Online Reporter
DYNAMOS and CAPS United are the biggest two football clubs in Harare and two of the country’s three biggest clubs.
The Glamour Boys are the most decorated football club in this country and hold the record for having won more league championships than any other local club.
Such was their dominance that DeMbare have won more league titles than their two main rivals — CAPS United and Highlanders —combined.
However, Dynamos’ last league championship was delivered in 2014, in the year that Bernard Marriot became the chairman of the club’s shadowy board of directors.
It’s the longest barren run, without a league championship, in the 62-year history of DeMbare.
Today, the Glamour Boys are barely recognisable as the giant which they were in the past in which, among other achievements, even reached the final of the CAF Champions League in 1998.
Ten years later, they reached the semi-final of the same competition.
DeMbare have just one player, captain Emmanuel Jalai, who appears to be good enough to wear their shirt and maybe that explains why he is the only one who plays for the national team. The club lost some of their best players, who powered them to success in the Chibuku Super Cup last year, with many of them frustrated with the way the team is run and how the officials had been neglecting their welfare.
Frank Makarati, who was their inspirational captain, led the exodus.
The Glamour Boys have lost their magic to attract some of the best football talent in the country as they do not have the financial resources to compete with the newboys like Scottland and MWOS.
Marriot has not helped matters either with the way he has been running the club and clinging on to ownership when he doesn’t have the financial resources to invest in the club and strengthen it.
He must be the poorest owner of a major football club in the world.
While Sakunda Holdings are still footing the salaries of the Dynamos players, it’s the other incentives, which are known to inspire footballers to do more, which are lacking at the Glamour Boys.
Now, we have to face the reality that if things don’t change quickly at DeMbare, the Glamour Boys could face the grim possibility of being relegated.
Their city rivals CAPS United are not doing any better but they have made a move to try and arrest the slide by bringing in a new technical set-up while Lloyd Chitembwe has lost his job as the head coach.
Dynamos fans are also crying out for changes in their technical team but the truth is that this is not Lloyd Chigowe’s fault.
This is the fault of the club’s owner and his leadership who sold their fans a dummy by investing in lightweight players.
Our PSL cannot afford to lose both Dynamos and CAPS United but this is now a possibility and, unless there is intervention, the two giants cannot guarantee their places in the PSL on the basis of history.
Dynamos is a name given to a football team. It is naive to think that because the name is Dynamos therefore it must perform as good as when Moses Chunga or Vitalis Takawira or Tauya Murehwa were playing. If a name determined how good a team should be, where would we put Zimbabwe Saints?