Online Reporter
Mugove Chigada-Zimpapers Sports Hub Deputy Editor
It is mid-morning at the Prince Edward grounds.
The year is 2015 and a buoyant, restless David Mandigora is prowling the touchline as if the session might start again any minute.
Dynamos’ training is winding down, but his energy suggests otherwise.
This, of course, was the great rebuilding of the Dynamos project, that awkward morning after Kalisto Pasuwa had, rather inconveniently, delivered four titles on the bounce.
What do you do for an encore?
While Mandigora looked suitably engrossed, the real centre of gravity in this particular project, though few would have said it aloud, seemed to be a young Tonderai “Baba Frank” Ndiraya, already in the thick of it.
“Munodeiko vapfana?” Mandigora offers, with the knowing grin of a man who has spotted the cameras. It was, after all, a media day.
Three years later, Yogi’s leg was amputated. In 2021, he passed away. May his soul rest in peace.
In hindsight, that January afternoon in 2015 had a legend hiding in plain sight, Baba Frank.
Fast forward to 2024 and Ndiraya lifted his first league title with Simba Bhora, only to win his second the following year with a different club altogether, Scottland.
Now at Chicken Inn, the view is rather less rosy. Yet by the numbers, he remains perched at the very top.
For the record, in the 82 games he has overseen at Simba Bhora, Scottland and Chicken Inn, he has amassed 153 points.
That is 13 more than CAPS United’s Takesure Chiragwi and 18 more than Scottland’s Norman Mapeza in the period under review.
Chiragwi has collected 140 points in the same 82 matches, 112 at Ngezi Platinum and 28 at CAPS United. In points terms, that is a 56.9 percent success rate.
Mapeza, on the other hand, has 135 points across the same span, with 25 of those coming this year at Scottland, perhaps an indication that he is beginning to find his feet again. Since 2024, his return stands at 54.8 percent.
Ndiraya’s latest 2-0 defeat to Scottland is, ironically enough, a neat illustration that Mapeza has been digging in.
And Ndiraya himself could not have summed it up better.
“We couldn’t deal with their overloads . . . and that led to the first goal. Knowledge, with his quality, will not miss from that position.
“Walter Musona, at the edge of the box, you can’t give him that room. They could have scored more.”
Baba Frank will look at his Gamecocks stint so far and realise that it has left rather a dent in his near-perfect record since 2024.
In 68 games in charge of Simba Bhora and Scottland, he conceded 44 goals, compared with the 12 he has shipped in 14 games for Chicken Inn.
At both his previous clubs he won at least 20 games in each of the two seasons. So far at Chicken Inn, he has won only five.
To reach the 64 percent success rate he managed at Simba Bhora, Ndiraya now requires 48 more points.
To put it in layman’s terms, they need 16 wins for that. And to match the points record he set at Scottland, the Gamecocks coach needs 17 wins.
With the Gamecocks 10 points behind log leaders CAPS United, who rather conveniently face Scottland in the next round of fixtures, the race is still far from beyond reach.
But can Ndiraya rise to the occasion to defend both his lead since 2024 and, more importantly, win the title for the third year running with a third different club?
Even if he cannot defend his crown, it is unlikely his advantage built over the last two seasons will disappear any time soon.
He may yet take solace from that afternoon back in 2015, when the odds looked hopelessly stacked against him.
Six months later, Yogi had called it quits, leaving him at the helm of DeMbare.
That was where the journey truly began.
A journey that would see him develop a thick skin, survive difficult spells in Vietnam, battle through the Ngezi trenches and eventually end up in Shamva, all in search of success.
Chicken Inn may have slowed his momentum for now. Rivals may be closing in.
But the numbers still say the same thing.
Baba Frank remains the man to catch.
TOP 3 COACHES SINCE NDIRAYA’S FIRST TITLE
Coach Ndiraya
P W D L F A Pts
82 45 18 19 96 56 153
Chiragwi
82 36 32 14 104 62 140
Mapeza
82 33 36 13 88 51 135
