Online Reporter
Sharuko on Saturday
I WAS just a mere primary school pupil, about to make the transition into secondary school, when Black Rhinos went on a shopping spree and took a good chunk of fine players from Dynamos and CAPS United.
The year 1983 was handing over the baton to the year 1984.
By the time Rhinos played their first match in the domestic Premiership, they had recruited some of the best footballers in the country and they looked like an All-Star Select side.
Japhet Mparutsa, Hamid Dhana, Ernest Mutano, Simon Mugabe, David Mukahanana, Eddie Matsika, Lovemore Chikunha, Stanford “Stix” Mutizwa, Stanley “Sinyo” Ndunduma and William Chikauro had all dumped DeMbare and Makepekepe.
Gift Makoni came from Karls United, Jimmy Mbewe from Bata Power and Maronga Nyangela would join from Black Aces.
Jimmy scored a hat-trick, in his first game for Rhinos, in a four-goal thrashing of Highlanders, with his partner-in-crime Maronga, aptly nicknamed ‘The Bomber,’ scoring the other goal.
They would go on to make history, in ’84, as the first club to win the domestic Premiership in their debut season.
Forty-one years later, their heroics in ’84, are yet to be matched.
FC Platinum came close in 2011 but lost the championship race to Dynamos on goal difference.
For good measure, Rhinos won the League and Cup double in that landmark campaign in ’84.
Three years later, they showed their success story in ’84 was not a fluke as they won their second league championship title.
These stars were dubbed later day Judas Iscariots by some die-hard DeMbare and Makepekepe fans who claimed they had traded their loyalty, and immortality, for thirty pieces of silver.
But, to be fair to these players, it made a lot of sense then, just like it does now, for them to move and seek greener pastures.
There was the security, and peace of mind, which came with formal employment in the army where they would hardly pick a gun but simply play football.
There were some great incentives, including houses in neighbourhoods on the other side of Samora Machel Avenue, and the possibility of promotion up the ranks in the army.
These were life-changing moments and that they grabbed them was not surprising at all.
When the DeMbare crew looked at some greats, who had come before them like George Shaya, and the lives they were leading despite their immortality, it didn’t provide any hope that their future would be any different and rosy.
They took a gamble and while it didn’t work out as anticipated for some, for the others, lives were transformed.
I’m no longer that teenage schoolboy, who was battling with the transition from Grade 7 to Form One, when Rhinos turned the domestic football landscape upside down as ’83 shook hands with ’84.
I’m now an old man beginning to imagine how my retirement would be back on the green grass of home in Chakari.
Freed from the demands of this job, something which I have done all my working life, and inspired by the comforts of home, I dream of finally finding time to write my story.
The story of a boy from the compounds, I prefer to call them kumakomboni, who dared to pursue his dream and wined and dined with the football aristocracy around the world.
There will be a chapter about Scottland, how they exploded onto the scene and, in an instant, transformed themselves into the club everyone was talking about and every football journalist was writing about.
Their current shopping spree has a touch of the Rhinos project back in the day and that the club’s owner, Scott Sakupwanya, played for the army side’s junior sides as a goalkeeper, makes it quite interesting.
He was just four when Rhinos shook the local football landscape with that shopping spree.
THE MARRIOT FAMILY’S TUCKSHOP, ATM
One again, Dynamos have been hit hard, not only by Scottland’s shopping spree, but also losing a key player like Donald Mudadi and coach Joel Luphahla to Simba Bhora.
Highlanders have also been hit hard while CAPS United have lost two of their players who were on the Soccer Stars of the Year calendar – Godknows Murwira and Kingsley Mureremba.
My main concern is Dynamos because, of the three giants, they are the club that I feel are at their weakest and will struggle, not only to replace the players they are losing, but retain those who are still on their books.
I feel CAPS United will find a way to close the gaps and Highlanders always find a way because, unlike their counterparts in Harare, they are the only club of choice to play for in that part of the country.
I know there are some DeMbare fans who are clinging to the past and will argue that they have been there before, in the ‘80s when Rhinos pounced and at the end of 2005, when Shooting Stars raided their stable, and they still survived.
It’s a fair argument.
But it’s also important to realise that the domestic football landscape has changed from what it was in the ‘80s and what it was at the end of 2005 which, with all due respect, is 20 years ago.
Only YouTube, founded in February 2005, was running back then.
Facebook only opened itself to the public in 2006, the same year as Twitter, which later turned into X, Instagram was unveiled in October 2010 and TikTok was unveiled in September 2016.
So, clinging to the past and saying that because DeMbare survived back then it means they will survive now, even if they lose all the players who won them the Chibuku Super Cup last month, is a wild journey into fantasyland.
The DeMbare of the ‘80s was a very strong football franchise, a real and solid project owned by the people, and backed by the people, through all the winter storms and everything that nature, and the opposition, could throw at them.
That was also the DeMbare of 2006.
That first game, ironically against Shooting Stars, showed us that the real Dynamos was a massive people’s project and thousands of their fans converged at Rufaro to make a big statement that this was their team.
Evans Gwekwerere scored the only goal and by the end of the day he had been catapulted into a Glamour Boys hero and, the rest as they say, is history.
Today’s Dynamos do not belong to the people.
It belongs to Bernard Marriot and his family, it is their pet project, it is their tuckshop, their flea market based in Mbare, their personal ATM, their weekly cash cow.
As a member of Alex Sports Club, where DeMbare train, I had a front row seat to the chaos, which used to unfold at their training sessions last year, as players repeatedly boycotted training sessions because of outstanding dues.
It was very ugly.
It didn’t help them, too, that Scottland were also using the same club for their daily training sessions.
So, usually, you had come part of the club where there was so much joy, among the Scottland players, and so much misery, among the Dynamos players.
I remember one occasion in particular when the Scottland players were each paid US$2 300 in bonuses while, on the same day, those who were on the payroll of the country’s biggest and most successful football club were boycotting training because of unpaid dues.
Then, one day in July, Scott was touched by the plight of those DeMbare players, he ended up giving them money for transport to ensure they would keep coming for training the whole week.
It became clear to me that the majority of those players at Dynamos, if given a chance, would trade their allegiance to the Glamour Boys’ cause and move to Scottland, in particular, or any other team, in general.
I am pretty certain that even Marriot himself, if club owners were signed the same as players and coaches, would have raised his hand and put himself up for sale to Scottland.
That is how dire the situation is.
The point here is that these are not the days for people like Marriot, who don’t have either the financial capacity or the vision, to be leading giant clubs like Dynamos.
The challenges that clubs like DeMbare face today are different from what they faced in the past when their name alone, and their massive constituency back then, were enough to keep them going.
Today, Dynamos struggle to attract 5 000 fans at Rufaro because many of them have been frustrated by a man who has reduced their club to such a laughing stock.
However, in Marriot’s mind they are still the massive club that they were in the ‘80s and ‘90s when getting 35 000 people at Rufaro and 55 000 people at the National Sports Stadium was the norm and not an exception.
The challenge we face is that without a competitive and successful Dynamos, the domestic Premiership loses a big part of its soul.
Somehow, local football should ensure that the Glamour Boys, just like Highlanders and CAPS United, should remain competitive.
Bosso and Makepekepe can weather the current storm but I’m not sure about DeMbare.
Back in the days, when this club belonged to the people, I would have bet my house that they would bounce back from all this and compete again and be successful once again.
Now, I am not so sure.
To God be the Glory!
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
To God Be the Glory!
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldhinoooooooooooooooooo!
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You can also interact with me on the ZTV football programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika on Wednesdays
