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HIGHLANDERS FC legend Lawrence Phiri’s last trophy as a player was the 1980 Heroes Cup, a 3-1 win over Dynamos at a packed Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo.
A few weeks earlier Phiri had won the Chibuku Trophy final, a 4-0 annihilation of Rio Tinto coached by then national team coach, a Scot, John Rugg. Like most of those who were living in that time, memories of a 4-1 first leg beating in Harare by Caps United and followed by a 4-2 second leg at home in the Rothmans Shield Cup final a few days before the Heroes Cup had denied Phiri a hat-trick of honours.
Zimbabwe had just received its Independence from Britain. Football had been unified with one Super League as compared to the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) that had been in place in 1979 with teams split into two regions.
Going into the Heroes Trophy evoked a lot of memories for Phiri and his Highlanders colleagues. Here was a team robbed of a generation of Under-16s by the war who by 1980 would have been ripe for big league football.
A number of reserve team players had also crossed into Zambia via Botswana to join the armed struggle in 1976 and 1977 among them George Nkhoma a brother to Peter Nkomo and the Moyo duo of George and Smart who returned from the struggle to deputise Peter Nkomo in goal for Highlanders.
Feeling cheated the whole Under-16 team skipped the border after the 1976 Cup final won 8-1 by Dynamos over Zimbabwe Saints. The boys who were winners of the age group tournament felt they deserved prize money from the organisers and the Rhodesia National Football League. The shocker to leave for Zambia via Botswana was brewed in the train ride back to Bulawayo.
“Remember we lost the entire Under-16 to the struggle. Some reserve team players also joined the struggle. With uncertainty whether some senior members of the team would follow the club got an instruction from senior Zapu leadership not to be perturbed by what happened. They encouraged us to stay on with the Bosso challenge in pursuit of sporting glory,” said Phiri.
He said the Zapu leadership valued Highlanders and the role sport played at the time of the struggle.
“They asked us to continue with soccer as it kept the spirits of the masses high. Football brought communities together and with the ongoing war, soccer matches became an exit point for the people’s frustrations to be blown away. Zimbabweans united behind football. Soccer brought smiles to thousands. At stadia people were free among themselves to talk about the politics of the day more than elsewhere. It was quite lifting to get a message from the senior Zapu leadership encouraging us on in football,” said Phiri. In 1975 upon release from Gonakudzingwa Prison, the late Father Zimbabwe and Vice-President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo called for unity among those in the soccer family.
There were deep divisions between Matabeleland Highlanders (Highlanders FC) and Mashonaland United (later known as Zimbabwe Saints). Once the fixture between the two was known running battles from industrial sites to the townships were common and the locking up of rowdy fans on Fridays until Sunday (5pm). Dr Nkomo recommended both teams to drop tribal names and one became Highlanders and the other Zimbabwe Saints.Taking part in the tournament, Phiri said was organic.
“The club had its players joining the struggle. So much happened behind the scenes under the cover of football. 1980 was a special year and time for us as Highlanders as we were back in the national football framework since 1976 when we broke away. We valued the contribution of the living and the dead in liberating our country. It is a tournament we had an attachment with for a number of reasons,” said Phiri.
Highlanders FC beat Wankie FC 3-2 in one of the two semi-final matches while Dynamos won a seven-goal thriller 4-3 against Caps United. So the stage for what would become a permanent fixture for grueling duels, finals pitting Dynamos and Highlanders.
“I still remember that cup final. It carried a lot of significance. We were remembering our heroes in a free Zimbabwe. The spirit that had engulfed the country at that time was touching,” Phiri spoke of the first Heroes Holidays in which sorrowful songs by the Light Machine Gun (LMG) Choir of Zapu, Zanu PF Choir and Flavian Nyathi dominated the airwaves punctuating a national mood of mourning and remembrance.
On 12 August, 1980 Highlanders bagged their second piece of silverware the Heroes Trophy after a 3-1 win over Dynamos in a match the Harare side were dazzled by the performance of a Highlanders team still smarting from a 4-2 second leg loss to Caps
United in the second leg of the Rothmans Shield. Phiri was adding that trophy to a long list of accomplishments that included the Second Division title, three South Region titles, one national league medal, Townshend and Butcher, South Zone, Pelandaba, Tapi Tapi, Jairos Jiri, Stanley and Livingstone Cup and the National Foods Red Seal Cups.
Two weeks later Highlanders undertook a highly emotional trip to Zambia. With Tymon Mabaleka and Mark Watson tied up to national duty against Zambia, Highlanders left Bulawayo on 28 August via Hwange where they picked up three Hwange stars Nyaro Mumba, Rodrick Simwanza and dribbling wizard David “Dididi” Khumalo.
“It was an emotional trip. People shed tears when they met us, there were still some Zimbabweans in Zambia, a big community. They shed tears when they saw us and we were moved too, the feeling touched in the inner most of an individual,” said Phiri.
Zambia had been the base for liberation struggle parties like the ANC of South Africa and Zapu. At the matches one played in the Copperbelt and against Roan United and City of Lusaka in the Zambian capital, hundreds of Zimbabweans came in loaded buses to have a feel of home through Bosso.
Phiri regards that month as one of the most emotional sapping he had been through as a player. He would add on the Heroes Trophy a couple of times as Highlanders manager in 1986, 1988 and 1990 making him among the most decorated in the competition.
Online Reporter