admin
Tadious Manyepo-Sports Reporter
ALLAN Gahadzikwa delivers a sublime masterpiece on the chessboard.
Awe-inspiring. He is just a 15-year-old Form 3 student at Glen View 1 High School.
Somehow it’s a shocker. He is a quiet boy who has never displayed any affinity towards this game before.
He is a boy rather known for his academic ingenuity. A boy who loves football but plays the game erratically due to parental restrictions. He has checkmated not only competitors in the Glen View-Budiriro District.
He has whitewashed every agemate across the nation. And punched the ultimate ticket to represent the country in the 2002 regional chess junior championships in Gaborone, Botswana. The competition in this regional fiesta is steep.
Taxing. But Gahadzikwa is no average.
A grandmaster in the making.
Witty and smart. He shrinks out hundreds to settle for third place. A bronze medal for Zimbabwe.
But he decides to play less competitive chess after that international contest.
His first love is football. But his parents can’t buy into that. They can’t afford a pair of football boots for their boy. But Gahadzikwa opts to rather play barefoot at Budiriro Gunners Academy under coach Jerry Mutambarika.
“He was a fighter. The passion was just incredible,” said Mutambarika on Gahadzikwa.
“We have moulded several players under difficult circumstances who have gone on to make it big but Allan was a rare crop.
“Our pitch is rugged and rubbled. But he could endure all that, barefoot.”
Several years later, the chess skills and hardened character of Gahadzikwa are manifesting at Motor Action in the Premier Soccer League.
He is playing defensive link for the Joey “Mafero” Antipas charges.
Sometimes he is twinned in that role with Malvern Longwe. At times he is deployed as the box-to-box man for the title-chasing side in this unbranded 2010 Premiership race.
Well complimented by the likes of Charles Sibanda, Bhekimpilo Ncube, Enasio Perezu, Norman Njelele, Regis Marere, Salim Milanzi and Edward Tembo, among others, Gahadzikwa turns into a beast.
He is the X-Factor for this ambitious project.
He top scores for his team with 18 goals to his name. Only Norman Maroto of Gunners, with 22 goals, has scored more by the end of the marathon.
Gahadzikwa is also voted the second best player in the league in a Soccer Star of the Year race which is won by his teammate Sibanda with Ncube coming third in an all-Motor Action top three.
This is after the Mighty Bulls have delivered the league title on a dramatic last day of the season after a smash and grab win over Lengthens at Motor Action Sports Club.
Lengthens, powered by the likes of Patrick Makuvaza, Artwell Nyamiwa, Dennis Joronawo and goalkeeper Muzondiwa Gonese, got relegated on the same day.
Joy for Motor Action and sorrow for Lengthens. The Jostein Mathuthu-coached Lengthens fail to pick up the pieces again from that defeat. They disband. Sad for the local game.
This is a team that gave the nation Stephen Matsangaise, Richard Mteki and Arnold Chivheya, among others.
This is a team that captured the imagination of many, just a year earlier, playing with 10-man following the expulsion of Makuvaza for the better part of the game and still managing to beat Shooting Stars in the final of the BancABC at Rufaro.
Football can be painful.
An afternoon to forget for local football.
For Gahadzikwa, that’s the afternoon that he rejoiced the most in his football career.
And it remains the most painful afternoon in his illustrious journey, too.
Gahadzikwa had signed a pre-contract with South African side Santos three months prior to this day with the deal being brokered by the late Edzai Kasinauyo.
Compatriot Zvenyika Makonese was the skipper of this team and it made everything easy. The match against Lengthens is supposed to be Gahadzikwa’s swansong with Motor Action before he moves Down South.
The tie is highly-charged.
Two teams fighting for contrasting objectives. Defeat or draw for either side won’t be enough for both. Motor Action have to win this one by at least a goal and pray Dynamos fail to win by a four-goal margin against the not-so-safe Black Mambas at Morris Depot.
Lengthens should win to secure survival.
The match turns physical.
Crude tackles and high tempers.
The players from either side are careless.
Gahadzikwa won’t escape.
He twists his ankle and comes out with a nasty muscle injury as well.
He needs six months to recover.
And the Santos deal?
■Read more on www.herald.co.zw
“It suffered a still birth. I am someone who grew up playing football from my days at Glen View 4 Primary School, Team A Academy in Mbare and Budiriro Gunners.
“My family wasn’t well-up and my parents wanted me to prioritise school rather than sport. It was understandable from where they were coming from,” said Gahadzikwa. “So I was playing football a bit while mostly concentrating on my books.
“I did well and did my apprenticeship in Safety Health Environment at Hippo Valley Estates.
“That’s where I also started playing football at a professional level in the First Division. My dream was always to one day play outside the country.
“When I signed that pre-contract with Santos, I was hoping that my long-cherished dream would finally be realised.
“It was unfortunate that couldn’t happen as I got injured. In reality, the injuries were career-threatening so Santos decided to cancel the deal. “I can’t bear thinking about what could have been.” Gahadzikwa was signed from Hippo Valley by Antipas who was then with Shooting Stars around 2006.
Besides the league honours in 2010, he won several accolades with Motor Action, including the BancABC Cup in 2011 when he also made it onto the Soccer Stars of the Year calendar. Out of all the 11 players who made the calendar in 2010, Gahadzikwa is the only one still playing in the local Premiership.
Having played for CAPS United, FC Platinum and Highlanders, Gahadzikwa, now 37, is proving he is still in the game turning out for Black Rhinos which he also skippers.
He believes Black Rhinos, who have recruited young players, can benefit a lot from his experience.
His secret to staying that long playing at the highest level is discipline.
And more discipline.
“If you love your game, you obviously ought to follow its dictates.
“I adhere to a strict healthy diet with the help of nutritionists. “I don’t drink or smoke. I don’t go clubbing as I am always with my family when I am not at work.
“I exercise a lot to keep up with the young crop playing in the top-flight right now.
“I respect my body so much. It is this body that works for me and I have so much respect for it. Discipline is everything in sport.
“And of course, I spent a lot of time playing chess and the skills from this game like patience, calculation and evaluation all help me a lot in football.”
Online Reporter