adminLovemore Dube Senior Sports Editor
THE mere mention of Amandlethu Secondary School to many in the region evokes bitter memories of a by-gone era and talent that went down the drain.In an autumn morning of 1994, an unknown school going by the name Amandlethu shocked all as its athletes dominated the Dairibord Secondary Schools Cross-Country Championships at Mzilikazi High School. As if that was not enough the girls impressed further at the national championships for the elite athletes and were considered for the national team.
Among the girls was Margaret Mahohoma one of the country’s best road runners of the last 20 years who is still active and running in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The school, to the north of Lupane Business Centre, adjacent to St Paul’s Mission, gave Zimbabwe some of its best known middle and long distance runners Mahohoma, the late Sibusisiwe Nyoni, Zondiwe Nyoni former Coke Half Marathon champion Singazi Dube, Busiso Nyoni, Gift Moyo and Fritty Moyo.
However, the tragedy with most talent from rural areas is that it often goes down the drain. The infrastructure that is at schools does not allow budding stars to continue with their careers. Schools do not want to take the burden of school leavers, besides resources do not permit for money to be spread beyond those paying fees.
Education officer for Lupane, Simplicio Gwanoya says so many talented athletes are lost soon after school.
“The environment in rural areas does not allow for talent to stay there after school. There are no facilities or clubs to retain them. Those lucky to be identified for further development in the urban areas tend to prosper.
“In the past their salvation has been mining companies who have taken them aboard for the Chamber of Mines competitions. The situation is no longer the same. Even then it was boys and not girls,” said Gwanoya.
He said lack of facilities had contributed to sportspersons quitting sport.
“Without proper facilities to use, someone to guide them after school in the form of organised clubs, it’s always difficult for athletes to continue running in the rural areas. Financial support would also be needed for them to travel to urban centres for competitions,” said the education officer.
In Lupane, Gwanoya said they had come up with a standard athletics track. He said the idea was to have all district competitions’ finals there at a facility that could give them an appreciation about national standards.
“At Lupane Primary School we have a standard track regardless of the surface. Our runners now have a better appreciation of what has to be expected at other competitions. We hope some day we would have an athletics club-based there with the local business community behind those runners.
“What happened to Amandlethu is not good for development. By now those girls should have been running in marathons in South Africa and abroad and earning good monies for the upliftment of their families and communities. If they had carried on running I have no doubt they would have inspired many a rural child to look at sports as a career option,” said the former Zifa panel referee.
Gwanoya said as Lupane they had since come up with a football league to tap the talent in the district. They are affiliated to Zifa and are in Division Three.
“Obviously we cannot take more than what we can chew. For a start we have football, we hope other activities will follow with time so that we tap the rural talent in a number of sporting activities,” he said.
Boitatelo Mnguni, the Matabeleland North education boss, also joined in the chorus. She said it was sad to see talent such as the Amandlethu girls being lost to sport. She said a programme must be in place within communities to encourage participation of kids after school.
She said, however, there were challenges in that school pupils were easy to manage. School leavers tended to present issues of discipline with girls very vulnerable.
She said it is now difficult to craft a mechanism that would enable school leavers and pupils to interact in sport freely after graduating.
Teachers are bound by Civil Service Commission rules when they run schools’ sport.
“The recent separation of sport to be a stand alone had put some sort of restriction as to how far sport can be pursued. It’s safer to stick to the National Association of Secondary School Heads and National Association of Primary School Heads activities where we are bound by a familiar code.
“Even for the Youth Games, it is difficult for our children to be involved because those competitions are not in our ministry. In the past we were able to provide athletes and help fundraise,” said Mnguni.
On the way forward Mnguni said there were now schools which acted as centres of excellence in a number of disciplines.
“There are bright spots. Yes, Amandlethu did us proud but new champions are coming up like Chemabondo’s Emmanuel Chuma, they need support and they can scale the same heights such as the Amandlethu athletes one day. What we need is support for our activities in terms of sponsorships,” she said.
Mnguni said to show that Matabeleland North was still productive they had produced Phathisa Ngwabi of Hwange Colliery Athletics Club.
“We saw the talent in him and asked Hwange to accommodate him. There are so many promising stars in Binga, Lupane, Victoria Falls and Tsholotsho who we are confident will follow in the footsteps of Ngwabi and the Amandlethu girls,” said Mnguni.
One of the athletes, Zondiwe Nyoni who with her twin sister Sibusisiwe made a name for Lupane and her family, said another factor was that sport tended to be tied to a particular teacher.
“We had a great time under James Rugwevera. He was strict and we had to attend training all the time. When he left so many of us lost the drive to continue in the sport. He was the driving force and I presume that is the challenge facing many rural athletes after school.
“Another factor is lack of sponsorship and facilities for school leavers. There is no one to take care of those who are no longer at school. There must be clubs to benefit such talent,” said Zondiwe.
Zondiwe was a member of the Matabeleland North team at both Dairibord and open clubs’ championships.
Among her best results was finishing behind Singazi Dube and Samukeliso Moyo in the Coke Half Marathon. She also has a silver medal in the Dairibord cross-country championships.
She said there was a lot of talent in rural Zimbabwe which just needed exposure and sponsorship. She felt policies in sport should not be individually-driven but a matter for the education sector to pursue. This she said, would ensure continuity in programmes instead of that coming to an end because a teacher would have been transferred as was the case with Rugwevera.
“If Rugwevera had stayed on we would have gone far. Athletics would be big in the district and also sponsorship is key to everyone’s dreams of making it big,” said Zondiwe.
She is back in the country and is a domestic worker in the city after some time in South Africa.
Her father, Johnson, 66, said his girls showed a lot of promise while at Malungu Primary School before moving to Amandlethu. He said running to school on sandy tracks made them better athletes.
He speaks with pride of Sibusisiwe who died in 2010 and Zondiwe.
“They made me proud. My family got to be known and they were able to pay their own fees from what they won in races. That lessened the burden for the family as some of the money would help the family’s upkeep.
“Sibusisiwe failed her O’ Levels and asked me if I could pay for seven subjects as she intended repeating. She went on to pass all subjects. I could not afford to take her to high school because at about that time I lost a head of 15 cattle. She applied for nursing, the police and army. It is the Zimbabwe National Army which responded first and she joined them and went to Bulawayo for training before being posted to KGV1 in Harare. She no longer was running.
“I believe with sponsorship and community clubs and committed teachers like Rugwevera staying at one school, the nation can benefit as they are an asset. He made our girls champions and the pride of the district, province and country. I feel proud that my daughter represented Zimbabwe and went as far as Morocco,” he said as he posed for a photo holding Sibusiwe’s passport with a stamped visa to the North African country in 1998.
He quipped that he did not even know where Morocco was and that the teachers back then in 1998 could not point to the direction of the country where the competition was held. Johnson said that one challenge Sibusiwe faced was that she had nowhere to stay in Bulawayo, Hwange or Harare to pursue her athletics career.
“Everytime my girls went to races, I would pray for their safe travel and success. I would heave a sigh of relief when they returned,” said Johnson.
Johnson said his wife Nethabo was supportive of her sporting daughters.
“It was God-given talent that they had,” said Nethabo.
One of the star athletes was Sibangani Nyoni who is now working at some Bulawayo school as a clerk.
Sibangani went as far as the Seychelles.
Singazi Dube, a dominant feature in the cross-country scene once finished 73rd at the World Cross Country Championships’ short course while in the longer, she was 144th.
Her talents took her as far as South Africa and was a feared force in a generation which had the late Samukeliso Moyo (Amandlethu) and the legendary Ntepe born Samukeliso Moyo who is still active, Siphulwazi Sibindi, Silamulele Ndlovu, Message Mapfumo, Jane Makombe, Faith Nyasango nee Kamangila, Sinini Ncube, Mahohoma and Nokuthula Munkuli.
Sadly most did not make it to the professional ranks and quit soon after school with Sibindi married in Mashonaland East, Mapfumo in Bulawayo and Munkuli said to be in Botswana.
Agnes Ndlovu, the mother of another Amandlethu athlete, Fritty Moyo the winner of the provincial cross-country championships, said she was happy to see her daughter win events and pay her own school fees. She attributed that to the commitment of teachers Rugwevera and Xolani Ndlovu who were behind the school’s athletics support.
“She was able to pay her own school fees. We were happy for that and the teachers then were also supportive to the children attaining high standards on both track and road events.
“When Bulawayo Bottlers stopped supporting the girls, most quit sport and also when their teachers left, they lost interest. Fritty got married to our son-in-law who is from Harare and they are staying in Namibia. We hear Mahohoma is still running, if the environment had been supportive, I have no doubt she would have gone places,” said Ndlovu.
Her other child Gift, who is now in South Africa established himself as a good athlete before moving across the Limpopo.
James Rugwevera, the man behind the Amandlethu revolution, said the school had been lifted by the arrival of a supportive headmistress — Sibongile Ndlovu. He said at times the success of a particular school boils down to the head and an active teacher.
At Amandlethu, he said the road from Lupane had a good gradient and sandy patches that allowed athletes to build on their endurance.
He said at times runners used the wide Shangani River for their training apart from the long distances walked to school and home every day in sandy tracks.
“I would like to believe if a school gets a committed teacher in a particular discipline, he will commit himself and sport will benefit. We worked hard with our athletes using natural resources for stamina and endurance like the Shangani River. School authorities and parents were also very supportive.
“Lack of financial support has also hindered rural athletes from continuing. The facilities are poor too and no back up for those out of school,” said Rugwevera.
Another athletics coach who raised the profile of rural Matabeleland North athletics is Bhekuzulu Khumalo, now a lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology.
He taught at Sigonde Secondary School in Insuza from 1992 to 1995.
His athlete Flathelwe Ncube dominated long distances and twice won the cross-country title while Priscillar Sibanda won the 21-30km events such as Coke Half Marathon and How Mine event a number of times.
“The challenge has always been South Africa and marriages. The environment has not been kind with girls as boys have often been absorbed by mines. It’s more often about the teacher. During our time with the likes of Rugwevera, it was more of the desire to see these girls do well than our technical expertise,” said the now highly qualified sports practitioner.
Police and the army, he said used to get most of the girls back then while boys were absorbed by the mines for the Chamber of Mines Championships.
Brian Moyo, a veteran sports administrator, said in the 1990s Matabeleland North had a number of teachers who went on to establish themselves in the national sporting framework.
Khumalo, Xolani Ndlovu, Andrew Tapela, Rugwevera, Permanent Sibanda and himself went on to rise.
“I think we were young and with no entertainment so we spent a lot of time working with kids in the sports fields,” said Moyo a former Ndimimbili Secondary School teacher.
Moyo has worked at the Sport and Recreation Commission, Zimbabwe Cricket, Highlanders Football Club and is now the Zifa education officer.
Such is the sad story for the rural based but talented youth.
derick.khumalo