admin
Sports Reporter
It seems like just yesterday when Chegutu Pirates were playing in the second tier of local football.
But for those that remember the days of the Northern and Southern Regions, each with 20 teams all vying for one topflight ticket, they will peg the Premiership greenhorns as perennial campaigners who never quite seemed to have enough in their tank to go the whole nine yards. Until now!
But in truth, that’s because they have been around that long! And without ever having kicked a football in topflight football! It was around this time that Nyasha Makanda, a typical Zaire Dzinza zealot fan visited Pfumojena Stadium for the first time at the age of 18.
“I’ve supported them since I was a kid and I’d keep track of the scores but my first game wasn’t until I was 18,” he told B-Metro, days before his trip to Barbourfields.
“I’d been in the stands before with my family, but I’ve been a fan for 25 years and I mean what a rollercoaster it’s been.”
That rollercoaster was Pirates’ never-ending and very often unsuccessful promotion battles. Zaire finally ended their forever-long stay in the second tier last season and incredibly, just months later, they’re now just 48 hours away from playing in one of the most hallowed stadiums in the country for the first time in their very arguably long history.
Emmanuel Day Gutu’s side go up against Highlanders at Barbourfields Stadium in only their fourth Castle Premiership match ever with a chance to make their own history.
Until the Pirates finally got it right, won promotion and picked up their first batch of topflight maximum points when they edged out Green Fuels 1-0 on Good Friday, they had made a craft out of just missing out on being a part of the Premiership.
So, five years ago, a fresh-faced 19-year-old Russel Chifura penned his full professional contract with Highlanders. And this Sunday, he may just be on the field to face that Highlanders at Barbourfields Stadium in the fifth round of the 2024 Castle Premier Soccer League, this time as a Pirate, coincidentally in a similar black and white strip.
Pirates’ Norton-native, Chifura is now one of the most recognisable Zimbabwean footballers in Chegutu if not the country at large having scored the club’s first-ever Premiership goal against Green Fuels last Sunday.
It seems history may come calling again exactly seven days later if he scores against Bosso: the first Pirates player to score at Barbourfields, ever! This could very well be his most memorable moment as a player.
He and his fellow Pirates are on the cusp of quickly finding glory, should they make two wins on the trot on Sunday. Another goal will invariably make him a beloved player for the Chegutu club and hopefully, this will be enough to help them stay up.
The Aces Youth Soccer Academy graduate is a gifted, intelligent and mobile forward whose runs off the ball are the greatest attribute coaches look for from a modern-day striker. Faced with trying to make a starting line-up that already had one Prince Dube among it proved to be a little too much for the forward and he moved on, eventually finding himself at Yadah where he made quite an impact. He nonetheless, missed out on sharing the dressing room with another Aces graduate, Khama Billiat who joined the Miracle Boys at the beginning of the 2024 season.
His form at Yadah earned him a transfer switch to Premier League new guns Pirates and since then, his popularity and profile have risen considerably.
Pirates’ starlet is renowned for his work ethic, intelligence and mobility as well as his happy personality on and off the pitch that has the ancestors of local football charmed.
And on Sunday against his former club, Gutu will be looking to the experience he gained from Highlanders when the Bulawayo giants signed him as a 19-year-old in 2019 after seeing the young striker during targeted trials.
Chafura is now easily regarded as one of the best players at Pirates and will surely become invaluable for his club and possibly his country as well. Since his time at Highlanders, he has evolved into a star player for Pirates and is a shining young talent in the Premier League who would undoubtedly get more game time for Zimbabwe should he be given a chance to knock down a few peers in the pecking order.
But off the field, “Ama2k” would want to call the “oldest” football club in the land “Ancestor” given that they were founded in 1912, according to their loyal fans, while Shabanie Mine was formed in 1914.
And their opponents this Sunday, Highlanders are the third-born in this football narrative having been established in 1926. However, official records tell a different story. The club was officially formed in 1963 as Hartley Hunters, named after the old colonial name of the town. It wasn’t until 1981 that they rebranded themselves as Chegutu Pirates.
What cannot be denied is their remarkable longevity. Pirates boast a rich history and also goes by the nickname “Zaire Dzinza”. The reason behind this name, as well as the meaning of their famous “Shuga Malaga!” boast, remains a mystery.
But this Sunday, thinking “Zaire Dzinza” will not be a description of the talking drums from the Congo Basin but Pirates’ fans hoping to drum Bosso into submission on their very first attempt at it.
Online Reporter