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Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
THEY are probably the closest thing to Siamese twins in football — their iconic black-and-white colours, a passionate support base, a lengthy association with coalfields and a bond with royalty.
For goodness sake, the local daily newspapers, which serve their hometowns, have the same name.
There is a Chronicle daily newspaper in Bulawayo, its soul has always been linked with the drama that unfolds at the city’s dominant football club, Highlanders.
From the highs of becoming the first club to win the league championship, in the era of the domestic Premiership, to the lows of the outbreaks of hooliganism, Bosso and their hometown newspaper have marched together.
And, there is also a Chronicle daily newspaper in Newcastle upon Tyre, in the North East of England, whose soul has always been linked to the drama that unfolds at the city’s dominant football club, Newcastle United.
In the beginning, for Bosso, there were the two grandsons of King Lobengula, Albert and Rhodes, who returned from studies in South Africa to establish the country’s oldest football club in 1926.
Today, for Newcastle United, there is the wealthy Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman, the son King Salman, who has been lining up a complicated £300 million takeover of the English Premiership club.
Somehow, both Bosso and the Magpies have a strong link to coalfields.
For Newcastle United, it’s the mineral that gave rise to their Tyneside community, back in the days when coal powered the heavy industries of the world.
Jackie Milburn, who was inducted in the English Football Hall of Fame, was a local boy who rose to become an iconic forward for the Magpies, powering them to three FA Cups between 1951 and 1955.
He held the club’s scoring record, for more than half-a-century, until Alan Shearer broke it in 2006 and, after his death from lung cancer on October 9, 1988, he was cremated and his ashes scattered on the St James turf.
“Jackie Milburn’s life and times combined two of the great unifying threads of 20th-century North-East identity – coal and football,” noted the British Independent newspaper.
“Without the first, there would be no second because it was coal and its associated industries, such as shipbuilding and railways, that gave the area its people.
And, for Highlanders, it’s coal which lured many people to Hwange where a number of footballers would emerge and, desperate to take their game to a bigger club and a bigger audience, moved to the City of Kings to join Bosso.
Marvelous Nakamba, who started as a substitute for English Premiership side Aston Villa last night, was born in Hwange and left the coalfields for the City of Kings where, along the way, he featured for the Highlanders juniors.
Andrew “Scrupta” Jele arrived at Bosso, from Hwange, in the ’60s while Cephas Sibanda, Chutika Tembo, Charles Chilufya and Chenjerai Dube travelled the same path and played their parts in the Highlanders’ success story.
Bosso have won four league titles since the turn of the millennium, the same number of league championships which the Magpies have won in their history.
However, the last league title which Newcastle United won was in 1927 while Highlanders have been waiting for a league championship since 2006.
But, while silverware might not come at regular intervals, for the two clubs, there is something special they have, and share, which no money can buy and no trophies can guarantee.
It’s the raw passion, which they generate from their fan base, and the special bond that exists between the institutions and the supporters, which stand out.
“When contemplating something as broad as what the North East has given to football, and what football has given to the North-East, one of the unavoidable elements is sheer enthusiasm for the game,” noted the Independent.
“One of the most striking aspects of that fanaticism is that for the past 60 years it has had little basis on success and, unquestionably, one of the reasons for that failing is talent that left either because it was overlooked locally or because it was spirited away by more zealous clubs.
“And (the fans) still go to (watch) Newcastle and Sunderland. They had the third and seventh highest attendances in the Premier League last season, for teams which finished 10th and 14th.
“They might not win trophies any more, but the game endures, it still matters.”
Ten years ago, the Newcastle United Supporters Trust tried to raise £80 million to acquire the club from owner, Mike Ashley.
And, a few years ago, they came up with an initiative to raise £50 million to help those who were trying to acquire their club from the millionaire businessman.
Despite the Magpies having last won the league championship in 1927, they were the 10th best supported football club in Europe, in terms of the average number of fans watching their home matches), just five years ago.
Only Borussia Dortmund (80 463 average), Barcelona (77 632, average), Manchester United (75 335 average), Real Madrid (73 081, average), Bayern Munich (72 882 average), Schalke 04 (61 578 average), Arsenal (59 992, average), Hamburg (53 252, average) and Marseille (52 917 average), had more fans watching them in their stadiums per week
Newcastle United’s average home crowd was 50 359.
In April last year, a Swiss-based football think tank, the CIES Football Observatory, named Newcastle United as the 13th best supported club in the world between 2013 and 2018.
That’s also true about Highlanders, who have been the domestic Premiership’s cash cows, for years now, attracting more fans to their home matches than any other club, in the past decade.
And, now, the Bosso fans have embarked on an ambitious drive to raise funds to dissolve the $862 868 legacy debt which has been choking their club’s operations for years.
They have already raised $100 000, in the first two weeks of their relaunched crowd-funding initiative, led by South Africa-based Bosso member, Nodumo Nyathi, and that money is already in the Highlanders coffers.
The campaign is targeting, at least, 1 000 Bosso fans to contribute a once-off payment of R500.
“We’ve received $100 000 and have started paying some of our creditors,” Bosso treasurer, Donald Ndebele, said. “What will happen is that we will be clearing the debts in stages as we receive money from this initiative.
“They promised to give us money every month.
“As a club, we would like to express our gratitude to people who are contributing to the debt clearance as well as those that we owe, who are writing off all or a percentage of the debt.”
Bank accounts have been opened in South Africa and Zimbabwe for the Highlanders’ fans to pour in their contributions.
They might be thousands of kilometres apart, silverware continues to elude them but, in the raw passion of their fans, in those iconic black-and-white shirts, lie hearts, for both Bosso and the Magpies, which don’t beat in many football clubs around the world.
Online Reporter