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Danai Chitakasha Special Correspondent
A CLASSIC picture of CAPS United players preparing for training at the iconic Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield recently went viral on the social media. This must be 1981 or 1982 season.
For many Highfield-born boys the routine was the same. They would find an excuse to leave home at around 4 o’clock just to watch these players go through their paces.
With my brother Chops we had a ready made excuse. The Library!
It helped that the Highfield Community Library was adjacent to the Zimbabwe Grounds. It was easy therefore to just tell our father, “We are going to the Library!”
That was sweet music to him and he would gladly allow us to leave home.
Once we got to the Library, however, we would leave the books in the reading room and proceed to the Zimbabwe Grounds.
For two hours (the team trained from 4pm to 6pm) nothing else mattered for us.
We watched these legends, we listened to them talk, we caught up in their banter. We even tried to talk like them (words like Mwaluvha, a Joel “Jubilee” Shambo favourite, bhora mwani, good going mwani became part of our football vocabulary) and yes, we even tried to walk like them! We missed nothing!
After two hours of training, they would depart most of them in the funny looking CAPS United bus… Shacky “Mr Goals” Tauro and a few others in his VW Beetle car! (Ka kamba we called it). Duncan “Zico” Ellison also drove a VW Beetle, Stanley “Sinyo” Ndunduma had a Pulsar.
The routine was the same from Tuesday to Friday and yes, after those two hours we would now remember the reason we had given to leave home – back to The Library!
We would spend the next two hours doing our homework in the well furnished and lighted reading rooms!
We were indeed spoiled!!
And we became fans!!
PS… There are four pitches at the Zimbabwe Grounds. CAPS United used Ground No. 2, Black Aces used Ground No. 3.
Most fans watched CAPS United although Aces were equally attractive, especially when Archieford ”Chehuchi” Chimutanda decided to pitch up for training!
The grounds are currently not in the best shape, but I am just happy that they have been preserved. Where there is life, there is hope!
Be Blessed!
Online Reporter