Chronicle Editor
Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
TALK of reviving the Highlanders juniors’ policy has been a favourite campaign message for every office aspirant at the club.
History shows that Highlanders’ focus on junior player and talent development was undoubtedly the reason for the club’s dominance in topflight football at the turn of the century.
A number of football stars emerged from the much-adored policy, with its last collective achievement in the teams’ memory being the pool of players that won the championship in the early 2000s.
It included the likes of Thulani “Biya” Ncube, Siza Khoza, Gift Lunga Jr, Melusi Sibanda, Zenzo Moyo, Noel Kaseke, Honour Gombami and Simon Sibanda among others.
They featured in the Bosso team that won the league championship title for four consecutive seasons.
Sadly, since then, Bosso have failed to match that crop of players honed by the club’s once vibrant junior player development programme.
However, whenever the club’s executive committee elections approach, just about every candidate promises to revive the juniors’ policy but nothing has ever come out of it.
Now that the club elections are drawing near, every candidate is once again promising to concentrate on reviving the junior policy.
Bosso members are set to elect a chairman, secretary-general and committee member on February 7, a week after the club’s annual general meeting set to be held on January 31 if Government grants the club permission to converge at the clubhouse.
In the campaign fight, incumbent chairman Kenneth Mhlophe, who is seeking a second term, has fronted a junior policy revival campaign.
His challenger for the seat Johnfat Sibanda is also singing the same song.
Bosso fans have not minced their words on the need to have a vibrant junior policy but once elected into the executive, talk of this ceases.
Fans crave for Bosso to once more dominate the domestic landscape and rise to become a regional and continental giant through well structured development programmes from juniors right up to the senior team.
Mhlophe is vowing to restore the club’s development policy, something that has failed him in his current tenure.
“Through proceeds from the mine, we shall be able to independently fund our junior development from Under-13 to Under-17 programmes as well as Bosso 90. We shall be a club of choice for both juniors and seniors,” reads one of his campaign posters.
The club recently acquired a gold mining claim in Inyathi, but mining is yet to start.
Sibanda has also spoken of focusing on junior football.
“The junior academy must be able to provide a foundation where the senior team can harvest talent from,” he says in his campaign manifesto.
He says the club should retain and reward junior coaching staff for continuity and provide adequate training equipment and facilities to enhance player development.
“We will also develop and maintain a self-contained and well-supported junior policy”.
Bheka Sibanda, who is vying for the committee member post, said: “A lot has been said about the club’s promising junior policy and it’s unfortunate that some members are of the view that developmental sides are straining the club’s coffers.
I beg to differ with members of the Bosso family that believe we can do without junior sides and concentrate only on the senior team. Such a move will be very detrimental to the future of the club and we can take that route at our own risk.
“Yes, the club has continuously gone on the market to buy players from other teams, but we need to produce our own stars as we did with the likes of Siza Khoza, Gift Lunga (junior) and most recently Prince Dube, among others.”
A football analyst said a lot needs to be done beyond talk about resuscitation of a vibrant junior policy,” said Sibanda.
A football analyst who spoke to this publication said:
“Despite promises, it will seem there has not been a specific budget for junior teams as at times they have failed to train. When kit sponsorships are signed, the deals don’t go down to the juniors as well. Salaries for technical staff seems not to go down to the junior coaches and that affects the quality and performance of these coaches.”
He said over the years Bosso have failed to link up with a school where they can monitor and bring players to the club.
There have also been leaks in the club’s junior data base resulting in players leaving the club at junior level and Bosso losing out. Examples are Teenage Hadebe, Marvelous Nakamba, Larence Mhlanga and Itai Mabhunu among others.
“There is need to have a clear promotional system from juniors to the senior team. There are no awards for juniors at a big club like Bosso while smaller Bulawayo clubs reward their juniors. Juniors’ revival is talk with no structure or laid down programme in place largely due to the absence of a technical director in the board or executive. There must be a deliberate appointment of former players to scout for junior players,” said the analyst.
– @innocentskizoe.
Online Reporter