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Prof Moyo

Bulawayo Bureau
TSHOLOTSHO North Member of Parliament and Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo yesterday hailed Tsholotsho’s successful fight against Premiership relegation as a major achievement for a club that came from a rural community.

Tsholotsho retained their Premiership status on the final day of the season when they held Harare City 1-1 at White City while Buffaloes fell 0-1 to former champions Dynamos to bow out of the top-flight league.

Coach Lizwe Sweswe and his men became the first team from a rural community to be promoted into the country’s top- flight league since independence in 1980 and Moyo, who is also the club’s patron, praised them for surviving relegation.

Tsholotsho FC pushed to play their Premiership home games at the rural based Mbute ground in the district when they were promoted into the topflight, but were turned down and turned to White City Stadium in Bulawayo as their “home ground”.

“It is what making history is all about. Even more spellbinding is the unprecedented fact that Tsholotsho FC survived the league in which four teams were relegated by playing all their games away from their Tsholotsho home. No other team has ever achieved this,” said Moyo.

“It is self-evident from the team’s history making performance in 2015 that it would have achieved wonders had it been able to play its home games in Tsholotsho as we had earlier hoped they would.

“Personally, I’m happy that I was able to modestly assist where and when I could to ensure that the heavy burden of the team’s budgetary and logistical requirements is shared.”

Moyo consistently chipped in to assist Tsholotsho with their accommodation and meal expenses for their away fixtures and yesterday reiterated that the construction of Tsholotsho Stadium remains a priority.

A ground breaking ceremony for the construction of Tsholotsho was held in March this year and actual work was expected to have been completed before the start of the second half of the Premiership season in July, but it would seem that spanners were thrown into the works delaying the entire project.

Despite the delays, Moyo declared that “Iziqholo zeZhwane” would definitely have a multi-purpose stadium sooner rather than later.