adminRay Bande Senior Sports Reporter
IT is normally said that friends in one’s adversity shall always be cherished the most. One can better trust those who helped relieve the gloom of one’s dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy the sunshine of one’s prosperity.
Just as the crowds have been gradually improving at Buffaloes’ home matches in recent weeks, enjoying the sunshine of the team’s prosperity during their unbeaten run, surely the community needs to help relieve the gloom in these dark hours for the club.
It is now clear that the annual Mbada Diamonds donation will no longer be coming Buffaloes’ way this season as the company struggles with its own financial battles that have seen them delaying paying their own employees, let alone taking a pay cut.
This has left two-year beneficiaries of the Mbada Diamonds corporate social responsibility programmes – Buffaloes – in dire financial straits.
The annual donations, which came in batches spread over the season during the last two previous seasons, must have left the team’s leadership in the comfort zone as they failed to explore other avenues of real sponsorship while relying on the Mbada donation.
Alas, as fate would have it, the donation is no more!
Painfully, Mutare’s sole Premiership side, Buffaloes, are not a bad side and given requisite financial resources the team is capable of competing with the best in the top flight league as evidenced by their sterling performance when the team went for a six-match unbeaten run.
But for all their efforts, Buffaloes players and coaches have nothing to give their families.
Luke Masomere, the Buffaloes coach, might be perceived as a garrulous character, but going from one supermarket to the other begging for food to feed the players before conducting a training session is not an easy task.
Not only is it degrading or dehumanising, it wears away all the enthusiasm to win matches for the club.
No wonder why Masomere had to make a U-turn at Birchenough Bridge on his way to Bulawayo for last weekend’s league match against Bantu Rovers.
I do not celebrate insubordination and rebelliousness, but being a scribe that I am, empathy always leaves me with a soft spot for the downtrodden.
It need not be over-emphasised that individual businesspersons in Mutare find value in sponsoring everything else including modelling contests but not the game of football.
Calls for the local business community to lend a helping hand to football teams have repeatedly fallen on deaf ears since the days of Eastern Lions, Highway FC and today Buffaloes.
With such a callous business community which will always be quick to remind you of the prevailing economic challenges, Alex Mafume, a former Buffaloes team manager, himself a permanent feature in the Sakubva Stadium VIP enclosure during Buffaloes home matches, has been touched by the team’s plight and is now ploughing a lone furrow calling for all common men and women with football at heart to come to Buffaloes’ rescue.
Mafume, who was the team manager for Buffaloes during the real Ndombolo era, told Post Sport that the time has come for men and women in Mutare to put together resources, no matter how small, just to take care of the players.
Mafume said he fully understands the economic challenges that each and every sector or individual is facing in this economy, but for the love of the game of football, donating even a single dollar will guarantee Mutare of continued Premiership football action at Sakubva Stadium.
“I think the time has come to show that Samanyika can be united and pull in the same directions. I think we have been popular all around the country at times for the wrong reasons and this time let us prove our worth.
“We have been armchair critics for a long time now and we need to shift from this self-destructive stance. We now need to play our part in helping the club that gives us Premiership football action. In this regard, we need to donate towards the welfare of the players no matter how small the amount.
“In fact, we are going to use our home match against Chapungu to launch a committee of reliable and trustworthy people that we think can handle the fund.
“My appeal to all football loving persons in Mutare is that we come together to donate generously to the team so that we continue enjoying the game.
“I have been in football myself and I understand it when players clamour for incentives. It is not easy to spend your time at training and once again work extra hard on Sunday on the field of play but get nothing from it.
“These players have families like all of us and they need food, too. It is high time we started doing something tangible as fans,” said Mafume.
For the love of the game of football, one hopes that Mafume and the like-minded will succeed in their efforts to help the club in its hour of need.
Online Reporter