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Veronica Gwaze Sports Reporter
THE story of Herentals Queens Football Club and Mighty Warriors star Talent Mukwanda is a rare tale of a woman made up of steel.
Just at the age of 30, she has faced literally most of the challenging misfortunes that life can offer.
In fact, Mukwanda who counts herself lucky to not have committed suicide to this day, still finds it difficult to talk about some of her life experiences.
Growing up in Hatcliffe, the Mukwanda family was forced by circumstances to move to Epworth just after she completed her Ordinary Level.
Having failed her ordinary levels, it was in Epworth that she decided to join a local football team, to kill the boredom which was a result of staying idle at home.
She recalls envying the women as they played the game.
However, she was not aware that this was actually a social team meant to be an exercising platform for women living with Human Immune Virus (HIV).
“The team was called ‘Positive Believers’ so in 2009 they took me in as their youngest player,” she said.
“They were very accommodating and to me they were just like anyone else, I did not care about their statuses, I actually felt happy playing with them.”
However, at the time, stigma and discrimination against positive people was still rife.
As a result, people around the neighborhood started talking negatively about her.
Some of them actually assumed that she was also HIV positive while others cautioned her against mingling with the positive people, lest she got infected.
Her mother would not take it lightly and she barred her from playing football.
However, despite being reprimanded countless times, defiant Mukwanda went on to become the team’s darling.
She would always device ways to go and play and then face the consequences later.
“Almost daily I would be in conflict with my mother over football but it was already late, I loved the game and felt it was the only thing that made me happy.” In 2010, the team rebranded to Silver Queens.
Mukwanda recalls how the team never got any monetary rewards from the game, instead they just played for passion and health reasons.
They would play barefooted without any fancy kit.
“I still recall the only kit we had and laugh my lungs out, at that time we did not care about it, we just felt happy kicking the ball around,” she said.
“It was just the love for the game that pushed us.”
It is also around that time that she met the ‘love of her life’ and had a daughter in 2013.
In 2014, she was discovered by Weerams, a Zimbabwe Women Soccer League side who then signed and transformed her into a professional player as a striker.
With her baby still young, she had to balance the game and childminding.
This meant breastfeeding in-between training or games and sometimes having to travel with the baby for away fixtures.
However, it was not long after the couple separated, leaving Mukwanda heartbroken.
The football pitch, she said, became the only place that could drown her sorrows.
Ironically, this also became her mother’s turning point.
“She understood what I was going through and her fear was that I could commit suicide so she had to develop a liking for football and motivate me to play,” she said.
“She would take care of the baby while I played, football actually helped me heal and mum became my big fan.”
Later Mukwanda moved to Chipembere before finding home at Herentals Queens as a commanding centre back.
Over the years, she has transformed into a vital cog for the “School Girls”.
Away from the football pitch, she has been in and out of an abusive relationship that left her with scars.
“Football has become life for me, I do not want to talk about what I went through. In fact, I am still traumatised, I guess I am just unfortunate,” she fought back tears.
“I have siblings and I am the breadwinner in my family. My football earnings take care of them so literally my life revolves around the pitch.
“When Zimbabwe was banned from international football, I had already made a cut on the Mighty Warriors so it came as a huge blow… football has become ‘life’ for me.”
Mukwanda will be dominating from the back today, at Wagadhugu Stadium when Herentals take on Correctional Queens in their third game of the season.
Online Reporter