adminTadious Manyepo Sports Reporter
FORMER Zimbabwe international forward, Richard Mteki, is feeling the pain brought about by the strict measures meant to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Ordinarily, the former Lengthens and Warriors striker would be making a little fortune from sculpture as the business has transformed his life since he quit football at the age of 25.
That was eight years ago.
“With these travel restrictions across the world, obviously, I cannot travel as I used to do in the past and tourists have also virtually stopped coming here,’’ said Mteki.
“They constitute the largest chunk of those who make my business flow.’’
Mteki took the football scene by storm in his maiden season playing for newly-promoted Lengthens back in 2007.
He quickly cemented his place in the Warriors squad and big teams, including Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United, all lined up for his signature.
He forced his way onto the Soccer Stars of the Year calendar in his debut season.
But, Mteki wasn’t prepared to leave his beloved Lengthens, owned by a group of businessmen led by Beadle Musa Gwasira, which started as a social football club.
If anything, he had already achieved his goal of representing the country in 2007.
“Yes, some big teams came knocking for my signature but I was so happy at Lengthens and it was not like in the past when only guys from top teams would be selected into the national team,’’ he said.
“I said why not prove to the world you can do better even when you are playing for a small team.
“Besides, I had always wanted to represent my country at one point in my life, so I had achieved my goal and that I did that, while playing for a small team, made me question why I should go to the so-called big teams.”
Yet, as talented as he was, Mteki never really wanted to be a full-time footballer.
His dance with the game had come in queer circumstances.
A mere advert on a maize meal package, of someone playing football, inspired a young Mteki to momentarily think he would be able to do well in the game.
He was already into sculpture, from the age of three.
It’s something that runs in the family.
“I remember seeing an advert, on the surface of a mealie meal package, long back when I was young about 10 years.
“I was already into sculpture.
“That advert (on Chibataura package) had a picture of a guy named “Chigutiro” and I really liked it to the extent of being nicknamed the same by the whole community in Highfield while we played plastic-made soccer balls.
“Little did I know, the game would help me get a scholarship at Chaplin High School in Gweru. For a moment, I started to give time to football, as much as I did to sculpture, as my parents and everyone in the community started to push me.”
Still, had it not been for his brother, Brian Mteki wouldn’t have become a professional footballer.
He gave away his football boots as soon as he had finished school at Chaplin High.
But, his parents, together with Brian, pushed the young Mteki whose heart was on his father’s profession, sculpture.
They wanted him to follow in the footsteps of his late brother, Palmer, who used to play for Dynamos.
It is Brian who facilitated Mteki’s move to Lengthens in 2006 and the latter helped the team secure promotion into the top-flight the same year.
After winning a BancABC Super 8 trophy medal in 2009, Mteki moved to Black Mambas and subsequently to Twalumba.
But, what the players were paid at Lengthens, and the family unit at the club, was something he never found at the other clubs and he decided to quit.
“I just lost passion in the sport, that is why I just pushed for my early retirement at the age of 25,’’ he said.
“I don’t have any regrets as I believe you have got to do what you enjoy to excel and, thank God, it wasn’t because of injury.
“I just had to return to sculpture in 2012.”
If Mteki is to come back to the game, which gave him fame, it will not be anytime, soon.
Online Reporter