A JOURNEY INTO THE PAST. . domestic football revives romance with the fans FC Platinum players

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
FOR all the drama and chaos at Barbourfields on Saturday, including the sorry sight of Benjani Mwaruwari being forced to scale barriers to force his way into the stadium, there was a silver lining to the shame that stalked the beautiful game.

Domestic football, which for years now has been losing the magic which used to bring thousands of fans to the stadium, appeared to have found its soul again with a breathtaking revival of its romance with the supporters.

It might have been only for this game, ironically a neutral venue for the two teams in action, but all the same it was such a beautiful sight.
And a timely reminder, if we ever needed empirical evidence, that local fans still have a very strong attachment with football and all they are crying for is a good game.

Sadly, the mediocrity which has been synonymous with most of the domestic Premiership matches has been testing this beautiful romance to the limit and forcing many to stay at home rather than come to the stadiums. Falling attendance figures have become the norm in our local leagues, the Premiership included and a number of matches have been played in virtually empty stadiums.

The struggles of the traditional giants, especially the way Dynamos have lost their way in recent years as they limp from one crisis to the other, haven’t helped matters either. And the poaching of every decent footballer who emerges on the scene, by the South African clubs, has also meant the country’s number one sporting discipline has been seeing a gradual sucking of life out of its arenas.

On the few occasions a game has attracted 10 000 fans, this has been hailed as isolated success story, an island of hope in a raging ocean of hopelessness. But, then, on Saturday in the City of Kings, something changed.

For many seasoned observers, who have followed this game for a long time, it was like a return to the ‘80s and ‘90s when domestic football used to be a powerful box office attraction with packed stadiums the order of the day.

A journey back into a time when fans would start arriving at the stadiums as early as 10am and by midday the ground would be filled with bustling life with the stands painted by some beautiful colours. When going to the local stadiums was a weekly pilgrimage for thousands of fans whose strong attachment to the game knew no bounds and whose loyalty to their clubs was without question.

And when families used to come to the stadiums as a unit — the father, the mother and the kids — and life was very good for domestic football with a lot of money flowing from the gates and into its systems. Of course, there was always a feeling that Saturday’s game was different.

Orlando Pirates, the South African football powerhouse who have a very huge support base in Bulawayo, were in town for the first time in their 82-year history. They really love these Sea Robbers in the City of Kings where Highlanders fans have always shared an identity with these Pirates — finding similarity with their black-and-white colours and pre-match formalities like the crossed bones.

And they had Kuda Mahachi, the Warriors midfielder who started his football journey in this city, long before he became a Buccaneer and even tried his luck at French club Monaco, making his homecoming show in the colours of these Pirates. They also had Marshall Munetsi, the rapidly improving enforcer who has been making waves for the Warriors, and whose talent appears destined to take him to Europe sooner than later.

FC Platinum officials also knew of the huge interest generated by this game and they printed 23 000 tickets which, for the first time in the club’s history, were all sold out. Given the massive crowd which, unfortunately could not make it into the packed stadium and had to go back home, observers believed that even a 60 000-seater stadium would have been filled to capacity on Saturday.

Pirates have never seen anything like this, even for their home matches when the opposition is not Kaizer Chiefs, let alone on their travels across Africa. To find themselves so much loved, by more than three-quarters of the fans inside the stadium in a match being played outside South Africa, was a journey into the world of fantasy for them.

That’s why they took time to go around the stadium, after the game had ended, saluting the thousands of fans who paid to come and cheer their cause with Soweto, the bay which houses the hardcore Bosso loyalists, giving them the biggest cheer. Debate will rage for days, if not weeks, why the majority of the Bosso fans chose to sing in Pirates’ corner that day and whether supporting a team flying the Zimbabwean flag would not have been appropriate.

And there will be others who will sympathise with FC Platinum for being made to feel so unloved in a game where they were the home team.
But such a debate can wait for another day because, for those who really love domestic football, what was important on Saturday was seeing the revival of the romance between this game and its fans.

“I think we last saw something like this, in terms of numbers, before or around the turn of the millennium when Bosso were winning four straight titles,” ZIFA vice-president Gift Banda told The Herald.

“This is just amazing and it shows that the fans still love their football and all they need is a package that makes it attractive for them to come back to the stadiums in numbers.

“For us, as ZIFA, this is a lesson as we prepare for the big match against Congo-Brazzaville in March in terms of how we should organise such a big game and how to deal with all the challenges we are likely to face.”

Domestic football, battling to win the hearts and minds of the fans it has lost along the way, could not have asked for a better start to the New Year. Of course, the chaos at the gates on Saturday will always be the one area of negativity that spoiled what would have been a perfect day.

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