admin
Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
IT’S one of world football’s greatest romances which time, more than a quarter-of-a-century of separation, and distance – a cool 13 492 kilometres apart – have both failed to dilute. The Scotsman, who arrived here in 1983 on a trailblazing adventure, for European football coaches, in Independent Zimbabwe, and the iconic club he guided, for about two years, which became a big part of his life.
Bobby Clark is now 73, and left his role as Highlanders coach in 1985 to return home to Scotland, but he still remembers those who starred for him during his time at the club.
From Madinda Ndlovu to the late Willard Mashinkila-Khumalo, who was only 16 when he fast-tracked him into the first team.
From Boy Ndlovu, arriving from Eagles, to reciting the back-line which used to be the defensive rock on which he built his team – goalkeeper Peter Nkomo, Fanuel Ncube and Douglas ‘’British’’ Mloyi.
Bobby also still remembers the little boy who used to peep through the door, every time he went to pick up Madinda from home, unaware they were both in the presence of greatness.
For, this was the boy who, with the passage of time, would become the King – the greatest Warrior of all-time and, by some considerable distance, the finest player to represent Bosso in a football match.
“I would go to Madinda’s house to pick him up,” says Clark, “and there was a little boy who’d be peeking around the door. That was his younger brother, Peter Ndlovu,” he told Stephen Walsh, a Scottish journalist for The Press and Journal from his home near Aberdeen.
The article was, specifically, for our sister newspaper, Chronicle.
Such is Bobby’s strong romance with Bosso the Scotsman still regularly checks how the club is doing in the domestic Premiership.
This week, he spoke to Stephen Walsh, a Scottish journalist for The Press and Journal covering Aberdeenshire, after his beloved Highlanders finally won their first league match in the current campaign.
“Highlanders still means a lot to me . . . I look out for the results of all the teams that I’ve been involved in but, obviously, Highlanders was very special and still is. We’re big Highlanders fans in the Clark family.”
It’s a love affair that started in 1983.
“I’d just finished playing for Aberdeen in the Scottish League. In my last five years as a player, I had been helping with the coaching, and I’d done my qualification badges. It was a good time to be at that club — Sir Alex Ferguson was the coach there, before he went to join Manchester United,’’ Bobby told Walsh.
“I met Malcolm King, who was the chairman of Highlanders, who was over in the UK looking for a coach who might be prepared to come to Africa. Long story short, my wife and family all came out and we had a wonderful year or two.
‘’My wife worked as a teacher at Henry Low Primary School. My boys played for the Highlanders youth teams. One of them speaks isiNdebele to this day.”
But the arrival of a British coach did not immediately bring the results the Bosso fans were hoping from that union and, just as the club is doing now, the initial phase was tough.
Interestingly, Madinda, now the coach of the club, was the talisman of that team in the ‘80s.
“Believe it or not, I actually spoke to Madinda Ndlovu about this just about a week ago,’’ Bobby told Walsh. ‘’I was asking him, ‘Can’t you remember how difficult it was in the opening part of the season?’
“We could hardly win a game to begin with. It wasn’t that the team was in a transitional period as such. I didn’t really know a lot about the players, but I knew they had not been very good the year before. I think they just weren’t good enough. So we had to sort that all out.
“We got Bigboy Ndlovu, from Eagles. We got the right-back, was he called Chifunya? And we took Willard Khumalo from the youth side into the team. He was a 16-year-old at the time, but he would lift the crowd.
‘’Cosmas Zulu came in as my assistant, and we also had a guy called Doctor Dlamini. And it changed slowly. We gradually began to tie games.
‘’And then, by the end of the season, we were beating the same teams by four or five that had beaten us early in the season. It was wonderful. Willard was a great young player. I remember the crowd chanting, ‘Zhii.’
‘‘And, of course, Madinda himself. Madinda was the talisman. Madinda was very good. He would always try to hit them from everywhere and suddenly they started to go in.”
Bobby reminds Madinda of the challenges they faced as he tries to deal with the problems at Bosso today. ‘’I told him, ‘You’re a great guy. You’ve been through this as a player. Keep the faith. It will turn, as long as you stay positive and make the right decisions.’’’ His son Tommy returned to play for Bosso after leaving Dartmouth College.
“Tommy goes back to Zimbabwe frequently,” says Bobby.
“When he went back to Zimbabwe he found that many of his school friends had died from HIV, so he set up Grassroots Soccer, a young people’s health charity.’’ Bobby was here with a schools’ team 15 years ago. “When I came back it was like old times. Methembe was running Bantu, and Netsai Moyo was working there as well.”
Now, that’s an enduring romance.
Online Reporter