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NEAR misses, heartaches, tears, triumph and jubilation — it has been quite a journey, for FC Platinum, a 25-year-old adventure of mixed fortunes.

While the journey of a thousand miles, in the Chinese proverb, starts with a single step, FC Platinum’s voyage began with an idea.

A simple idea to kill boredom, among Mimosa Mining Company employees residing at the mine, in Zvishavane.

And, on Saturday July 1, 1995, that idea became Mimosa Football Club, a social football club.

A kick-about, to steam off after a long week’s toil, was what the workers sought.

They had little or no idea at all that years later, their team would be a force to reckon with, not only in Zimbabwe, but in Africa.

Typical of most ideas, few can fathom their actual potential when they’re born.

Is there a force on earth that can stop an idea whose time has come?

One French poet and novelist of the Romantic movement once opined that, “One resists the invasion of armies, but one does not resist the invasion of ideas”.

Another idea was mooted.

The team got promoted into Division Two, where it played for two years before being promoted into Division One, Zimbabwe’s second-tier football league.

Division One football proved tough, in the then ZIFA Southern Region League, and Mimosa FC slumped back into the unfashionable Division Two league in the same year.

They were domiciled there for a couple of years.

But, come 2004, Mimosa FC returned into Division One, albeit, not for good.

This stint ended in glory, a few years later, when the team exited the league, albeit not from the bottom this time around, but from the top.

They were crowned ZIFA Central Soccer League Champions in 2011 to gain promotion into Zimbabwe’s top-flight football league, the Premier Soccer League.

It wasn’t an easy rise, one that Luke Petros and John Phiri helped orchestrate in a four-year flirtation with the club before Jairos Tapera finished the job in 2011.

In the same year, the team rebranded from Mimosa FC to FC Platinum, a brand whose footprints are now indelibly etched, not only in Zimbabwe, but African football.

Three years later, in 2014, the team was weaned off Mimosa Mining Company’s funding and the sponsorship was wholly taken over by FC Platinum Holdings.

FC Platinum’s nine-year (and counting) dance with the cream of Zimbabwe’s football, has been a tale of mixed fortunes.

The team’s PSL story has been underlined by pain, heartaches, tears, triumph and jubilation.

In their maiden year in top-flight football, FC Platinum, painfully lost the title to Dynamos after finishing the season – level on points with the Harare giants – but with an inferior goal difference.

It was hotly-fought title race, which many football pundits believe was decided on that fateful November afternoon at Mandava Stadium.

With the teams deadlocked at 0-0 in the 66th minute, steely defender Daniel Vheremu headed into his own net, to give Dynamos a narrow win, with a just a single game left to end the season.

Dynamos went on top and did not relent.

FC Platinum got the silver medal, a painful end to what would have been fairytale debut season in the Premiership.

The pain was to be soothed, that’s what happens to institutions which don’t give up.

In hindsight, FC Platinum look at their maiden PSL season with some measure of consolation after finishing as semi-finalists in the Mbada Diamonds Cup, the then richest knockout tournament in Zimbabwe.

On November 24, The Herald screamed with a headline “No shame for brave FC Platinum,” to aptly capture the extraordinary feat the Zvishavane side had achieved.

It was a sign of better things to come.

The unrelenting FC Platinum went on to clinch their first PSL title in 2017, becoming the second team, after St Paul’s Musami 51 years earlier, outside the Metropolitan provinces of Harare and Bulawayo to attain such greatness.

The reigning Zimbabwean champions have since added two more PSL titles in consecutive fashion (2018 and 2019) to their trophy cabinet.

FC Platinum have danced in Africa’s football safari, courtesy of their local success stories.

In their maiden bow in the African safari in 2012, the team was eliminated in the first round of the CAF Champions League.

In the 2018 campaign, FC Platinum reached the preliminary round of the tournament.

Pure Platinum Play have reached the group stages of the CAF Champions League twice, in the 2018-19 and the 2019-20 campaigns.

The reigning Zimbabwe football kings have also had a feel of the CAF Confederation Cup, despite ending in the first round of the 2015 campaign. But 2020 promises bigger things for the team.

For firm believers of the Horoscope, the Year 2020 will be a good year for Cancer zodiac. FC Platinum were founded on July 1, 1995.

The rest is history. And, as Marcus Garvey once said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”