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Eddie Chikamhi

Senior Sports Reporter

EX-ZIMBABWE Rugby Union board member Gerald Maguranyanga says the former leader of the game — Dave Morgan —  who passed away this week, was one of a kind.

Maguranyanga, the founder of Chimurenga Rugby Club, feels Morgan was a passionate administrator during the transitional period after the county’s independence.

“As a rugby aficionado, I would like to pass my heartfelt condolences to Dave Morgan’s wife, Mrs Morgan, and his surviving family,’’ said Maguranyanga.

“The late Morgan, I eventually got to know very well, though he was ZRU president just after the turn of Independence, and I was like 10 years-old then.

‘’I was privileged to work with him for years, in the early 90s, albeit at a very difficult transitional period.

‘’Mr Morgan provided liberal counsel as fighting raged, cognisant that far-reaching change at the ZRU was imminent.’’

Morgan was ZRU president between 1981-1983 and, again in 1986 to 1989.

Rugby then was a minority sport with racial biases. Maguranyanga was one of the activists, under the leadership of the fiery Temba Mliswa, who led a massive anti-establishment rebellion in the early 1990s, against perceived racism in the game.

Their relentless fight then shook the Sport and Recreation Commission and the Ministry of Sport and, inevitably, ushered in serious change that resulted in two seats reserved for black clubs on the ZRU board.

The prominent black clubs then, Chimurenga and Bulawayo’s Highlanders, would vote onto the Zimbabwe Rugby Union board, Maguranyanga and Highlanders’ Charles Shangare.

“Morgan came from an old era when rugby was prestigious and a bastion of white rugby administrators. And, it must be said fairly, rugby was very well run as a sport, being even especially well run, in the years Mr Morgan was president.

‘’I can’t give the same plaudits today, with the ZRU under a formal corruption and theft investigation by the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission.

“Zimbabwean rugby’s enduring handicap was its racist past, as dictated by colonial Rhodesia that expressly forbade and ruthlessly punished, the mixing of whites and blacks. Rugby had to shed its past as a whites-only sport-of-prestige after Independence, but there was a heavy disinclination by the whole 100-year-old system and racist culture.’’

He said the pillars would not fall easily.

“Up until 1990, there were virtually no black administrators at the clubs, provinces, let alone at the ZRU Head Office, or the flagship national rugby squad where by then, you could count on the fingers of one hand, indigenous African players,’’ said Maguranyanga. Rugby is a delightful game that, though it caused intolerable ructions between blacks and whites, it also, ironically,  dispensed a great platform for unity between the former antagonist races.

“Rugby shone under Dave Morgan, who led Zimbabwe to a first-ever qualification-of-sorts at the inaugural World Cup New Zealand in 1987 and was still heavily involved in the game by the 1991 World Cup. But, it is incorrect to label rugby elitist in the 80s-and-before period. Rugby was racist, period. Elitist conjures images of rich white people running around with a rugby ball and poor white kids relegated to soccer.

‘’Wrong!

“Rich white kids played rugby at elite schools such as Peterhouse, Falcon etc. Poor white boys played rugby at Government schools like Gifford and Plumtree in Bulawayo and at Prince Edward and Churchill in Harare and so on.

“So, your ticket to playing organised rugby was just simple white pigmentation. The fact is, rugby was an unrepentant and hardcore racist culture by as late as the early 1990s. And there was little or no room for keen black ruggers.’’

Because of this, said Maguranyanga, change was inevitable.

“Change was needed and the strong-and-bright Temba Mliswa led headstrong ‘dissidents’ that included myself, and the legendary national player, the outspoken Victor Olonga, who spoke strongly against the racial make-up of Zimbabwean rugby, at all levels,’’ said Maguranyanga.

“In the course of a difficult period, Morgan, who continued to freely avail his experience and legal acumen to rugby, and other moderates like the late High Court judge, Justice Robinson, dispensed a lot of wisdom to young hotheads that would have entirely crushed and burned rugby.

“Funny how for me, Morgan’s enduring legacy will be his impeccable suits, in conformity with his societal standing in business I guess, and the leather, executive briefcase that seemingly accompanied him, wherever he went. 

‘’May his soul Rest In Peace.’’