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Sikhumbuzo Moyo Senior Sports Reporter
HIGHLANDERS FC chief executive officer Ndumiso Gumede has challenged the club’s development coaches to up their game.
He said he wants to see more juniors making the grade into the first team.The veteran administrator wrote a strongly worded letter to the juniors’ coaches last week expressing his displeasure at the juniors’ performance, especially the development side that plays in the Zifa Southern Region Division Two league and made up of mostly Under-19s who should be the team’s reserve side.
Gumede said he was not happy that the Division Two team was on 14th position given the huge financial support and other resources being channelled to the juniors by the club’s principal sponsors, BancABC.
“I wrote a letter to the juniors coaches last week, I feel its totally unacceptable for a team like Highlanders to find itself on position 14, certainly not with all these resources we are channelling to our juniors,” said Gumede.
The development side is coached by Melusi Mabaleka Sibanda.
Gumede said the juniors are the backbone of the team hence their importance cannot be over emphasised.
“As Highlanders we cannot invest so much in the juniors but continue to lose money acquiring players from outside. Some of these outsiders have proved to be mediocre or below average so we need to reap from the juniors first before looking outside,” said Gumede.
He said outsiders must be exceptionally talented so those graduating from juniors should always be given first preference.
“We also have players from our junior ranks whom we loaned out to other clubs and these should be recalled whenever the need arises,” he said.
Dan Ngwenya is the Highlanders’ Under 14 coach and Dumaza Dube while overseeing all the age groups is in charge of the Under 16s with Gift Lunga Jnr taking care of the Under18s.
The bloated coaching department could work against the club unless it follows a well synchronised development programme. Ali Dube used to be in charge of all junior teams with one assistant coach. He achieved a lot for the club with some of his products going on to play for Zimbabwe at different levels.
Highlanders have continued to lose talented junior players to their more organised neighbours Bantu Rovers who have gone a step further by paying school fees for the youngsters among other benefits.
Gumede believes 90 percent of the Highlanders’ first team players should come from their junior ranks who would have gone through the various age groups during which they will get to understand and appreciate the club culture and expectations of the supporters.
In recent years Highlanders have lost a number of promising junior players to other teams and these include Elvis and Kevin Moyo who joined FC Platinum, Kuda Mahachi, Lawrence Mhlanga, Macgyver Lunga, Bobby Nkomo, Lewis Ncube, Tendai Ndlovu, Archie Katsande, Trevor Ndlovu and Teenage Hadebe.
The club has promoted Knox Mutizwa, Joel Ngodzo, Ariel Sibanda, Mgcini Sibanda, Ozias Zibande, Godknows Makaruse, Graciano Chakafana and Bothwell Nyathi to the first team in the last five years.
Online Reporter