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Sharuko On Saturday

ZHENYA died, it was around midday, on December 28, 1941, yet another human statistic, in the catastrophe which consumed the ‘City of the Dead.’

The following month, her grandmother, Yevdokiya Grigorievna died, it was around 3pm, on January 25, 1942.

By May, that year, five other members of the family were also dead, each of them another grim human cost, of this man-made conflict, and tragedy.

Today, the world remembers her simply as Tanya.

The tragic Russian girl who endured and documented the tragedy of watching all her family members perish in just a matter of five months, during World War II.

For 871 days, from September 8, 1941, until January 27, 1994, this brave and beautiful city, which is now called St Petersburg, had to withstand a blockade, and severe bombardment.

The Germans were trying to wipe it off the world’s map, crushing both the city and its residents through a combination of heavy bombardment and starvation.

“The menu in Leningrad, during this period of the war included wallpaper, window putty and soup made of boiled leather,’’ the German news agency, DW News, recalled.

“At first, the dogs and cats disappeared, then there were no birds anymore, they were eaten, it was done out of pure desperation, in order to survive, and not go crazy.’’

I have spent a big part of my life watching documentaries about the Great War, the grainy footage, the colour versions, the death and the destruction.

I have also spent a huge chunk of my life reading about the Great War, about heroes and heroines, and also about the villains and the vampires.

The brutal siege of Leningrad, and the defiance of the city, which refused to give in to the madness or Adolf Hitler, remains an incredible confrontation of good versus evil.

The Nazis kept on dropping leaflets on the city, with the chilling words “Leningrad — The City of the Dead,’’ claiming they had completely destroyed it.

“We will not take her yet but only because we are scared of an epidemic from the bodies,’’ the Nazis claimed, in their leaflets.

“We have wiped this city from the face of the earth.’’

More than two million people, of which 800 000 of them were civilians, are thought to have died during the blockade of this city, the majority of them starving to their deaths.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the start of the siege by the German and Finnish troops.

A number of events have been carried out around the world to mark the moment everything changed for this city.

One of the most powerful images is provided by Tanya and the pages of her diary have become a graphic reminder of the human cost of that siege.

Today, a memorial complex along the city’s Road of Life provides the world with a haunting reminder of a brave girl who chronicled the death of her family amid the ruins of war.

“Tanya wrote a diary which has become a Russian national treasure,’’ the narrator of the latest television documentary, which I watched this week, says.

“In nine pages, Tanya sums up her ordeal — ‘December 28, Zhenya died, January 25th, grandma died, March 17th, Leka died, April 13th, Uncle Vasya died, May 10th, Uncle Lesha died, May 13, mama died, the Savichevs are dead, everyone is dead, only Tanya is left.’

“The 10th page would never be written because Tanya has died of exhaustion.’’

Her full name was Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva.

She was just 12, when she chronicled this personal horror, and only 14, when she died of intestinal tuberculosis.

FOOTBALL, IT’S MUCH MORE THAN JUST A GAME

Today, Zenit St Petersburg, an ambitious football club which dreams of one day transforming themselves into the champions of Europe, are the pride of this city.

They won the UEFA Cup in 2008 and the UEFA Super Cup in the same year.

But, even that success, including being eight-time Russian champions, pales into insignificance when compared to a game which was played in their home city, in May 1942.

FourFourTwo, the authoritative international football magazine, penned a powerful article, on March 25, 2013, about the match, under the headline, ‘Football in the City of The Dead.’

“There was no glory, no glittering trophy or hero as such, but amid the utter devastation and suffering wrought by Germany’s brutal siege of Leningrad, during World War Two, a football match took place,’’ read their report.

“For its war-weary people, Dinamo Leningrad versus Nevsky Zavod was not just an allegory of resistance, but a defiant gesture that their city would not surrender.

“Conditions were appalling, and made worse by one of the harshest winters in decades that saw temperatures plummet to -35 degrees Celsius.

“But, Leningraders would not submit, indeed, sport became a means by which to raise spirits and show the Germans that life continued.

“The important fact is that on 31 May 1942, Dinamo played Nevsky Zavod (the metal plant team that was, in essence, Zenit) in a fixture that became testimony to the city’s strong spirit and resilience.

“Some players even returned from the front for the match.

“Last year, on its 70th anniversary, a monument honouring the two sides was unveiled on Krestovsky Island and the match recreated to honour those who provided Leningraders with a beacon of hope, in its darkest hour.’’

That is the amazing power of football, a game which even can cheer the spirits of a city enduring a barbaric blockade, as was the case with Leningrad, and its defiant people.

A people who, even though they had been brought to their knees, still found the strength to organise a football match, send two clubs into battle and, for a moment, forget all the challenges which had rolled onto their doorstep.

A powerful game which, in the First World War, saw British and German troops abandon their trenches on the Western Front and during the Christmas Truce of 1914, play a football match.

An incredible game which, in 1967, saw the warring factions in the Nigerian Civil War, declare a 48-hour ceasefire, when Pele came to town on tour with his club, Santos.

A magical game which, by 1982, had turned the great Brazilian into someone who needed no introduction around the world, even in the company of a United States president.

“I am Ronald Reagan, president of the United States of America,’’ Reagan said when he met Pele.

“But, you don’t need to introduce yourself, because everyone knows who Pele is.”

All these things left me wondering, this week, whether we really understand, let alone appreciate, the power of football in this country.

I have no doubt that the loyal fans of the game understand, and appreciate, because that is why they have kept hanging on for all the suffering they have been made to endure in what has clearly been an insult to their patronage.

An abuse of their loyalty, disrespecting their patronage, mocking their commitment, offending their dedication, poking at their faith, an affront to their devotion and a shameless attack on their affection.

A people whose faith in the game cannot be questioned.

A people whose loyalty knows no boundaries, not because they get anything out of it but simply because it’s in their DNA to love it.

A people who love their Warriors, this team of their fatherland, in a special way in which they could even provide FIFA with a template of a perfect relationship, between a national team, and its fans .

To imagine this is a team, which took 23 years after Independence to qualify for their first AFCON finals, makes this relationship even more special, and highlights the amazing strength of their bond.

On Tuesday, they were back in mourning, after another opportunity to see their boys play at the World Cup finals came and went, with the light finally being extinguished by the Black Stars in the very place we call our home.

But, it’s also true that we created the conditions for that to happen, in what was yet another exhibition of the lack of both understanding, and appreciation, of the power of this game, by some key people in leadership positions, in our game.

It’s like we asked our boys to try and conquer Mount Everest, without oxygen, challenged them to win the Tour de France, while racing in a scotch cart, and asked them to beat Lewis Hamilton, while driving a Datsun 120Y.

Why?

Simply because, when it comes to our game’s leadership, we don’t yet understand, let alone appreciate, the importance of football.

We don’t sit down to try and read, so that we can understand, and possibly appreciate, that football is not a matter of life and death, but something which is much more than that.

A NATIONAL GAME WHOSE FLAME IS BEING EXTINGUISHED

Don’t tell us it’s about financial resources, or the lack of them, because the legendary Johan Cruyff told the world, “I’ve never seen a bag of money score a goal,’’ in one of the game’s iconic quotes.

Because, only last month, we saw Sheriff Tiraspo, who represent Moldova, Europe’s poorest country with a per capita GDP of US$1 679, go to the Santiago Bernabeu and beat mighty Real Madrid, in the UEFA Champions League.

Because, last week, we saw the Central African Republic go into the cauldron of Lagos and inflict Nigeria’s first World Cup qualifying defeat, at home, in 40 years.

Ranked 124th in the world, the CAR, a country that has been ravaged by civil war since 2012, where basketball is more popular than football, is ranked the third poorest nation on the continent.

They had never won a World Cup qualifier until they beat Botswana 2-0 in Bangui, in 2012 with their last match, in the qualifiers, having come in 2000, in a 1-4 defeat to the Warriors.

With a population of just about 4,7 million people, the CAR took on a country with about 200 million people, whose stars play for some of the world’s leading clubs, but still beat them 1-0 in Lagos.

But, according to the globe’s leading football statisticians, the CAR’s victory in Nigeria, was even a lesser shock, when compared to our loss at the hands of Somalia, in the 2022 World Cup preliminary round qualifiers.

That should tell us a story about where the world believes we should be, given the type of players that we have.

Of course, we recovered from that defeat, with two late goals by Knox Mutizwa and Khama Billiat helping us win 3-1, at the National Sports Stadium.

It’s a victory which, with the passage of time, has proved to have simply deceived us, as it pampered the cracks and provided a painkiller, rather than a cure, for the challenges, that have been devouring our national game.

Today, we have people wondering how on earth was it possible that our Warriors could arrive in Harare, about 16 hours after their Ghanaian opponents, this week?

And, just about 24 hours, before their biggest World Cup qualifier?

The one on which their entire quest, for a place in Qatar, now rested, with a victory buying us not only time but a certain degree of hope that, should we win our final two qualifiers, we could squeeze through.

Of course, ZIFA provided an explanation, when they said it was the earliest possible flight path they could get, given the team was traveling on a commercial flight, and not a chartered plane.

But, while the association might have a point, it’s hard for them to sell that to the public, especially one which still remembers that scores of ZIFA councillors were flown, on a chartered Air Zimbabwe plane to watch the 2019 AFCON finals.

And, it’s hard to sell that to the public when, just three months after that, we watched helplessly, as our Mighty Warriors boycotted an Olympic qualifier, over unpaid dues.

It remains probably the first, and only time, in the history of international football, that the hosts have boycotted a match, in their backyard.

Just three years earlier, they had transformed themselves into the sweethearts of world football by qualifying for the Olympics.

But now they were boycotting an Olympic qualifier, which they were supposed to host, in their backyard.

In every girl child, there is a bit of Tanya in them.

The challenges which life throws at them, in a world where they have to struggle to justify they are just the same human beings, as their male counterparts, are the same.

Tanya faced the ultimate horror, which any human being can endure, but she was still brave enough to chronicle it all.

Two weeks after her mother’s death, her battered city turned to football, through the symbolic ‘Blockade Match’, to show the Germans they had chosen the wrong target, to try and crush.

For the Mighty Warriors, just like for every Zimbabwean, there is a feeling right now that the beautiful game, which means so much to them, is now dying a natural death.

Somehow, a game, which survived the siege of Leningrad, is being choked to death, in this country.

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 United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ronaldoooooooooooooooooo!

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You can also interact with me on Twitter (@Chakariboy), Facebook, Instagram (sharukor) and Skype (sharuko58) and GamePlan, the authoritative football magazine show on ZTV, where I interact with the legendary Charles Mabika, is back every Wednesday night at 9.30pm