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Elliot Ziwira

Senior Writer

ABOUT 13km to the south-west of Harare lies a glen rich in talent.

This valley has never been short of renewal batteries yet the radar appears to shy away from it.

Colonial governments named this space, Glen Norah, and Independence has long since baptised it.

It is a valley of talent, having produced stars cutting across all spectrums of human endeavour, and continues to do so.

Curiously, the griot, our modern recorder of history avoids this area.

I grew up in Glen Norah A, kuChitubu, kumalines eMetal Box, to be precise.

And, I must say I have interacted, at a personal level, with many celebrities and luminaries, cutting across many professional fields.

Reading was a pastime then.

We would share stories from novels (Shona and English), and anything in print.

We would go kufirimu at Glen Norah Hall, courtesy of Mandebvu Film Shows.

We would also watch football at Glen Norah Stadium, or at the playground (pamatombo) to the south of Glen Norah Hall.

There was one team, Bvekerwa, which I still remember from those nostalgic days.

Six or seven days in a week, we would set our goalposts in the streets, and play football.

Eight times out of 10 we knew the drivers, and occupants, of the passing jalopies (Zephyr Zodiacs, Morris Minors, Ford Cortinas, Peugeot 404s/504s, Toyota Crowns and “half-tonnes”) by name.

We would play a fast passing game, whose rather vulgar name I cannot repeat here – the one in which a guy would be chasing the ball and, whoever had the misfortune of losing it, became the tail chaser, you remember it?

We would draw lines to mark tennis courts on the tarred roads, yes, neatly tarred roads.

There were no dusty streets in the ghetto of our youths.

With our improvised rackets we would sweat it out on the “court” until Papa appeared, and we would know that it was time to water the garden.

And, if it so happened that one of our peers chanced on a real soccer ball, golf ball or cricket ball, gosh, it would be hallelujah.

We would immediately create pitches and improvise golf sticks and bats, to hoist ourselves into the hilarious world of the other side of the quo.

We would walk to Afgate, in the Willowvale industrial area, to fetch pieces of wire for the designing pleasure of “car manufacturers” among us.

I guess we had so much energy to spare.

That way, talents were identified and nurtured, in the ghetto streets of our dreams.

There was so much raw talent waiting to be discovered, or discovering itself, maybe.

We would share books, magazines and newspapers.

However, in these spaces we will limit our scope to sport talent.

From Glen Norah, we will move to other neighbourhoods of our ghetto pride to relive the sporting experiences we shared and continue to share as a people.

Glen Norah produced quite a number of football stars, some of whom have long since hung up their boots, some have departed to the other side of life across the bridge.

And, some are still actively involved in the beautiful game in their own small ways.

These stars fall into different eons.

There is no way one can write about football in Zimbabwe, without mentioning the name George “Mastermind” Shaya.

I am not a Dynamos fan; that I must tell you.

Though we grew up as karate disciples, my brother Shepherd and I were football fanatics.

We fell for CAPS United, the moment we “discovered” football, because we knew most of the players like Freddy Mkwesha, Shacky “Mr Goals” Tauro, Friday “Breakdown” Phiri, Oliver Chidemo; and later on Tobias “Rock Steady” Sibanda, Francis and George Nechironga, Oscar “Simbimbino” Motsi  and Kudzanayi Taruvinga.

There were houses, and a flat, for CAPS Private Limited employees, the owners of CAPS United Football Club then, in the glen.

We had friends kuZvimba, where these houses were, and whose parents worked for CAPS.

We frequented the green CAPS block of flats in Glen Norah A.

So, naturally, CAPS United was our home team. My late father and brother, Andrew (late) were avid Dynamos fans.

My father had a personal attachment to some players like Simon Mudzudzu, July “Jujuju” Sharara, Shadreck and Oliver Kateya, who once played for Metal Box, and later joined the Glamour Boys.

My mother supports Dynamos because of the same attachment.

I wanted to always remind them of the day the Cup Kings – CAPS United – beat Dynamos for seven (7-0).

It was mainly for my father and brother, as well as the Metal Box connection at the personal level, that I developed a soft spot for the Glamour Boys, although I worshipped Makepekepe (Shaisa Mufaro), and still do.

The other reason being that the Mastermind’s story escaped from the books we read in school, to carry a personal attachment linked to his son Stan, and my friend Sylvester Kasikwale.

Sly is an uncle to the Mastermind, and I first met the legend through him.

The legend has a house kuSpaceman.

But before then, I simply couldn’t ignore the Razorman, Moses Chunga, another great from our hood.

I know those from other hoods may want to claim him (I will explain why).

Born on October 30, 1946, George Shaya played for Dynamos and the Rhodesian national team, during the 1960s and 1970s.

He won the Soccer Star of the Year a record five times, including three times on the trot, and it is not off the mark to say Shaya has no equal in Zimbabwean football.

He also made it into the South African league, turning out for Moroka Swallows in 1975.

Now, the Mastermind has not only long hung up his boots, but has also lost part of the apparatus with which he plotted the downfall of many a rival on the turf — his left foot, through amputation of the lower limb of his leg.

May the football gods and history’s deities remember the talismanic Mastermind!

He is a hero, not only to the Glen Norah community, but to the nation of Zimbabwe.

Oliver Kateya, Shadreck Kateya, Simon Mudzudzu and July “Jujuju” Sharara, Oliver Chidemo, Freddy Mkwesha, Jawet Nechironga, David Mandigora and David George fall into the generation of yesteryear greats, whom we had no chance to witness play, but have known since childhood.

They were from our hood and we interacted with them as our parents.

The Metal Box link is simply difficult to overlook here.

For those not in the know, Metal Box featured in the Rhodesia National Football League (1962-1979), the precursor to the Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League (known as the Super League then), and won the championship in 1973 (the year in which the team was promoted into the First Division), with Highlanders as runners-up.

To be continued next week…