‘Mackenzie Sibanda was a true hero’

Sports Editor
I HAVE had the honour of associating with sports people who have been around for decades. Some of them have been a source of inspiration. I owe it to them that I am where I am today because of their wise counsel and encouragement. They have been sources of valuable historical data and that has often spiced up some of my research and stories.

Over the past two weeks I have had to bear with sad news. Developments that have left Zimbabwe sport and soccer especially, robbed of true sons, committed to ensuring masses were happy.

I am referring to the deaths of Charles Paul Moyo a prominent Bulawayo lawyer and Zimbabwe Saints fan and former Highlanders star Mackenzie Sibanda.

Both impacted in my life positively and it will take me some time to forget the many hours we spent chatting about the good game of football.
Moyo was a man of the people. Scores of Bulawayo men and women drove all the way to his Masvingo rural village to bid him farewell. More fittingly was the fact that soccer people and some from pool were part of the mourners at his funeral. They lived with him and shared many of life’s happy moments and it was fitting that they see him off to higher authority.

Yesterday, I was among hundreds who turned up at Macdonald Hall in Mzilikazi for Sibanda’s funeral.

Once again Bulawayo and the rest of Matabeleland stood up for one of their own. Sibanda was a true hero, a man of the people, a father to thousands, an adviser and good schemer of things.

Coming from a family that has played for and administered Highlanders, I got to know of Sibanda who died in Bulawayo on Thursday at the age of 80 round about 1980.

I will never forget his coming to St George’s Primary School, Hwange in a small yellow car written Townshend and Butcher all over. He sold sportswear to Black Aces players and several others from Ngumija Village who had a touch of class.

One thing that stuck to me is that my dad bought me my first pair of football boots through him, an orange 13-stud pair which made me one of two people to own such boots the other being a shunter by the name Evans Khumalo, who embodied Bulawayoism in him.

Over the years it became my business to pass through Townshend and Butcher and greet him and marvel at the big pictures of then great soccer side Liverpool. Some of them are still there albeit faded because of the exposure to the sun.

Sibanda lived Highlanders and football. He was ever the one to be concerned about goings-on at the club. He always wanted things to go well and was behind the mentoring of several Highlanders leaders like Ndumiso Gumede and Peter Dube.

I remember listening to his words of wisdom ahead of many Highlanders meetings with his friends Ronald Mthembo and the late Douglas Mkwananzi.

One thing that had become a permanent feature for Sibanda was to be consulted by many bidding to be Highlanders executive something.

‘UMackenzie beselimbonile na? Utheni? Nxa ethe kuright then lami ngizakusekela mfana,’ this was told to many candidates by scores of members.

In him many saw a King Maker.

It’s a role that over the years he did not like judging from our discussions as some of the administrators failed to live up to it.

There was a time he had become so disillusioned with the way things were at Highlanders. I remember him lashing out at the Bosso management in January last year, a thing that did not win me any friends in some social circles. After the publication he called me to say something positive would come out of his lashing as a number of his friends who include Edward Dlamini and Edward Dzowa were concerned and wanted a candidate who had a traceable history within the club.

“Zwana mfana kaDube, we no longer want young people. You are dealers, you want to live off the club, we want the old spirit of volunteering to serve the people to return and we will find a good candidate and you will see accountability returning to the club,” he said to me from his Mzilikazi office on 20 January last year.

He was among the best sources for information on the history of football, Bafa, the Townshend and Butcher Trophy and Highlanders. He knew most of the chairpersons from 1956 to the present day.

I was hopeful that Zifa would use him in trying to come up with a list of 50 players and administrators who have had an impact in the game since 1963. This is part of the Zifa 50 year celebrations and there are fewer people as knowledgeable as he was.

He is gone with all he knew and sadly its in a country with no predecessor value. What he had through playing, coaching and administering the sport, few bothered to take note of that and he has left Zimbabwean soccer poorer.

Seeing politicians from across the divide at his funeral spoke of the people’s realisation that a hero is a hero by all accounts.

Sibanda was fittingly buried at Grenspan (Lady Stanley Cemetery) where some of his peers lie or where other heroes of Bulawayo are.

One of Bulawayo’s landmark features is the Bulawayo Amateur Football Association. He had been associated with this organisation from 1953 when he turned out for  Highlanders to the time of his death in which he was the sitting chairman.

Its hard to believe that one will never see him in those big jackets (ijazi) and that Highlanders has lost a key shareholder, Matson Hlalo will now  be without one of his closest allies.

Both of them reminded me of the old Mzilikazi and I used to say to Sibanda, ‘lingaphi elinye itsotsi leMzilikazi’ in reference to Hlalo. There was a time when we were growing up at Thokozani Flats that the Hlalos were as popular because of their shops in Mzilikazi as Highlanders and Mackenzie Sibanda were. Sibanda was a man of the people who would listen and then articulate his views, if it was a subject he was not interested in he would be frank and say ‘labo ngababulala iHighlanders or uBulawayo let us not talk about them.”

His passing on brought so many people of the old Highlanders. Sibekiwe Khumalo,  Hoseah Khumalo, Enock Mangena, Ben Chabata Mutamabara a player of the 1950s whose father played for the club around 1941, the 1980s Bosso greats were present led by Ernest Sibanda, Amin Soma-Phiri, Colsen Mabeza, Netsai Moyo and Rahman Gumbo.

Martin Mabvira, Vincent Pamire, Revolution players and members, Highlanders board members Jimmy Ncube and Thomas Ngwenya and chairman Peter Dube and Zifa vice-president Ngwenya were all there to say fare well to a friend, brother and fatherly figure.

Bulawayo and indeed  soccer is poorer without this committed soldier.

Hamba kuhle baba, lala ngokuthula Mdawini.