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Green Mamba fans, in full voice, in their colourful green-and-white outfits, making a firm stand for their beleaguered team.
They had travelled all the way from Swaziland by road, for what looked like Mission Impossible, after the mauling their team received on its first dance with the Champions League.
They knew the odds were firmly staked against their team, which had been outplayed on home soil by the boys from Zimbabwe, and the 4-2 victory was probably cruel on FC Platinum given their domination.
A good number of them were probably at Somhlolo Stadium, two weeks earlier, when FC Platinum ran riot in that first half and led 3-0 before they lost their shape in the second period, as the off-season baggage took its toll, to lose the second half 1-2.
Someone had probably told them that FC Platinum rarely lose on home soil and, at Mandava, the miners had just lost once last season when Daniel Veremu headed home an own goal in the most decisive match of a Premiership race that went to the wire.
That it needed a special team like Dynamos, deemed by Caf to be too good to play in the Champions League preliminary round, to inflict that defeat on FC Platinum, probably put their Mission Impossible into perspective.
Green Mamba didn’t just need to win, because a 2-0 victory would not be enough, but they needed to do that in comprehensive fashion, say 3-0, 4-1 or, if they were winning by a two-goal margin, then they needed to score more than four goals.
But despite all these odds staked against them, in Mission Impossible, the Green Mamba fans came in their hundreds, bringing their green-and-white paint to a mining town that has always believed in those colours since FC Platinum arrived on the big stage in the same strip.
And here they were, on their first foreign adventure for such a mission, singing, dancing, and cheering every touch made by their players and jeering every touch made by the hosts.
It’s on days like these, when football shows its true powers, when scores of fans make a stand for their team even when it’s abundantly clear that the game has long been lost, that you get a true appreciation of both the power and beauty of this game.
In the voice of those fans, in that hour of defiance, you felt the melody that makes football such an irresistible game and all the reasons that made Pele declare that this was the world’s most beautiful game.
In the rhythm of their dance, in that moment of defiance, you felt the charm that makes football such a lively game and all the reasons that made legendary Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly, declare that this game was more important than life and death.
The scoreline didn’t matter to them, even though they needed their team to win, but what mattered was that the message they were sending, in every song and every dance routine, that they were there for their team in this storm.
And noone was retreating.
Even when their team conceded four more goals in the first half, to take the aggregate deficit to 2-8, with another 45 minutes still to be played, the Green Mamba fans were singing and cheering every move by their team.
You have to be the devil not to admire such sights and sounds, such bullish defiance, such remarkable loyalty, such fierce passion, such grand optimism, such belief and such oneness.
As their boys trooped out of Mandava for the half-time break, battered and bruised after a 45-minute show that had gone horribly wrong for them, they probably saw their fans giving them a standing ovation.
There were only a few people cheering the FC Platinum players, as they marched to the dressing rooms at the interval, despite their stunning first half show in which they had pumped four goals past ’keeper Zondai Nyaungwa.
By nature, we are a passive crew when it comes to supporting our football clubs and players and, after a season in which FC Platinum only lost once at Mandava, the home fans had probably got used to seeing their team coming out at the halfway mark in the lead.
So, even at such a grand stage like the Champions League, everything that had happened in that 45 minutes, the four goals, the double strike by Charles Sibanda, was normal stuff and not enough to ignite the emotions among the home fans to give their boys a standing ovation.
And, it didn’t surprise some of us when Green Mamba emerged from the break the hungrier side, the more competitive team, and suddenly Lloyd Mutasa’s men, who had suffered so much in the first half, found their touch and played the ball with authority and took the game to FC Platinum.
They were unlucky not to get a consolation goal with Tafadzwa Dube, who appears to be getting better and better as a goalkeeper as each year passes by, making some crucial saves, including twice when the opposition forwards came face-to-face with him, and another effort crashing against the crossbar.
The Green Mamba fans had played their part and, for us, this was another learning curve, even in our moment of triumph, because they had just shown us how much we are far behind the world, when it comes to supporting our football clubs.

Lessons From Mandava
It’s not every time that a team that has been thoroughly beaten 2-8 leaves some big lessons for the victors.
But the Green Mamba fans left a number of lessons, for their FC Platinum counterparts, about how to support your football team.
And, it’s an issue that doesn’t affect FC Platinum alone but certainly a cancer that is common in Zimbabwean football.
Generally, as fans we are a depressingly conservative lot and most of our stadiums resemble Sunday School gatherings rather than a cathedral where a game of emotions like football is played.
We go to the stadiums expecting our teams to win matches, no matter the opposition, and we take our seats in the stadium, read our newspapers, watch our boys battle it out with the opposition and, when a chance is missed, we curse our fate.
When our boys score, we erupt into a frenzy, and join them in the celebrations and when they fail to control the ball, or they spray a pass to the wrong man or they concede a goal, we turn on them and use every swear word to insult their mothers, their fathers, their mothers’ sisters, their fathers’ brothers and anyone whom we can think of.
We are passive participants at the stadiums and wait for something to happen rather than for us to push for something to happen, to push our boys to go the extra mile, to push our players to do more as a team.
Other teams talk of having a 12th man, who are their fans, when they are playing at home because of the huge part that the supporters play in pushing the team an extra yard.
Some of our teams are even afraid of playing at home, especially on the occasions when the going gets tough, because they simply can’t handle the intensity of the abuse that will come from those that usually support their cause from the stands.
History has already recorded cases of violence, either against officials or players, which have happened at Rufaro and Barbourfields when Dynamos, CAPS United and Highlanders are going through a lean spell.
Reinhard Fabisch detected it a long time ago, that there was a frustrating element of passivity about us, when it came to supporting our national team and, even when we were around 60 000 inside the National Sports Stadium, we simply didn’t intimidate the opposition by the sheer weight of our numbers.
Fabisch had come from Germany, where the fans are absolutely crazy about their football, and those who have been converted to watch Bundesliga this season by the arrival of Knowledge Musona at TSG Hoffenheim, will testify that the supporters in that country go absolutely crazy.
Fabisch had also worked in Kenya at a time when the rivalry between Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards would bring the entire nation to a standstill and he knew that fans could play a big role, for the team, whenever it was playing at home.
He must have been shocked to see how passive we were, when it came to supporting the Dream Team, and even though our numbers showed our commitment to our national team, the sights and sounds that were needed to make it count, were usually not there.
Now and again Fabisch would leave his seat on the bench, in the heat of the battle, and go onto the track and you can probably see him now, dressed in his designer blue shirt and matching jacket, tearing his hair apart as he pleaded with us to raise our voices.
We would respond and, usually, it provided the spark that Fabisch needed and his late substitutes, Vitalis Takawira and Madinda Ndlovu would combine, and a ball would be floated into the area, Agent Sawu would time his run to perfection, and the header would fly past the Cameroon ’keeper in the 90th minute.
We would all explode in joy, charmed by the bragging rights that came with beating the Indomitable Lions, and we would sing and dance at the National Sports Stadium, partying all evening, as if we had just won the Nations Cup finals.
But soon we would be back to our old ways and, in the next game, we would all sit quietly inside the giant stadium, waiting for something to happen, waiting for King Peter to wave his magic, waiting for a tiger called Benjamin “Makanaky” Nkonjera to tame the Indomitable Lions, waiting for Ajira to score.
That’s what we are as a people and I have always wondered what could have happened if we were like the Zambian fans and, rather than us needing a win in that final Nations Cup qualifier, it was Chipolopolo who needed that victory with the game being played in Lusaka.
I have always believed that, with the backing of those noisy and passionate fans, the Zambians would have pulled out the win they needed for the ticket to Tunisia.
For us, once Kalusha Bwalya stole that equaliser, everything went flat at the National Sports Stadium, our home became an alien settlement hostile to its people and rather than cheer our boys, to push them to go that extra mile, we made them feel guilty that they had once again let us down.
The Zambians, mark my word, would have gone ballistic and pushed their boys, in those final 10 minutes, to clear the final hurdle.
Dynamos have the biggest support base in the country but Rufaro is not a noisy place when the Glamour Boys are at home and you can feel the distance between the players and their supporters.
There was a time, at the turn of the millennium, when the Bosso fans were a key component of their team, the days when Liqhwa Gama and his crew would organise those roadshows, and you went into Barbourfields and the singing and dancing started as early as 1pm.
It all felt so good, and the players loved it, because they felt closer to their fans and, together as a family, they dominated the local game and won four straight league titles.
Now, that is all gone and you are likely to meet a supporter, with a banner calling for an executive member to step down, than fans singing and dancing for their beloved Bosso at Barbourfields.
No wonder why the stadium has lost its myth as a fortress where Highlanders barely lose and little Shooting Stars, before they were relegated at the end of last season, could go there and score four goals against mighty Bosso.
From CAPS United to Hwange, from Monomotapa to Shabanie, we know we can do better in the stands than what we are doing right now and, at least, those who were in Zvishavane got some free lessons last Saturday from the travelling Green Mamba supporters on how to support your team.
Just take any Zimbabwean team you can think about and just imagine they fall 2-4 at home in the first leg of a Champions League tie.
Do you think any fans will travel to support them in the second leg the way Green Mamba fans did last weekend?
Therein lies our big difference.

The Bulls That Spoiled The Party
So Motor Action became the first Zimbabwean team to be knocked out by a South African side in the Caf inter-club tournaments since the turn of the millennium when they were beaten 1-3 on aggregate by Black Leopards.
Monomotapa refused to suffer such humiliation when they elbowed Ajax Cape Town out of the Champions League in 2009 and CAPS United dismissed Moroka Swallows in the Confederation Cup in 2010.
Makepekepe went to South Africa in January for a pre-season tour and beat Mamelodi Sundowns 1-0 at the Peter Mokaba Stadium.
We have always bragged that we have the more competitive clubs, even though they are poor, when compared to the South Africans and when we see our clubs repeatedly doing better, in the Caf inter-club competitions, we beat our chests and tell the world it’s the proof that we have the better teams.
So, against that background, Motor Action’s defeat to the team that anchors the Absa Premiership, was a big disappointment, especially given that they had drawn 1-1 with the same team in Polokwane.
Especially given that, unlike Hwange, they were being fully bankrolled by a sponsor, Mbada Diamonds, who was taking care of virtually everything they needed to make a sustained challenge.
Especially given that they were playing a Leopards team that has spent the season playing all its football on natural grass and, on the artificial surface of Rufaro, the Mighty Bulls were supposed to have the edge.
Especially, given they were playing a Leopards team that has long forgotten how it feels to win a game away from home.
But the Motor Action, which reached the Mbada Diamonds Cup and dominated the game against Dynamos before falling to an unfortunate 0-1 defeat, to earn their ticket to the Confederation Cup, and the Mighty Bulls team that is playing today, are two different teams.
Allan Gahadzikwa, the heart and soul of the team, has been traded to FC Platinum, Eddie Chitato is gone, Kuda Musharu, whose bullish performance leading the line was a refreshment, has returned to Monoz and inspirational leftback, Ocean Mushure, has chosen the grand stage of playing for Dynamos.
You can heap all the blame on Joey Antipas because, as the coach, he takes all the credit, when it’s going well, and should also take all the flak when it’s going badly.
But the bottom line is that this Mighty Bulls team looked too lightweight and, maybe, they deserved their fate.

Professional CAPS United
CAPS United’s new head coach, Sean Connor, comes from a background where everything is done in a professional way and one of those things is engaging the media through a media conference.
Refreshingly, Connor and his technical crew engaged the media this week at a Harare hotel and opened the floor to questions from the journalists.
The Northern Irishman was open and engaging while Lloyd Chitembwe was there in full support and, as usually is the case during such media conferences in Europe, they also brought a key player along for the engagement with journalists.
Well done Sean.
I just hope that he succeeds at CAPS United, which is not an easy thing because there are some doubting Thomases right now, and a divided Makepekepe house has a tendency of falling apart.
I just hope the other teams will also copy this way of doing business and engaging the journalists because that is how business is conducted in the professional leagues.
Once you open yourself to questions from the media, at regular Press conferences, you eliminate the sourced stories, some of which might not be true, because you are giving the journalists their chance to question things and get answers.
DeMbare, given their huger size, should be holding a regular weekly media conference.

Where Does The Premiership Go From Here?
The Premiership clubs meet today for their pre-season indaba to discuss a number of key issues.
There is no doubt that Twine Phiri and his management team did a very good job last  year and the sponsors, crucially, saw their vision and backed all the projects they ventured into.
But the Premiership should keep growing and that is the challenge that Phiri and his team have on their hands because the standards, which they set last year, are high.
There is no doubt that we all need SuperSport to take our game around the continent and also bring in the money for our clubs.
Securing this deal will define Phiri’s legacy as an administrator.

Gunners In Glorious Failure
The commentator during the Arsenal/AC Milan Champions League game on Tuesday night summed it up brilliantly as he closed his show: “Glorious failure for Arsenal, but failure nonetheless.”
Yes, noone could have put it any better.
The Gunners failed to turn Mission Impossible into the Greatest Escape and, after a storming first half performance in which they touched the heavens, they didn’t have enough in their tanks to finish the job.
That hurts because RVP had a glorious chance to get the fourth goal but he chose delicacy and is tame effort was blocked.
I’m not so sure what Arsene Wenger was raging for, as he insulted the referee, but I feel this was one night when the Frenchman should have felt so proud about his team’s performance nothing else really mattered.
On Tuesday, Arsenal came close to staging a football miracle and they didn’t do that with an ugly performance but a beautiful one that, at times, made guys like Robinho look so ordinary it was hard to believe he was Brazilian.
They represented the Premiership well, in the year that our favourite league has taken a battering and even Athletic Bilbao, whatever that means, and Ajax Amsterdam and Basel can come to Old Trafford and make life so miserable for the Red Devils.
I’m not a Gunner but on Tuesday night I felt so proud of them and only God knows what would have happened if they had someone on the bench who was better than Chamakh.
If King Henry had stayed to play this leg and came off the bench, instead of this misfit called Chamakh, to replace the excellent Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, only God knows what could have happened.
The comfort for Arsenal is that they have found a gem in this Chamberlain guy and, boy oh boy, this fellow could be better than Wayne Rooney at this rate.
I have a feeling this is the weekend my Man United could go back to the top of the table.
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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