A day spent in heaven

Sharuko on Saturday

THE name says it all — GOLDEN VALLEY! The name is a celebration of the mineral riches on which this little mining town is built.

It sits on a very rich belt of gold, which also gave birth to its Siamese twin sister settlement just across the road, called Patchway Mine.

For football fans of an older generation, Patchway is the hometown of probably the biggest defender to ever grace our domestic Premiership.

His name is Abraham Mwanza and his nickname was “Chimamuna,” which loosely translated into Shona will be “Zimurume.”

Strangers can be forgiven for not realising that Golden Valley and Patchway are two different mining towns, which share a golden umbilical cord.

About 20km from Golden Valley, you find my hometown, Chakari, which is the third member of this area’s Golden Triangle.

Because we have always been the Big Brother, bigger than both Golden Valley and Patchway combined, it’s something we always bragged about.

It also helped that throughout the ‘80s, we were the leading gold producing mining town in this country and that came with complementary benefits.

We had a beautiful 18-hole golf course, which both Golden Valley and Patchway could never dream of, we had the better schools and we even had the better houses.

But fortunes in the mining industry change.

And, as we have struggled to keep our mine running, with the gold produced struggling to match the cost of doing so, Chakari has become a shadow of its past economic power.

Somehow, Golden Valley has maintained its status as a small and profitable enterprise.

And, to add insult to our injuries, it has even recruited some of those who used to be the elite members of our workforce.

Predictably, Golden Valley and Patchway were our ultimate rivals, when it comes to everything — football, the Chamber of Mines athletics competition and any sports codes.

These Golden Triangle derbies were explosive and, unfortunately, they were usually violent confrontations of pride, ego and a superiority complex embedded in fantasy,

On Saturday, I returned to Golden Valley to watch the Derby De Goridhe.

And, I was not alone.

Four of my childhood friends — Solomon Banda, Alec Chirwa, Samuel Mwale and Gift “Mbaura” Dani — were also part of this adventure.

These are guys I grew up with and we went to the same school from Grade One to Form Four and, in the case of Solo and Sam, up to Form Six.

During such special reunions, the tales from the past come flying back and they were quick to remind me that when we reported for our first day, in Grade One, I came wearing a suit.

Somehow, my mother felt it would make me feel special.

But, when the headmaster, Mr Mutendereki, picked me out and summoned me to the front of the assembly, to remind everyone that this wasn’t a fashion show but a proper school, my humiliation was complete.

Given I was sent home shortly afterwards, for the authorities to provide all the new recruits that this wasn’t allowed, I must have earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the quickest expulsion for a Grade One pupil.

Of course, being a small well-knit community, it was not hard for my old man to apologise and find a way for the headmaster to restore my membership of the school.

In a way, that embarrassing episode was somehow a prophetic signal that mine was going to be a life spent mainly under the spotlight.

AS THEY SAY, LOCAL IS LEKKER

Sam works at the RBZ, Solo, Aleck and Dani work for the Ministry of Education.

Clever “Gabu” Tayera, who was our host, works in the Human Resources department at Golden Valley.

So, here we were, you can call us the Dirty Half-Dozen, on a beautiful spring afternoon on a Saturday afternoon, at this open air stadium, watching the “Derby De Goridhe.”

For the world, this was just a low-key Division Two battle but to each one of us, and everyone in the crowd, this meant the world.

Guys who grew up in mining towns probably understand the special bond which binds us with our hometown football club, which is now called Chakari United.

The guys who grew up in Hwange, Mhangura, Cam and Motor Mine, Renco, Zvishavane will tell you that their hometown football clubs mean everything.

And, that the likes of Dynamos, CAPS United and Highlanders even lived in the shadows of our hometown clubs.

It’s something we regularly see in Europe, especially in England, these beautiful romances between residents of small towns and their hometown football clubs.

A recent survey showed that Leeds United have the majority of fans in England who support it simply because it’s their hometown club.

Newcastle United also have a substantial home fan base with most of their supporters living in an area which is within 45 miles from St James Park.

Such attachments are important because they are for life and, whether in good or bad times, the fans will always be there for their clubs.

They are not glory hunters and I have always wondered the state our domestic football would have been in if, for instance, we all supported our small town home clubs.

But, then I keep realising that our football system is generally hostile towards these small town clubs for one reason or another.

This is the same system which, in 2009, decided to gang up against Simba Stars, when they had a genuine claim to have won the Division One championship.

Instead, it went to Douglas Warriors even when just about everyone knew that there were some serious flaws, including some of the dirtiest tactics football has ever seen, in the way they had gone about their business.

Their advantage was only that they were a Harare side and they had all the right connections to ignore all their shenanigans.

It would be another 13 years before Simba would find a way to once again secure a place in the top-flight league.

And, even when they finally secured their place in the PSL, they were told that they could not play their matches at home because of some funny standards set by the PSL.

It’s probably one of football’s greatest ironies that a community, which doesn’t have even one stadium fit enough to host an international match, finds itself saying certain stadiums are not fit for the PSL games.

It doesn’t feel any pity for the people of Shamva, who waited all their lives to have a club which plays in the Premiership and, in Simba Bhora, finally found one that did.

But, what looked like a dream come true for them, has turned into a nightmare because this is a football system that is hostile to the small town clubs like their own.

Amazulu fans will probably argue that it’s not really about the small town aspect but it’s about a system whose DNA is flooded with a hostility against SMALL clubs.

This year marks 20 years since Usuthu became only the second Bulawayo side, in the era of the Premiership, to win the league championship.

Like Blackpool, they changed our game with their addiction to professionalism, paying good salaries to players and giving life-changing deals to coaches.

They finished second in 2001, third in 2002, were champions in 2003 and finished fourth in 2004.

By 2005, they were gone, after falling foul of authorities because they didn’t want to be seduced to dump their firm religious belief that the Sabbath was Holy and not a day for them to play football.

You talk to their officials today and they will tell you that the real reason was that they were unwanted because they were the small boys who were beating the giants.

A HOSTILE LOCAL FOOTBALL ESTABLISHMENT

They tell me you won’t even see anything on the PSL platforms, including their social media sites, reminding their constituency that this is the 20th anniversary of their landmark success story.

Why?

Because they argue they were not a club which the establishment loved because, by refusing to be bullied and then finding a way to beat the traditional giants, they became ‘enemies’ of that football state.

The surviving Blackpool officials will also sing the same song.

Imagine if the same football establishment had not paraded the same hostile attitude to another small team which came into the top-flight league with a bang – Blackpool?

And, in 1995, they had not played the devil’s card by giving Dynamos an unfair advantage of playing their final match, a day after Blackpool, in what was a tight race for the title?

Imagine if Blackpool had won the league that year?

Imagine what this would have done to inspire the creation of other similar projects given that their owners would have been convinced they could also win the league?

Instead the establishment chose to help Dynamos, a serial championship-winning club, to be champions again.

So, in the end, it was not only a non-event, because DeMbare had been winning the league since 1963, but the negativity it generated, ended up tarnishing the image of the league.

Four years later, the Blackpool directors sold their franchise to Motor Action and the Ndochi era was over.

The hostile establishment didn’t even care that in 1995, just a year into their existence, Blackpool became the first Zimbabwean club to reach the semi-finals of a CAF inter-club tournament.

In ’98, just three years after the Great Title Robbery in which Blackpool were given a raw deal, the same hostile establishment struck again.

Little Mhangura powered their way to the final of the 1998 BP League Cup for a showdown against CAPS United over two legs.

And, the establishment decided the copper miners would not be allowed to play their home leg in Mhangura.

The same stadium, where they had played all their league games and all matches in the same tournament, was now deemed not good enough to host the final.

Both legs were played in Harare and ended in a 2-2 aggregate with CAPS United being declared winners, on the away goals rule, when they had played both legs of the final at home.

Mhangura, who scored two away goals in that showdown, ended up losing to an opponent who had scored both their goals at home.

Just like Blackpool before them, the frustrations of this Great Cup Robbery was too much to bear for the Mhangura leadership and, two years later, the club collapsed and its franchise was bought by Hackney.

The hostile establishment didn’t even care about the history of this club, including but not limited to the fact that, in 1970, they became the first club, from outside Harare and Bulawayo, to produce a Soccer Star of the Year.

His name is Tendai Chieza.

It didn’t matter to the hostile establishment that in 1966, little Mhangura won the Castle Cup and, in 1972, they won the tournament again, thanks to a 3-0 destruction of Dynamos at Rufaro.

Neither did it matter to the same hostile environment that this is the same club which gave us immortals like Aleck Masanjala, Jonathan Munjoma, Philemon Phiri, Lovemore Nyabeza, Booker Muchenu, Joseph Galloway, Benjamin Zulu, Webster Chikabala, John Phiri and Jani Milanzi.

What mattered to the establishment was that Mhangura were just a small-town club and they don’t care about such little teams.

The whole system is hostile to these small clubs and those that are based in small towns.

I should know because it’s a system I have been observing closely for more than 30 years in this job.

What it has failed to do is woo me into its network and that is why my heart remains with my small hometown club, Chakari United.

That is why, for my friends and I, Saturday was a day we spent in heaven.

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.

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

Brunoooooooooooooooooooooooo!

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