Online Reporter
Sharuko on Saturday
HARRY Lusengo is a specialist in messing up all my plans.
Throughout the week, I had planned to devote this blog to the unique scenario where we find ourselves facing the grim reality that all the members of the Big Three could be relegated this season.
Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United.
All going down in a heap of humiliation, a dark cloud of embarrassment and a blizzard of utter destruction.
The end of an era, the final chapter, the sum of all our fears — domestic football’s ultimate version of Armageddon, the year the music stopped.
I had wanted to write about the possibility of a combined more than 220 years of history being swept away by a tide in one season of both chaos and catastrophe, for these giants.
I had wanted to write about the possibility of having a combined 33 league championships being swept away by a force, in one season of both crucifixion and cremation, for these giants.
That’s 21 for Dynamos, seven for Highlanders and five for CAPS United.
Somehow, 33 also happens to be the age, which some Biblical scholars believe Jesus was, when He was crucified.
I had wanted to write that this could be historic, if it happens, because it would mark the first time in the history of football in the world that a country’s three biggest clubs have been relegated in the same year.
Only the memories would remain.
George Shaya, Moses Chunga, Tauya Murewa, Kenneth Jere, Madinda Ndlovu, Peter Ndlovu, Adam Ndlovu, Willard Mashinkila-Khumalo, Joel Shambo, Stanley Ndunduma, Joe Mugabe and Shacky Tauro.
Then, somehow, Harry messed up all my plans for an article on the Big Three and the serious trouble that they find themselves in.
Yes, this wayward boy with a foul mouth who is struggling to transform himself into a decent young man, came along and messed it all up.
It was only a few weeks ago when I used this very blog to say that Harry fits perfectly into what Shakespeare would describe as a tale told by a fool, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing.
And, on Thursday, he exploded once again.
He drove his car to DeMbare’s training ground at a church in Belvedere, blocked the team bus as it was about to leave and then ordered the players to find their way home.
This was classic Harry.
The DeMbare leadership reaction was swift and they said Harry, whom they described as a member of their technical team’s backroom staff, had been suspended and barred from having anything to do with the first team.
That Moses Maunganidze and his executive, for once, were brave enough to mention him by name, even if by doing so it also brought the name of his father Bernard Marriot into the equation and into disrepute, is something that deserves to be applauded.
What Harry did was nonsense.
For the wayward son of the so-called owner of the club to disrupt a group of players who, in recent weeks, have shown the hunger to fight for the badge of this club is simply unacceptable.
For him to treat them as if they were his father’s donkeys, when they are professional footballers who have endured a horrible year where they were hardly paid any incentives until some Good Samaritans emerged in the past few weeks, is rubbish.
For him to treat these players as if he owned them, as if they were his father’s slaves, is something that spilled beyond madness and deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms possible.
What happened at the Dynamos training ground on Thursday is an aberration.
Somehow, the guy whose father has everything to lose should Dynamos go down at the end of the season decided it was time to demoralise the very players who are supposed to help this club retain its Premiership status before one of its biggest games of the season.
I’ve been trying to understand what was really going on in his mind, as he transformed himself into possibly the worst clown that the world has ever seen, or will ever see, and I just can’t do so.
But, then, that’s Harry, isn’t it?
IT WAS MEANT TO END IN DISASTER
While the Dynamos executive, for a refreshing change, showed good leadership qualities to name and shame him and suspend him from having anything to do with the club, this won’t take away the reality that they are complicit in this madness. His father, Marriot, is also complicit in all this nonsense.
Because, for goodness sake, why should someone like Harry, of all people, be appointed to be part of the backroom staff of any football club — even one which is in the boozers’ leagues dotted across the country?
He just doesn’t qualify even to be the chap who is given the responsibility to polish the boots of the players because this is a fellow who is likely to remove all the studs because, in his strange world, he will probably believe that is the right thing to do.
He is a rebel without a cause.
The other day he was mocking the fans who boycotted the DeMbare games in protest over the way their club was being mismanaged.
He likened it to a football game and, in his crazy world, claimed that his father’s team had won the showdown with the fans on a 3-0 scoreline. It was quite a shame because any sane person could see that the protesting fans had resoundingly won that battle, especially given reports that some gates were opened at half-time to allow people in for free to boost attendance.
And, in any case, why fight the fans — the very people whose numbers and patronage has ensured that his father’s club remains the biggest football franchise in this country.
The truth is that Dynamos, without its army of supporters, is just a shell.
Even though it was clear that Harry had crossed the line when he mocked the fans, he wasn’t cautioned by Maunganidze and his executive. It was convenient to them because Harry was fighting their war.
Marriot also didn’t caution his son even though he had vomited on the faces of the very people who, without their support, Dynamos will be a smaller football franchise when compared to Chegutu Pirates.
He was okay with it because Harry was fighting his war against the fans who were protesting.
That is what galvanised Harry to start believing that if he could take on the Dynamos fans and be cheered on in the background by the club’s executive and his father, then he could also take on the team’s players.
The very men who have just started going on a promising run which has brought belief that they can avoid relegation this season.
If Kelvin Kaindu thought we were lying that he had jumped into a snake pit, then the wild events of Thursday morning in Belvedere, with Harry playing the role of choir master in the orchestra of the chaos, helped him understand what we were talking about.
It’s the Wild West of football.
Marriot and his executive should be ashamed of themselves because they are the ones who empowered Harry in his crusade of madness and made him believe that he was the alpha and omega of Dynamos.
They saw him assault captain Patson Jaure and they did nothing to discipline him for his madness. In a way, they gave him the impression that it was right for the son of the so-called owner of the team to beat up the captain of the club.
After all, in Harry’s eyes, Jaure was another ordinary employee of his father’s company, his father’s club, just like the gardener at their rented home close to Highland Park.
Murape Murape blames Harry’s wild behaviour, when he was team manager on that tour of Botswana for being responsible for Dynamos’ elimination from the Confederation Cup.
Harry was charged with gross misconduct while Murape, Richard Chihoro and physiotherapist Admire Pataingwa were suspended.
The other three eventually left the club but daddy’s boy Harry was dragged back into the system, the charges were dropped, and he started behaving wildly again as if nothing had happened. Chihoro felt betrayed by a system and club he had served with distinction for all his life; some feel this contributed to the depression he felt and it all led to his death.
Of course, Harry continued on his destructive path. This is the same fellow who told us in an interview.
“I joined Dynamos juniors as a player in 2012. I had promising talent but at the time that I was starting to rise, I got into substance abuse.
“Some of the seniors whom I had become friends with introduced me to drugs and I regret the day I ever tasted what it feels like to be high.
“At times I would see that my mother was heartbroken but I just didn’t consider reforming, she would even pray about it but I did not care.”
Somehow, this is the guy that the Dynamos leaders turned to when they needed a team manager and, when he failed in that role, turned him into the kit manager.
That’s why they, not Harry, should shoulder most of the blame for all this nonsense.
To God Be The Glory
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakari-boys still in the struggle.
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldinhoooooooooooo!
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