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Sharuko on Saturday

IN 1996, the Raylton Sports Club in Harare was a very happy place to hang around.

It had been converted into the home of CAPS United, where the Green Machine trained and where their officials and fans converged in the evening for a drink.

Their leader was Shepherd Bwanya, whose beaming smile appeared to always light up the occasion, a fearless man who felt it was his destiny to both confront and overcome the burden of history.

His beard and strong physical features, appeared to give him the appearance of a member of the elite Seal Team Six, the supermen who are sent into the toughest of covert operations.

But his passion for laughter soon gave away the reality he wasn’t a killer, but just a jolly good fellow, a man who loved life and all the challenges, which come with living.

The tougher the challenge, it appeared, the better he felt, always insisting history remembers, and glorifies, those who conquer Mount Everest and not those who scale the hills in the village.

Wellington Dangarembizi was his confidante.

Fate had, somehow, brought them together in the leadership of this football club, now challenging an old beast which, in Bwanya’s case, was a very familiar one.

The one from the Mbare neighbourhood, where he had grown up seeing and feeling its dominance from a ringside seat in the capital’s oldest high density suburb.

This heavyweight football club which, for years, had dominated the domestic scene, with a touch of ruthlessness, and an air of arrogance.

Bwanya and Dangarembizi were part of the so-called Damned Generation.

The one which, throughout the 1980s, had to deal with the pain of watching their favourite football club try, and fail, to win the league championship.

And, to make matters worse, it’s something which their biggest rivals, Dynamos, were doing with such regularity, they even now conducted an internal commission of enquiry, on the rare occasions they failed.

In 10 championship seasons, between 1980 and 1989, these Glamour Boys won the league championship SEVEN times, which is 70 percent of the occasions, while the others had to fight for the crumbs, of the other 30 percent.

This total dominance included FOUR league titles, which were won in a row, between ‘80s and ’83.

In the first SEVEN league championships, in the era of Independence, between 1980 and 1986, Dynamos won the title SIX times in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1986.

Only Black Rhinos, in 1984, managed to break the DeMbare juggernaut but, even that, was only for a season, as the Glamour Boys hit back, to win back the league championship, in ’85.

And, to demonstrate that 1984 had just been a blip, rather than a sign of a change in times, those Glamour Boys successfully defended the title, they reclaimed in 1985, the following year, in 1986.

Their dominance is best illustrated by the fact that only two other clubs, Black Rhinos (in 1984 and 1987) and Zimbabwe Saints (in 1988) were good enough to win the league championship, in the ‘80s.

CAPS United, who are DeMbare’s biggest city rivals, didn’t even win a single league championship, during that period, even though this was a very powerful Green Machine side.

One which, somehow, was good enough to dominate the knockout tournaments, including the prestigious Castle Cup, earning themselves the nickname, Cup Kings.

Incredibly, CAPS United won the Castle Cup four years, on the bounce, between 1980 and 1983 but, somehow, they just could not land their hands on the league championship, during that period.

So, why couldn’t they crack the code, in the 1980s, to win the league championship?

They had won it in 1979, which means they knew how to transform themselves into champions, and they were not a club burdened by the weight that comes with searching for their initial league title.

The Green Machine had been at the top of the mountain before, and knew the beautiful sight of the valley below, when it came to surveying the kingdom, which they would have conquered.

So, why were they now coming short, throughout the 1980s, in their quest to return to the Promised Land?

EVEN THE GREAT SINYO COULDN’T MAKE THEM CHAMPIONS IN THE ‘80S

 In this grim landscape, for everyone who didn’t subscribe to the Glamour Boys’ cause, for anyone who yearned for the beauty of competition, Bwanya and Dangarembizi grew up.

It was a world, where they kept being told their beloved Green Machine were victims of a curse, in the ‘80s, in which they were fated, never to be champions.

It was a world, where they kept being told Stanley Ndunduma had to leave Makepekepe, for him to win a league championship, during that decade, with Black Rhinos.

Sinyo, the only player good enough to win Soccer Star of the Year award twice, in the ‘80s had, somehow, not been able to inspire the Green Machine to the championship, during the same decade.

In 1981, when he won his first Soccer Star of the Year award, he was the CAPS United golden boy.

But, while he was the best player in the country, by a considerable mile, he could not inspire the Green Machine to league championship glory that year.

And, he wasn’t the only one, among the stars who tried, and failed, to win the league championship, in the CAPS United colours, throughout the 1980s.

Joel Shambo, regarded by some as the greatest CAPS United son-of-all-time, whose immortality was secured when he chose to remain at the Green Machine, rather than follow the money and join Rhinos, didn’t win them the league title, in the ‘80s.

At his peak, Jubilee was their poster boy, whose handsome features combined with his athletic excellence to produce a hybrid of an athlete who, at full flow, in that midfield, was an irresistible force of nature.

They will never forget him at the Green Machine.

Because he is truly one of them, the one who remained committed to their cause, even when the days were dark, who refused to be wooed by the magic of El Dorado, and chose to dedicate the remainder of his career to their cause.

By the time he ventured into coaching, Jubilee had to look elsewhere for opportunities.

And, in 1995, working in tandem with his former CAPS United teammate, Shacky Tauro, they came close to winning the league championship.

They dragged newboys Blackpool to the edges of paradise, in a riveting battle against DeMbare, which went all the distance, before it was decided, under a cloud of controversy, on the final day of the season.

The decision by the PSL for Dynamos to play their final match of the season against Rhinos a day after Blackpool had completed their campaign was an insult to the virtues of Fair Play.

It gave the Glamour Boys the benefit of knowing exactly the result they wanted, for them to be champions, on the final day of the season.

And, that the PSL were then under the chairmanship of DeMbare boss, Morrison Sifelani, fed to the conspiracy that the playing field had been tilted to favour the Harare giants.

But, while many decided to concentrate on the injustice, which had been inflicted on the Blackpool family, Bwanya and Dangarembizi chose to concentrate on the rainbow of light which they saw in that dark cloud.

So, they decided to bring the Darryn T stars, who had transformed Blackpool into a force good enough to run Dynamos close, into the Green Machine stable.

Their gamble was that with the backing of a bigger football constituency, which CAPS United guaranteed, these boys would provide the missing link to help the Green Machine finally cross the line.

And, Bwanya and Dangarembizi also believed their investment in a coach, who wasn’t burdened by the Green Machine’s well-documented history of failure, when it came to the league championship, in the ‘80s, would probably provide them with the leader they wanted, to finally cross the line.

That he had played for Dynamos, at some part of his career, didn’t matter to them.

The mission was to try and win the championship, about shaping the future, rather than being crippled, by the demons of the past.

It was about trying to bury the ghost, which had haunted them for more than 15 years, and what mattered was where they were going, rather than where they were coming from.

And, if a former Dynamos man could help them reach the Promised Land, so be it.

So, Steve Kwashi was hired, to provide the leadership, which they believed CAPS United needed, to finally end years of failure, when it comes to trying to reach the Promised Land.

THEY WILL NEVER FORGET THE DUDE AT THE GREEN MACHINE

 A lot of coaches can win a league championship.

But, very few of them can win it in a way it becomes part of a club’s folklore, it becomes a big part of football history, something which has to be mentioned, when people talk of a certain era.

It’s like that Ferguson moment in 1993, after the Scotsman finally found a way to end Manchester United’s lengthy wait for a league title, spanning more than a quarter-of-a-century.

The Red Devils have since won a dozen other league championships, since Fergie ended their long wait, but that one, in 1993, still stands out, because it is the one that broke the barriers.

The vintage images from that campaign still stand frozen in gold — assistant coach Brian Kidd on his knees, on the turf at Old Trafford, after United had scored twice in time added on to beat Sheffield Wednesday and virtually secure the title.

Steve Bruce, of all people, venturing into the penalty area in the madness of those six minutes of added time to twice connect with headers and drag his team to a victory which was worth its weight in gold.

For CAPS United fans, the drama of ’96, when Kwashi finally dragged them past the finishing line and, for the first time since Independence, made them enjoy the joy that comes with being league champions, is something that will never be forgotten.

One got a feeling, watching the Green Machine in action, that these were players, who had been freed by their coach to go out there, forget about the past, which had been cruel to them, and enjoy themselves.

For them to go out there, without being burdened by the weight of a history of failure, when it comes to this ultimate race, but to be inspired by the probability of success which they were chasing, not as individuals, but as a team.

For them to believe the past was behind them and the future is what mattered.

And, they shouldn’t be troubled by things which they couldn’t change, which was now part of history, but what they could influence, which was now their story.

He challenged them to free the beast inside them, and confront the opposition with a streak of ruthlessness that would mean most of their opponents would be beaten long before the two teams plunged into the battlefront.

The whole reason why Dynamos had been dominant, for so long, he told them, was that the recruits were told of the Glamour Boys’ history, where there was no room for failure, where only excellence was expected.

They listened to his message because he was talking from experience, after all, at some point in his career, he had found himself, being exposed to what happens at the Glamour Boys, when he joined them as a player.

So, this wasn’t just a Mickey Mouse coach, trying to impress his players, but he was an experienced gaffer who understood the value of success because, he kept telling them, in this brutal game, no one remembered those who came second.

They had a chance to make history, to be remembered as the group which finally ended the lengthy wait for the league championship.

And, the onus was on them to embrace the challenge and find immortality or, like many before them, be classified as those who failed.

Today’s analysts claim this was a CAPS United team fated to be champions because, in their world, they tell each other, there was too much firepower in the side, for them to fail.

They forget the Green Machine lost the services of their leading goal-scorer, Alois Bunjira, midway through the season even though by then, he had scored enough goals that no one would overhaul his tally, in the race for the Golden Boot.

They forget Dynamos finished the campaign with more goals (79) than CAPS United (75) and the Glamour Boys even finished the campaign with a slightly better defensive record (26 goals conceded compared to 27 for Makepekepe).

They forget that in the end, it was just a three-point difference (CAPS with 71 points and Dynamos with 68 points).

And, had Mpumelelo Dzowa’s late free-kick not given the Green Machine a priceless point, and had DeMbare won that match, the two giants would have ended with 70 points.

The Glamour Boys, in that scenario, would have been champions, by virtue of goal difference.

But, Kwashi’s Makepekepe was built to never give up, it’s a character which they rarely get credit for but which, when it mattered most, provided the difference, as they finally won a league championship, for the first time, after Independence.

That the priceless point came against the very beast which, throughout the ‘80s, had subjected them to a nightmare, was special.

And Kwashi, also known as The Dude, had come, fought and conquered.

They will never forget him at CAPS United because, unlike the others, he refused to embrace mediocrity and took them to the top of the mountain.

And, from there, they saw the Promised Land.

To God Be The Glory!

Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys in the struggle.

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

Khamaldinhoooooooooooooooooo!

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