Innocent Mugabe’s big dream

Collin Matiza Sports Editor
FORMER CAPS United striker Innocent Mugabe has got a dream. The younger brother of the legendary CAPS United midfielder Joe “Kode” Mugabe wants to bring Premiership football to Harare’s high-density suburb of Mabvuku.

Innocent Mugabe, who is now based in England, runs a successful junior football academy – BJM – at Tashinga Primary School in Mabvuku and his dream is to turn it into a Premiership side in the not-too-distant-future.

Named after his late father, Bob Joe Mugabe, the BJM Academy, which was launched in May 2015, is now the home of more than 100 players from Mabvuku, who play in different age-groups from the Under-14s up to the Under-20s in the Harare Province Junior League.

Innocent Mugabe yesterday told The Herald from his base in Basingstoke, a town in southern England, that his dream is to see all these players playing in the Premiership under a team from Mabvuku.

And as part of his efforts to make his dream come true, Innocent Mugabe has just bought a 16-seater Mercedes Benz mini-bus, which he would like to ship back home to Zimbabwe for his academy. He also sources some playing kit for the academy in England.

“Since the launch of the academy three years ago, transporting our players to play at different places or venues in the Harare Province Junior League has been some sort of a headache for our head coach Peter Mugwendere and to sort this out, I decided to buy a mini-bus for them from England.

“So, I’ve just bought a 16-seater Mercedes Benz mini-bus for £3 500 and if all goes well, it should arrive there in Harare in May, just in time for the start of the Harare Province Junior League’s new season.

But my main aim is to have two mini-buses for the academy so that the players won’t face any problems when travelling outside Mabvuku to fulfil their fixtures.

“This is a big project, which I would like to see benefiting the football-mad kids from Mabvuku and I’m quite convinced that this will one day see the area having a team playing in the Premier Soccer League.

“In fact, we now have an Under-20 team at the academy and players in this age-group can easily play in the Premier League. We already have Mabvuku Stadium, which can easily be renovated to meet the required standards to host Premiership matches,” Innocent Mugabe said.

Mabvuku has in the past years produced a number of talented players, who featured for a number of local Premiership clubs and they include the likes of the famous Mugeyi twins, Wilfred and William, former CAPS United and Warriors goalkeeper Brenna Msiska, Albert “Dhalala” Mabika, Stephen “Bhotsengwa” Jonhera, Joe Cooker and Innocent Mugabe’s elder brother Joe “Kode” Mugabe.

In the 1990s, the Mugeyi twins featured prominently for the now-defunct Premiership side Black Aces and they also played for the senior national team before joining “The Great Trek”, which saw them plying their trade in South Africa.

In fact, Wilfred Mugeyi, nicknamed “The Silver Fox”, was crowned the 1992 Soccer Star of the Year in Zimbabwe after he helped Black Aces to win the local Premiership title before he headed Down South, where he enjoyed a long and fruitful spell at South African side Bush Bucks, a club he first joined in 1993.

Wilfred Mugeyi took South African football by storm when he scooped three top awards, PSL Player of the Year, Player’s Player of the Year and Top Goalscorer of the Season back in 1996 /1997, when he scored 23 goals for Bucks.

He has also had spells in Israel and China, where he played for Maccabi Haifa and Shenyang Haishi respectively. His twin brother William Mugeyi was also a professional footballer, who played for Bush Bucks and Zimbabwe.

But Msiska and Joe Mugabe are arguably the most famous footballers to hail from Mabvuku and they both played for Harare giants CAPS United for a number of years.

Msiska has since hung up his gloves and is now into coaching, while Joe Mugabe, like his young brother Innocent, is now based in England.

Their “homeboy” Mabika was also a gifted player who played for Tabex, Black Aces, Dynamos and CAPS United. Mabika is now coaching junior footballers at CAPS United.