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Marshall Gore in LONDON, England

AS we celebrate 40 years of Zimbabwe’s Independence, I have decided to also take a look into the history of our national football team, from when the journey started in 1980.

In my brief research of this journey, I looked at the influential players in our football history in 1980.

Daniel Chikanda was the first black Zimbabwe national team captain in 1975.

He later handed the armband to George Shaya in 1979 and Sunday “Mhofu” Chidzambwa took over as the first national team captain of Independent Zimbabwe on the 18th of April 1980 on Independence Day.

Prior to 1980 George Shaya was by far the most influential and successful player in the 70s.

Our first black national team coach was Shepherd Murape in 1981.

He was first appointed as assistant coach in 1980 in a technical team headed by John Rugg as the head coach assisted by both Mickey Poole and Shepherd Murape.

In 1976, Murape became a player-manager for Dynamos, and helped lead the club to several league titles.

The Glamour Boys of ‘76’ are widely celebrated as the finest team ever assembled in this country.

They won five of six cup tournaments, their only failure coming against Zimbabwe Saints in the semi-finals of the Chibuku Trophy.

They thrashed Zimbabwe Saints 8-1 in the Castle Cup final and Chibuku 8-0 in the Nyore Nyore Shield final with the late Daniel “Dhidhidhi’’ Ncube scoring five goals in that match.

By the end of the season, DeMbare had scored 67 goals in 19 cup fixtures, at an average of more than three goals per game.

All in all, they scored 114 goals that season and beat Orlando Pirates 7-6 on aggregate over two legs to be crowned kings of Southern African football.

Murape went on to manage newly-formed Black Rhinos in 1983.

In 1980 the Warriors played their first home International game against Mozambique at Rufaro.

This was a four-team Independence Cup Tournament, featuring newly-born Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.

The Warriors thrashed Mozambique in the semi-finals by 6-0 with the late Shackman Tauro scoring four goals.

Tauro became one of the most feared strikers in Zimbabwean football in the early 1980s earning the nickname Mr. Goals.

In the final our first-ever final, we beat Zambia 2-1 with David Mandigora scoring the first goal and Tauro scored the winner.

Rufaro was packed to the brim. I was one of the guests, sitting on my father’s shoulders. Jamaican reggae music legend Bob Marley was one of the special guests.

The historic ground-breaking winning team included the likes of goalkeeper Frank M’kanga, Ephert Lungu, Oliver Kateya, Fresh Chamarenga, David Muchineripi, Robert Godoka, Tauro, Max Tshuma, Joseph Zulu, Edward Katsvere, Wonder Phiri and Captain Sunday Chidzambwa who later became coach of the Warriors and took them to their first major appearance at the AFCON finals in 2004. Our journey continues, 40 years later, as a proud nation.

All the commandos are soldiers but not all soldiers are commandos.

There are many Warriors around the world but, when it comes to football, we are the real Warriors.