Vusumuzi Dube
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
FORMER Highlanders player, Ernest “Maphepha” Sibanda, who also served as Bosso team manager as well as chairman is hospitalised at a private institution in Bulawayo with his family optimistic he will be out of hospital soon.
According to his sister Beauty, the 63-year old former Zimbabwe Warriors manager, who is diabetic has been in hospital since Monday because his sugar levels were fluctuating. Today (Thursday), his sister indicated that doctors were monitoring the situation to see if they can make changes to his medication.
“My brother is in hospital now, he might be out of hospital soon, they are trying to monitor to see if they change his medication, he is getting better,’’ his sister said.
The sister said as a family they were concerned with social media speculation that the Bosso legend had died, which she said is un-African to claim someone had passed away when they are still alive.
“He is very much alive, I am just from seeing him now, if God takes him away from us, it would have happened but when I saw him, he was alive. We have seen on social media people claiming that he had died, we are worried as a family because he is alive,’’ she said.
A former Highlanders striker, Sibanda was the Bosso team manager when Amahlolanyama won four titles in a row from the 1998/1999 season to 2002. Rahman Gumbo and Eddie May were the coaches of that unstoppable Highlanders team. When Bosso won the four championships on the trot, Sibanda was famous for bouncing the ball on the centre circle just before kickoff, something he did at every match that Highlanders played at Barbourfields Stadium.
He was also chairman when Highlanders also won their last championship under former Bosso son Methembe Ndlovu in 2006.
Sibanda is a Bulawayo City Football Club board member and has also served in the same capacity at the now defunct Bantu Rovers in the past.
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Bongani Ndlovu