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SHARUKO ON SATURDAY

CAPS United are clearly a bigger football franchise than Halesowen Town, but when a club as big as the Green Machine find themselves struggling to raise just US$5 000 for them to undertake a routine trip to Bulawayo to fulfil a league assignment, I think their fans have a right to ask some tough questions as to whether their team is being led by the right people.

YOU have probably never heard about Halesowen Town, an obscure English non-league football club, based in the Midlands.
Well, five years ago Halesowen Town came to global prominence when their fans revolted against the club and chose to boycott its matches until the owners — Morell Maison and Kelly Gentles — relinquished control of the team.

Even a strong start to the season by the team in the Northern Premier League Division failed to lure the fans back and a club, heavily dependent on its loyal community patronage, gate receipts and generous cash donations, sank into huge debts of more than £400 000.

Crucially, they were expelled from the FA Cup, because of the hemorrhage in their finances, depriving them of a chance of a magical Cup run and the financial rich pickings that come with that.

The club inevitably slipped into administration, which opened the way for a volatile takeover and when two groups emerged and bid for its ownership, the fans called off their boycott, claiming victory.

Shortly afterwards, Maison was arrested on suspicion of fraud at the club and former chief executive, Gary Simpson, was picked up and charged with tax evasion.
You probably know Newcastle United, that English Premiership team whose iconic black-and-white strip is a clone of the powerful colours of our Highlanders, the strip in which a teenage Peter Ndlovu introduced himself to us, long before he became our football King.

This afternoon, one of the biggest protests by football fans will take place in Newcastle as supporters of this giant English club make their voice clear that they want manager Allan Pardew sacked.

It’s a culmination of events that have seen some professionals launch a website, www.sackpardew.com , where you get all the updates about the protest, graphics and statistics showing cause why Pardew should go.

About 40 000 A4 fliers, branded with the words SACK PARDEW, will be distributed to Newcastle fans at St James Park today, another 5 000 SACK PADEW banners will also be distributed and the Newcastle City Council and Police have been notified of the demo.

FANS, CLUBS, FOOTBALL AND POWER
Halesowen Town are just a non-league football club but they mean so much for the community that has supported them for more than 140 years now and when that constituency felt their special club was being abused by a leadership that did not care for its future, it decided to act.

The Halesowen Town revolt represents one of football’s greatest success stories for supporters standing up to be counted and their actions making a huge difference in the destiny of a club that means so much to them.

It was an island of success, for the loyalty and purity that being a football fan represents, in a desert dominated by the selfish interests of the rich men who feel that the power of their big money should be the only voice that matters and the only language spoken.

It represented a step back into the age of innocence, when the fans were the soul and spirit that powered sport, their voices the melody that provided the motion picture soundtrack without which the artistry from the athletes on the field would lose its magic.

Newcastle is a multi-million dollar football brand, owned by wealthy businessman Mike Ashley, but the Tyneside community believe they also own it, because it has always been the club that generations of their people have supported for the past 122 years.

And when their beloved club, the 20th richest club in the world by revenue, whose plus 50 000 fans at its home games is the third highest average in the Premiership, slipped to the bottom of the table, the fans felt that their patronage was being taken for granted.

It’s not like they never loved their manager Pardew, he was their hero just two years ago when he led them to fifth in the championship, back into Europe and just missing the Champions League by one spot.

They celebrated with him when he was named the League Managers Association Manager of the Year and the Barclays Premiership Manager of the Year.
But things aren’t working out right now, that’s the point, and they have just realised that Pardew has never won a game, in the last two years, in which Newcastle were trailing at half-time – just two draws and 24 defeats in that period.

His team has conceded 127 goals in the past two seasons and only one team in the top four divisions of English football, Blackpool, has scored fewer goals this year.
So the heights they touched two years ago, when they qualified for Europe, won’t camouflage the stunning decline of a club that finds itself bottom of the table and the fans, who probably love this team more than what its owner does, have decided to speak out.

Both fans of Halesowen, a non-league side, and Newcastle United, a multi-million dollar club, share one thing common — the unrelenting desire to toast the success stories of their beloved teams.

Their pain, tears and voices of protest provide a timely reminder to us, in this football global village, that a football club cannot detach itself from its fans and when things aren’t going right, it’s usually the supporters who first raise the alarm.

Just like the CAPS United fans who have issues against Taurai Mangwiro for the way their team has turned into a punching bag of Dynamos in the Harare Derby, under his watch, the Toon Army have issues against Pardew for losing as many Tyne-Wear Derbies, against Sunderland, as the previous 22 Newcastle managers combined.

The same issues, which will be at the heart of the fan rebellion in Newcastle today, are the same issues that we have seen anger among the Highlanders fans who question why their beloved team should turn into a punching bag of their eternal rivals Dynamos in the Zimbabwe Derby under Kelvin Kaindu’s watch.

The Toon Army is angry because they have found out that Newcastle, under Pardew’s watch, has gone for 102 games without scoring a goal from a corner, something they say signals a technical deficiency that can only be pointed at their coach.

The Green Army is angry because they feel their team’s repeated failure to beat the old enemy, under Mangwiro’s watch, and until recently, their lifelessness when it came to the second half represents a technical deficiency that can only be pointed at their coach.

But while today’s protests in Newcastle will bring the spotlight on the coach, the Halesowen Town fans turned the heat on their club owners, because they felt there was a crippling lack of leadership for their community club, and CAPS United fans, given the financial storms that have battered their club in recent years, can hear some echoes – if not find a bout of inspiration – in the way the people of Halesowen Town fought for what belongs to them.

CAPS United are clearly a bigger football franchise than Halesowen Town but when a club as big as the Green Machine find themselves struggling to raise just US$5 000 for them to undertake a routine trip to Bulawayo to fulfil a league assignment, I think their fans have a right to ask some tough questions as to whether their team is being led by the right people.

When it becomes traditional that somewhere along the season, the financial storms will pound the Green Machine and the leadership doesn’t have a clue, year in and year out for a lasting solution, the fans of this club – just like their Halesowen Town compatriots – have the right to question whether the guys who are leading their team have a clue about what they are doing.

When CAPS United battle every year, as has been the case in the last two years, to find enough funds just to fund its basic operations but somehow Twine Phiri doesn’t see the value of opening his team to new investment, which inevitably will bring in operational finance, but keeps holding on to a flawed shareholding structure that has become the club’s biggest Achilles Heel, in terms of potential growth, the Green Machine fans – just like their Halesowen Town comrades – have a right to ask tough questions.

When CAPS United’s response to the financial challenges that blight their seasons is the same, appointing a board of directors with virtually no powers whatsoever to implement any changes needed to take the club forward, doing the same thing over and over again but somehow foolishly expecting a different outcome, the Green Army — just like the Halesowen Town fans — are within their rights to, like Balotelli, ask — “WHY ALWAYS US?”

Just get the systems firing, it’s the only way to keep the fans happy, the only way to grow the fan-base, the only way to silence the rebellious streak in them because all they need is a successful and competitive team.

Is that asking for too much?

THERE IS A SICKENING LACK OF RESPECT FOR FANS IN OUR GAME
Highlanders did well to win a pressure-filled game against How Mine on Sunday to cool the anger, among their fans, generated by the team’s performance-made-in-hell against Dynamos in the TM Pick n Pay Challenge Cup in which they were so lifeless it’s likely they would have lost to Amavevani.

Felix Chindungwe was outstanding for Bosso, out-of-favour former skipper Innocent Mapuranga was axed from the starting XI, someone more mobile and younger filled the problematic right back position and, crucially, the fans were there to cheer their team — just a week after the disaster in Harare.

“The world will not end because Highlanders were beaten by Dynamos,” the club’s chief executive, Ndumiso Gumede, as much a part of the soul of this club as its iconic black-and-white strip, told the Bulawayo media.

Gumede is right, to a certain degree, that life won’t come to an end because Bosso have been humiliated 1-4 to DeMbare, but saying it publicly in a newspaper, at a time when emotions are running high among their fans still pained by that humiliation, is tantamount to telling them that they can go and hang for letting their emotions rule them.

It’s like telling them that, okay guys, we badly need your patronage when we need the gate-takings when we play at home, we need your voices to come out loud and clear in support of us when we are chasing the victory we need in this championship race but remember that we aren’t accountable to you in the event we are humiliated by our biggest rivals. And that’s exactly what Gumede said as he continued his interaction with the Bulawayo media.

“People who do not play a significant monetary role (in the club) should not say so and so must go. The people who are members and NOT JUST THE GENERAL SUPPORTERS have that mandate.

“We respect all our supporters and their support, but they must leave the decision to the office bearers that they elected.
“If we let everyone decide who stays and who goes, we will not have a club to talk about. Look at what happened to Zimbabwe Saints. Where are they?
“That is what happens if you do not honour your hierarchy.”

The problem, when such statements, which appear to paint fans as insignificant people who should not have any say when it comes to club issues, come from high-ranking people like the chief executive of the club, they breed a culture of impunity among the players and, soon, we see these guys also turning their guns on the fans.

And that’s exactly what happened on Monday when Charles Sibanda, Bosso’s leading goal-scorer this season, spoke to Chipo Sabeta of H-Metro following his surprising goal celebrations in which his finger gesture, captured on SuperSport, appeared to be telling the fans to shut up.

Surprisingly, that’s exactly what he told Chichi in the interview published on Tuesday this week.
“They (fans) have been getting on my back for the whole week over the drugs and indiscipline issues and that was a perfect response for that,” thundered Sibanda.
“I am not happy when the fans come to me and accuse me of inciting other players and causing indiscipline within the squad just before the game. Some said it was the reason why I was fired at FC Platinum but I left the club because I was homesick and my contract had expired.

“In the end my celebration summed up my message clearly.”
Really, Charles, is that the way a seasoned professional, who is one of the senior players not only at Bosso but in the league, should be behaving, poking his finger into the noses of the very fans who pay his bonuses and telling them they can go to hell?

But to treat this as something that is isolated to Bosso will be finding refugee in a lie although what makes Highlanders’ case both dramatic and surprising is that one of the characters involved is someone that the entire country now looks upon for leadership, in terms of football, because of his immense experience in the game and the years he has spent as a leader.

The product of the game on offer in the Premiership is not worth the US$3 that the fans have to pay for the cheapest tickets and, the worst part, is that the same supporters are at the mercy of clubs who choose, even without notice, to hike those charges to US$5 every time a match against Dynamos comes along.

The Glamour Boys aren’t saints either, remember someone once ill-advised them not to celebrate with their fans, during a game at Rufaro, where they all ran into the dressing rooms shortly after the referee blew the final whistle?

Well, they got what they deserved the following week when they were hammered in Tunisia, given a reminder that you don’t treat your fans as outcasts.
And have you noted that they are possibly the only club in the world who don’t stage victory parades, when they win the league, maybe because they feel the fans have no reason to share their special moments of triumph with them.

The league’s leaders have been at fault, too, and an entire league now has to dance to the dictates of the broadcaster and, in the process, we have such outrageous arrangements where the people of Triangle and Kadoma are denied a chance to watch a tie between Triangle and Black Rhinos because, for television broadcast reasons, it has to be played in Gweru.

And, the irony of it all, the game is played before 100 fans.
Are these the images that we want to send to the continent that a quarter-final showdown of a major knock-out tournament in this country only attracts 50 fans and is that the correct image we are broadcasting to our African brothers about the state of the game in this country?

Why should CAPS fans be denied a chance to see their team play a big Cup tie at home, while their counterparts at FC Platinum watch two big Cup matches against the Green Machine at Mandava in consecutive weeks, simply because the PSL has to satisfy the needs of their broadcaster?

WHERE ARE OUR FOOTBALL LEADERS?
Maybe, when you come to think of it, we are just different because how do we justify the fact that, within the last few weeks right up to Thursday, we have seen a lot of faces and a number of voices talking about Zimbabwe’s bid to host the 2017 Nations Cup and, at no point during that time, have we seen our football leaders being part of those faces and voices.

Yesterday I heard they were holding a meeting this weekend with the 10 leaders of the Zifa provinces in the capital.
Why are we not seeing them at the forums where the 2017 Nations Cup bid is being discussed?

After all this is a football project, which should be spearheaded by our football leadership?
Ahhhh . . . hameno because zvinotonzi atanga Sharuko kutaurisa.

To God Be The Glory!

Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Di Mariaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

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