and, hopefully, the current Bosso executive will get a fresh mandate and, hopefully, Kaindu will be a big success because, just like CAPS United, this Premiership badly needs a competitive and healthy Highlanders.

Chandamale Got It Wrong
Whatever Owen Chandamale is going to present in defence, and I guess he has a lot to say, will not take away the fact that he messed up BIG TIME when he virtually abandoned the Warriors in Tanzania after they had been knocked out of the Cecafa Cup.
A head of delegation who agrees to take the first available plane back home, leaving behind an entire team trapped in a foreign country and facing a huge crisis, is not worth his title.
But, then, all these head of delegations have been nothing but ceremonial leaders on a joy ride.
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Text Feedback – (International – +263772545199; Local – 0772545199)
Email – [email protected]
Skype – robson.sharuko10
You can also interact with ROBSON SHARUKO on Facebook and Twitter.