Online Reporter
Sharuko on Saturday
IN The Guardian newspaper of the UK, they have a sports blog called ‘When Saturday Comes,’ in which guest writers can talk about their issues.
I read it quite a lot, being the avid reader that I am, especially when it comes to anything related to sport, including the football played with hands in America and Australia.
I’m old school, I come from a place and time where reading comes naturally and I can spend hours doing absolutely nothing but devouring written content.
I know it’s not fashionable now, in the age of social media where content is consumed by a tweet or an Instagram post, but that’s me and I am fine with that.
This week, as our football searched its soul in the wake of the defection by two celebrity fans from CAPS United and Dynamos to Scottland, I remembered an article I read on The Guardian’s ‘When Saturday Comes’ blog.
That article is a dozen years old and was written by a guy called Kevin O’Donnell in March 2013 – the final year before DeMbare’s conversion from the people’s team into something now owned by a single family.
Kevin chronicled his personal challenges after making the big decision to ditch the football club he had supported from his time as a boy and shift allegiance to support another club.
Kevin asked some tough questions, including why it was normal for us to change wives, jobs and even religions but it’s then considered an abomination if we change the football clubs we support?
He asked why someone like him, who decides to end the loyalty he had for a club he started supporting in the innocence of his primary school days, should be considered an outcast for exercising his rights?
He conceded that it’s rare.
“The true fan would never entertain such a thought,” Kevin wrote.
“Admitting that you have left your team to follow another is more shameful than owning up to being a member of the Chris de Burgh fan club, or having the largest collection of pornography in western Europe. Or perhaps both.
“But why is it so rare for anyone above primary school age to change the team they support? After all, players, managers and even chairmen can switch clubs regularly.
“A couple of seasons ago I ditched the club I had supported for over 30 years. I won’t name them; suffice to say I didn’t like the owners and I had grown increasingly tired of the manager attributing each and every defeat to clueless match officials.
“So, why was I able to walk away from my ex? Many thousands would never want to do the same. They attend matches, they’re part of a community, it’s in their blood. Some of them probably have weird tattoos of club legends on their chests.”
This week, Kevin’s club of the fans who dumped their former clubs grew in numbers when it was joined by Boban and Chemhofela.
The latter even chose the day CAPS United attracted their biggest crowd to Rufaro, in recent years, for him to perform a public parade of his divorce from the Green Machine.
He chose the day Sonja Madzikanda came to watch a football match, in a CAPS United shirt, for him to tell us that divorce was cool, even when it comes to fans dumping their old club.
BOBAN, CHEMHOFELA TAKE A HUGE LEAP
The two have received instant rewards for their defection after they were handed Toyota Aqua cars by some businessmen associated with Scottland.
I’m different from them.
I will never dump my club Chakari United even though we are stuck in Division Two right now with very little prospects of coming out of that league.
For me, it’s a spiritual and natural connection by birth and that will also be the case in death.
I’m not sure whether I can say the same for the two gentlemen but, in the days when they belonged to the parish of the two giants, they demonstrated a love affair with the two clubs which appeared genuine and beautiful.
But, it now appears to have been just a show, a reality TV production like Big Brother, a grand public display of deception and the heart was probably never there in the first place.
Chemhofela, who is a good friend of mine, said he was hurt that CAPS United did not honour him when he was named the second best fan in the domestic Premiership.
I didn’t really understand him because I don’t think clubs are meant to honour their fans for supporting their franchise because this is voluntary work.
You either choose to or you don’t.
That is why fans pay to go into a stadium even though they are going to support the cause of their favourite club and, when they are happy, they even shower the players with cash donations.
That is why fans pay to buy replica jerseys, just for them to be identified with their favourite club, and can even spend thousands of dollars flying to go and support their team playing in foreign lands.
Football clubs don’t flight adverts asking for fans to apply and join their ranks.
Clubs don’t choose supporters but supporters choose clubs.
Yes, a club can decide to chip in and help a fan, let’s say when tragedy strikes, but they really don’t have an obligation to do that.
There is no contract between a club and a fan, it’s all based on a love story, on emotions, on personal choices on the part of the supporters.
Boban and CheMhofela can argue that because there is no contract between them and their former clubs, it gives them the independence to dump those teams and relocate elsewhere.
They can argue that they have suffered a lot, at their former clubs, where their emotions have been abused, without the league championship being delivered, they have a right to look elsewhere.
Chemhofela will probably answer back and say when Ronald Pfumbidzai and Khama Billiat returned home and chose Scottland, instead of CAPS United, it dawned on him that the game had changed.
And, he too, also needed to change.
He can argue that when he saw Kingsley Mureremba and Godknows Murwira shifting base from CAPS United to Scottland, and no one coming the other way, he decided it was time to also shift base.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE CELEBRITY FAN
Which is all fair and fine.
But, there will always be the question about whether they have become guns for hire and, if that is the case, they have lost the soul of what makes a true football fan.
Some of their worst critics will even say they have become mercenaries.
A group of men are ready to shift allegiance whenever the highest suitor comes along and tomorrow they can wake up in another corner.
The problem with being a mercenary is that no one can trust you because all that matters to you is the return on investment, be it the money, some property or whatever.
Football has long attached a moral judgment to the level of loyalty one has to a cause – be it for a club in Division Two, like my Chakari United, in the PSL, like Bikita Minerals, and on a national scale like the Warriors.
But, before we point our guns at CheMhofela and Boban we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and the image we are going to see is not a beautiful one.
How do we normalise a situation where Dynamos and CAPS United fans can find a common cause, sing a common song and fight in the same corner as we have seen in recent weeks at Rufaro?
How can it be normal that CAPS and Dynamos fans can gang up to support the team playing against Scottland as was the case when they played Triangle?
Why do we find it normal that a Dynamos fan can come to a CAPS United game against Scottland, wearing a Green Machine replica shirt and even remind us, with the wording at the back of the jersey, that he is a DeMbare fan?
That is what a guy called Danta did.
For years now we have been promoting the emergence of this unique football fan, especially when it comes to the national teams, who is actually paid a certain amount for him or her to go and support the team in foreign lands.
We have promoted this arrangement that fans can go into a plane for free, fly all the way to Egypt for free, get accommodated in a hotel for free, get all the food for free and get into the stadiums for free.
That was the case at the 2019 AFCON finals and there were more than 150 Warriors fans on this all-paid-for tour.
Recently, we had the Warriors fans going to South Africa on similar arrangements and we had scores of fans also travelling to support the Mighty Warriors on a similar arrangement.
It’s okay to sponsor fans on these trips because our players need that support but it is breeding the emergence of a fan that we didn’t know back in the days when we were growing up.
It is breeding the emergence of the celebrity fan and his or her mission is different from true fans and, for him or her, it’s about the razzmatazz.
We are all to blame for it, not Boban and CheMhofela.
To God be the Glory!
Peace to the GEPA Chief, the Big Fish, George Norton, Daily Service, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and all the Chakariboys still in the struggle.
Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Khamaldhinoooooooooooooooooo!
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Peter Tanyanyiwa