adminTadious Manyepo
Sports Reporter
IT all started when he slid into depression.
He was then a Grade 4 pupil at Gwetsanga Primary School in Gokwe when he suffered the strain after he lost his only sibling.
The former Warriors and current Zanaco fitness trainer, Thomson Matenda, was so down that he could hardly associate with other pupils.
He often cried quietly over the misfortune and the bad situation back home didn’t help matters either. As teachers sought to figure how they could help him out, physical education coach Tsaurai Mashipe took him into his displays team.
“I decided to put maximum effort on it and suddenly I developed into one of the best athletes in the team,” said Matenda.
“In no time I was the outstanding student in the team. I would practice all day at home since there was nothing much we were doing at home. I developed sudden interest and I decided to put in everything on it. I just loved the way people would applaud me when we were doing the displays.
“Not even a single day did I imagine myself becoming a professional gymnast nor a fitness trainer. It was just out of the love for it and a way to fight off those thoughts that I had lost my only brother. I was flexible, bending my body into different shapes like an Indian rubber. And that is how I got the nickname ‘Rubberman’’’.
As fate would have it, Matenda, just like most of the pupils at Gwetsanga Primary School, struggled to have his tuition paid on time, that is if it was ever paid.
But, he had built quite a reputation as a member of the physical education team and because of that, he would sometimes be spared when others were being chased away from the school for non-payment of fees.
That could have been one of the reasons he was also a quiet boy despite his popularity.
But all that would change for the better when a sungura music outfit, Jairos Jiri Band, which was fronted by the late Paul Matavire, arrived in Gokwe in one of their routine national tours without a key man for a critical stage act.
The band had grown to be known as one of the few around which employed the services of an acrobat during live shows. Unfortunately, they were to tour Gokwe without one for the first time after the man’s death a fortnight earlier.
Matavire got wind of Matenda and the band had to drive all the way to Gwetsanga where the young Matenda, doing Grade 7 then, would take just three minutes to impress the band leaders in that impromptu audition.
“They started taking me on their national tours during school holidays. From the allowances I was getting from the band, I managed to offset my school fees debts and also help out at home. I decided to work even harder.”
Matenda would later on transfer from Marimasimbe Secondary School in Gokwe to Gweru for easy access to the band.
An organisation by the name “Sport for All” then paid for him to enrol for a Gymnastics Level 1 Coaching course.
“That spurred me on. I opened a gymnasium centre in Gweru and recruited some of my colleagues from Gokwe. It was at that point that I realised I could actually monetise my talent but I didn’t have the know-how, especially given my poor Gokwe background.”
“I had already set my sights on joining the Zimbabwe Republic Police display team upon finishing my secondary education. They were so charming whenever they performed at the Gweru Agricultural Show.”
Unbeknown to him, the ZRP had already identified him and he was surprised when he received a recommendation letter to join the police force when he turned 18.
“I then went for the mandatory six months training. Before I even knew it, I was cop, all of a sudden. It was incredible. I told myself that I had to continue working hard for I felt blessed looking at where I was coming from. Some of my former classmates back in Gokwe had become cattle herders and their lives had been from bad to worse. I had to work hard as without gymnastics I could as well have found myself in that same predicament.”
Matenda was assigned with training new ZRP recruits while doubling up as a member of the Police display team.
Interestingly, he hated football, to the marrow, in his own words.
“I hated how football seemed to be a game associated with thuggery and hooliganism. I hated that game a lot, especially Dynamos.”
It was his fellow cop, former Black Mambas and Dynamos utility player Masimba Dinyero, who convinced him to help out in the fitness of the now-defunct Sporting Lions in the early 2000s.
“I just felt he would be good enough to help in the fitness of Sporting Lions. He refused at first but later on gave in,” said Dinyero.
That opened a new chapter in Matenda’s life. He would join Buymore and Motor Action before Dynamos came knocking in 2007.
By then he was also the personal trainer for 2006 Soccer Star of the Year award winner Clement Matawu and the Dynamos duo of Justice Majabvi and Edward Sadomba.
“At Dynamos, we won the 2007 league title and the CBZ FA Cup before we took the team all the way to the CAF Champions League semi-finals in 2008.”
Matenda would go on to be seconded as the Warriors fitness trainer and has four CoOSAFA medals under his belt.
He would have a brief stint with Mozambican side Costa do Sol, becoming the first Zimbabwean fitness trainer to work with a club outside the country.
Zambian football giants Zanaco then snatched him two years ago and in his first stint, they reached the quarter-finals of the CAF Confederation Cup tournament for the first time in their history.
“At the moment, I am with Zanaco and I am doing everything to try and help in their fitness needs. What I can say is that people should be passionate about what they do.”
It is his stint with the Jairos Jiri Band that inspired Matenda to introduce what he terms “Sungura Aerobics” in his training sessions.
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