adminThe club spent two seasons in this league and won promotion to the Zifa Southern Region Division One League at the end of 2007 season.
Kwela Kwela, as they are known as, missed promotion into the Premiership by a whisker twice after the end of the 2009 season that eventually saw Shabanie Mine coming in and last year when Chicken Inn won the championship.
They have vowed to make Bulawayo proud.
“The road has not been easy but the good thing is that we managed to take it step by step and now we are in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League. Our vision has always been to play in the Premiership and having realised that now, we want to stay in top flight.
“The formation of the club was taken as part of the company’s long term plans of building the Quelaton brand through soccer as well as giving back to the Bulawayo community where we operate
from. We just want to make the City of Kings proud.
“When we came to Division One, our ambition was clear, to survive the first year and we managed to do that as we ended in eighth position. In our second season we gunned for the championship and we managed to do that as we came first but since there were two Zifa Southern Region Leagues, we then lost out on the direct premiership promotion to Shabanie Mine.
“The 2010 season was a tough season with Chicken Inn coming in strongly and they deservedly won the championship.
“All those years were learning periods for us and when the year started (2011), we told ourselves that were going to win the championship. Now that we are in, we are definitely in to stay. We owe our promotion to good teamwork,” said Ruzive.
The club director said as much as they had ambitions to join the likes of Motor Action, Monomotapa and Gunners as the “small teams” to win the league title, they would want to challenge for the most coveted piece of silverware in the 2015 season.
“It will be too ambitious for Quelaton to say we are gunning for the championship in our maiden Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season. What we want is to avoid relegation in our debut season, then build a strong team of youngsters that is going to challenge for the league title in 2015 season,” Ruzive said.
With the calibre of players in their camp who include former Highlanders striker Patrick ‘Mboma’ Mpofu, Njabulo ‘Tshiki’ Ncube formerly with Railstars, Motor Action and Highlanders, Tedious Mugumanja, Amani Makhiwa, skipper Innocent ‘Joker’ Kutsanzira and speed merchant Kundishora Chakanyuka among others, Quelaton might be a force to reckon with.
The technical team – Thulani Sibanda and Clemence Chimunhu – did their job by coming up with winning formulae and the players did what they were paid to do, that is to win the games.
There are also some coaches like Dickson Mbazo and Cosmas “Tsano” Zulu who helped the club on their quest for victory.
Ruzive re-affirmed his past sentiments that he would not be selling the club and wanted to give youngsters from the City of Kings a chance to showcase their talents.
“We will not sell the club but we are going to have our doors open for those who want to join us. The companies and people we want are those who have Bulawayo at heart.
“These youngsters in our team can earn an honest living through sport and it must be a challenge to the corporate world to create a vibrant industry through sport,” he said.
Other clubs that have been promoted from Division One Leagues include Northern Region’s Harare City and Buffaloes of Eastern Region.
The winner of the Central Region will be announced after the determination of the Hardbody appeal that was held yesterday in Harare.
Hardbody and Tripple B of Beitbridge are front-runners for the title and if the former loses the appeal, the latter is likely to be declared champions.
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter