Chronicle Editor
. . . he has barely missed a match, demands more action
Ceremonial chants and booming drums that drowned Rufaro Stadium when Zimbabwe beat Zambia 2-1 in a match to celebrate independence in 1980 are still resonating with an undying freshness in Passios Masunda’s mind.He was among the tens of thousands that thronged this popular home of football to celebrate the transition from colonialism to self-rule.
Today, 36 years later, Masunda (76), has not taken his foot off the pedal.
He is a permanent feature at every soccer match hosted either at Rufaro Stadium or the giant National Sports Stadium.
He has not missed a match in an expedition with football that essentially started 40 years ago after he came to Harare from Masvingo, his communal home.
To him, a football fixture has always had the last word in any arrangement and his family understands it, or at least accepts, that even christenings or weddings or any gatherings, which in other families would take unquestioned precedence, can only be plotted after consultation when they want to involve him.
He has become a master of his weekly routines in every soccer season.
Every match day, Masunda joins thousands of other soccer enthusiasts, as they throng soccer arenas for some hypnotising moments of football action.
But it is the manner in which he has demonstrated his love for the sport that has set him apart from the rest of the pack.
From as far back as 1976, he has not missed a weekend of football action.
It is his boundless love for the sport that has involuntarily pushed him to make sure every weekend he attends a soccer match no matter the identities of the teams.
His flirtation with the sport started at Mutsambwa Primary School in Masvingo Province in the early 1960s before moving to Chida Primary School where he played for the school team.
He was to make the great trek to the then Salisbury in 1966 whereupon he joined Fort Victoria Football Club, which was made up of players originally from Masvingo but working in Harare, then Salisbury.
He made an instant impact as an attacking midfielder before he was chosen to play for Yellow Peril, a Harare select that would clash with Golden Stars of Gweru (then Gwelo), Red Army of Bulawayo and Green Bombers of Mutare (then Umtali) every year for the Rhodes and Founders Holiday that ran for a week.
Masunda vividly remembers his exhilaration when they lifted the Osborne Cup (the biggest prize of the one week tournament) at one point.
“It made me feel very proud, really happy. I was beginning to be noticed and that was a momentous achievement for me and my team. That win catapulted me into the limelight yet made me realise I could also add a feather to my growing reputation by being involved in the administration of the sport as well. I was soon to join the administration team of the Harare Province based in Mbare,” recalls Masunda.
Masunda eventually made the most difficult decision of his life to hang his boots and focus full time on administration.
In 1969 he was elected treasurer for the Harare Amateur Football Association, a role that he served with diligence, he remembers.
Goaded by an insatiable desire to be involved in almost everything related to the smooth running of the sport, Masunda found himself training as a referee but may have easily gone into the Guinness Book of Records for the wrong reasons — possibly the shortest refereeing career ever — after he retired in the wake of a thorough hiding by an angry player after awarding one team a penalty during a cup game.
“The player beat me thoroughly to the point of fainting. When I came around, I decided to do something less adventurous so I traded the whistle for commentary. I trained to become a commentator. As commentators we would use a public address system and broadcast in the open from the sidelines of the soccer fields.
“We would travel around the country each time there were matches involving teams from our tier in the national league. I would do commentary in Shona while a colleague would do it in Ndebele. Sometimes we would be code switching-using both languages plus English as the third one,” Masunda further explains.
But while all this was happening, Masunda made sure he would attend a match every weekend. Some matches would involve the national team while the bulk involved their amateur league teams or the country’s top flight league. Then, he was working and staying in the avenues area.
He acknowledges that during those days soccer was still soccer and players played football for the love of the sport and not the money they now put first.
“The level of competition has also fallen. There are no longer lethal strikers to talk of. In the past if a striker got into the danger zone we knew a goal would be coming but today’s players love to dilly dally a lot and do not take chances as they come so we always have goal droughts, which never happened during our time.
“One thing anybody from my time would agree with me is that there were very few draws of penalty shoot outs because most matches were concluded in regulation time,” says the veteran administrator and player.
But despite this slump in the quality of soccer standards, the man has not given up and still commits a single day or both days of his weekends to attend some football matches, something that has not escaped the attention of the Zimbabwe Football Administration (ZIFA).
At the turn of the millennium, ZIFA rewarded Masunda for his unfaltering love for the sport with an honorary life membership of the association, which enables him to attend all matches without forking out a penny. He is always part of the VIP enclosure since then and has travelled out of Zimbabwe with both the national men’s and women’s soccer teams.
“I have been to countries like Namibia, Tunisia, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania to name just a few of them courtesy of ZIFA. What also excites me a lot about the treatment I get from ZIFA is that when I get to any destination where our national teams will be playing they get me a chauffeur to drive me around and I will be staying in hotels,” explains Masunda, a lavish smile lighting up his face.
On the international arena, Masunda is a staunch Liverpool supporter who confesses that his love for the Anfield side developed during the days of the legendary John Barnes whom he regards as the best attacking midfielder of all time.
He also idolises Argentina’s Lionel Messi and former Brazilian dribbling wizard, Ronaldinho.
Masunda now resides in Harare. He is married to Juliana Nyemba and the couple was blessed with 10 children. Back home in Zaka, Masvingo, he is a headman so he sometimes has to travel there for the administrative duties that go with the post. — Zimpapers Syndication.
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