Online Reporter
Langton Nyakwenda-Zimpapers Sports Hub
ON certain afternoons in Zimbabwean football, memory does the heavy lifting.
Barbourfields will hum again today. The gates will open early. Blue and white will spill into one end, black and white into the other.
Vendors will shout. Old men will argue over line-ups as if it is still 1998. Young boys will ask their fathers what it felt like when these two ruled everything.
Yet the truth sits quietly beneath the noise.
Dynamos and Highlanders have not lifted the Premier Soccer League title for a combined 32 years. Dynamos last climbed onto the podium in 2014. Highlanders have not touched the trophy since 2006. Time has moved. Others have taken their place.
It is a strange thing, watching giants age.
Between them, Dynamos and Highlanders are 163 years old.
They are the face of the local game, the two names that still carry weight in every township and at every growth point. Since the Premiership era began in 1993, they have won 12 titles. Dynamos have seven, the most in that period. Highlanders have five. Their rivalry once defined seasons. When one rose, the other answered.
Now the numbers tell a different story.
Since completing a four peat under Kalisto Pasuwa in 2014, Dynamos have spent more time looking over their shoulder than ahead.
They have flirted with relegation three times in 12 years. Eight wins in 34 matches last season. A win rate of 24 percent. Not collapse, but not dominance either. Just survival.
Highlanders have endured their own slow fade. The last time they finished inside the top four was in 2016. Last season they were 11th with 39 points, 30 behind champions Scottland. Seven wins in 34 games. Two points above the drop. A 21 percent win rate. For a club built on pride, those are hard figures to read aloud.
Tawanda Maswanhise, now a Zimbabwe international, was three years old when Highlanders last won the league. A generation has grown up on stories rather than silverware.
The game around them has changed. Since 2010, new money has reshaped the league’s power map. FC Platinum, Ngezi Platinum Stars, Simba Bhora and Scottland have all taken titles in the past decade. Scottland did it on debut last season.
Others, backed by mining houses and betting firms, have built quietly and struck decisively. MWOS finished second in their first campaign. Hardrock arrive from Kwekwe with gold behind them.
In this new order, sentiment does not guarantee points. And yet this afternoon, when Dynamos and Highlanders meet in the Jairos Jiri Charity Cup, Barbourfields could still be full. Preseason or not, this fixture resists irrelevance. Fans want to see what has changed. They want to measure hope.
At Dynamos, there is a new executive led by Vincent Chawonza, a familiar figure to the terraces. Genesis Mangombe is back on the bench.
The club has moved quietly in the market before revealing a clutch of signings.
Callum English-Brown from Legends Academy. Anotida Gwatidzo from Yadah. Perfect Chikwende from GreenFuel.
Witness Shave from Triangle United. Collin Mujuru returns to the domestic stage. Malawian Stanley Billiat, once coached by a Kalisto Pasuwa at Nyasa Big Bullets, now wears blue.
Chawonza does not flinch when asked about the rise of the moneyed clubs.
“They might have money, but we have the numbers,” he says, leaning into the one asset Dynamos have never lacked. “We are a football powerhouse that has stood the test of time. Our supporters are loyal. They don’t need to be bused to matches. They come because they love the club.”
It is both defiance and belief.
In Zimbabwean football, numbers matter. Gate takings keep lights on. Shirts sell. Sponsors notice packed stands. Dynamos and Highlanders still command the biggest followings in the country. On certain days, that still feels like power.
In Bulawayo, Highlanders have chosen a different kind of gamble.
Benjani Mwaruwari, the former Manchester City striker and national team captain, now carries the weight of the badge. His first stint at Ngezi Platinum Stars in 2022 did not linger in memory. This is different. This is home soil and expectation.
Highlanders have trimmed their squad. Arthur Ndlovu has gone. Melikhaya Ncube too. McKinnon Mushore, Honest Mhlanga, Nqobile Ndlovu, Martin Nhubu and Learnmore Muyambo have moved on.
In their place come Mongameli Tshuma and Tawanda Shenje from Hwange, Roy Nyamono from Bikita Minerals, Rayton Chuma from NUST and goalkeeper Pride Zendera from Chicken Inn.
Denzil Mnkandla, the club’s chief executive, chooses his words carefully.
“It has been years since we last bagged silverware,” he admits. “The coach is under pressure, that is natural. But we are behind him. We will give him the support he needs.”
Pressure at Highlanders is never abstract. It sits in the grandstand and whistles. It debates at bus ranks. It follows the team into away dressing rooms.
There was a time when this fixture decided titles.
In 2012 and 2013, they finished level on points. Goal difference crowned Dynamos twice. Over 33 years of the Premiership, they have truly gone head-to-head for the crown only five times.
Now, as the 2026 season approaches, the question feels less romantic and more urgent. Can these giants adapt before nostalgia becomes their main currency?
Today will not answer that fully. It is preseason. Fitness is uneven. Systems are still being learned. But in Zimbabwean football, symbols matter. A strong showing will be read as a sign. A limp performance will feed doubt.
Numbers do not lie. They tell us that Dynamos and Highlanders have slipped from the summit. They tell us others have overtaken them. They tell us that dominance, once assumed, now has to be rebuilt from scratch.
But numbers do not capture everything.
They do not measure what it feels like when Barbourfields sways in unison. They do not calculate the pull of a badge worn by fathers and sons. They do not fully explain why, even after 32 combined years without a title, this match can still stop a city.
In the end, perhaps that is what remains. History is not a trophy. It cannot be lifted. But it can still fill a stadium.
And for Dynamos and Highlanders, that may yet be the place where revival begins.
Bongani Ndlovu