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Tadious Manyepo-Sports Reporter
TRAGEDY Mutyanda has a funny name.
Perhaps he could have been equally if not more popular than Have-A-Look Dube, Salad Twaliki or Friday Phiri had he been a football personality.
But the tragedy, like his name, is that he is largely an unknown quantity in the wider soccer trenches across the country.
He is however, popular in Karoi where he butters his bread from selling plastic packaging to fruit and vegetable vendors.
It is in this town that Mutyanda founded a social football team which he named “MaPlastics FC” back in 2010.
Using his meagre earnings from the hawking business, Mutyanda would recruit teenage boys with the slightest potential into his team.
“I mostly taught them the essence of hard work on and off the field of play,” said Mutyanda.
“I had no coaching qualification, but I was being driven by a desire to just see young players making it big.
“That’s how I decided to start the project. I was funding everything from my own pocket. The team enjoyed a lot of success in the social league we were playing in given that we had young players who I was giving incentives.”
Until 2012, Mutyanda had a regular customer in vegetable vendor Asiyatu Bello who he didn’t know had a football-loving son by the name Boid Mutukure.
“One day as I was delivering plastics to his mother, I saw Boid (Mutukure).
“He was young with a big frame and I asked whose son he was to which the mother responded.
“Instantly, I asked to take him to my team. Boid was already a footballer playing at Chikangwe Secondary School…”
Then the journey began.
MaPlastics FC became a household name in Karoi with most of their players snatched by tobacco processing companies’ teams.
“We built a very strong team and even affiliated in Division 3.
“We had very good players most of who were then poached by other clubs who baited them with jobs, especially tobacco processing companies in and around Karoi,” he said.
“Once at the job, some of the players decided to concentrate with work rather than balancing it up with the game.
“I am obviously happy that most of the players I had at MaPlastics FC ended up getting jobs thus lessening delinquency in the streets.”
While some joined different companies, Mutukure decided to keep his eyes on the ball.
“I was mostly inspired by the fact that I started playing for the first team at school when I was in Form 2 at Chikangwe High.
“When I joined MaPlastics FC, I was the youngest player in the squad. The owner (Mutyanda) had no money, but he had a passion for the game,” said Mutukure.
“As players we could contribute to top up his earnings from his plastic selling business so that we could travel to away matches.
“The desire to do well and grow into good players and good human beings drove us as young players.
“Sometimes things got tough and we would walk for more than 10km to play away games.
“As the project grew, others joined some better Division 2 clubs while others got employed by different tobacco oriented companies around Karoi.”
Mutukure,who once captained an all-star Mashonaland West team which had players like Terrence Dzvukamanja, Edgar Chigiji, Kudzi Nyakasaka and Terrence Chiku in the national youth games, was also nearly snatched by a tobacco team but he refused.
“I was still at school and my dream was to go to university especially when I was in Advanced Level.
“So for me joining those teams were a no.”
But once Karoi United, the model team that every kid in this town wants to play for, called, Mutukure couldn’t ignore.
He helped them get promotion from Division 2 to the first division in 2012 then he stayed there until 2015 when ZPC Kariba signed him.
Mutukure is the most senior player at ZPC Kariba right now and has seen different generations since making his debut back in 2015 where he played alongside profiled players like Dennis Dauda, Tawanda Munyanduri, Peter Muzondo and Dexter Phiri.
Former ZPC Kariba coach Luke Masomere said the big defender is a marvel to watch.
“He (Mutukure) is a very dependable defender. I have worked with really good players but Boid is a master,” said Masomere.
“He puts in the work remarkably well and I would like to thank whoever groomed him to be the player he is today.
“I think he is one of those unlucky guys because I believe he should be playing outside the country,maybe in South Africa.”
Mutukure’s mother (Bello) said she never thought her son would grow to become a footballer and saluted Mutyanda for the role he played.
“I am a proud mother but all credit goes to Mutyanda for identifying and nurturing my son,” said Bello.
“He grew up playing football at school and at home. But Mutyanda decided to take him to his MaPlastics FC where he was further developed into a good player.”
Mutyanda’s MaPlastics project is still going strong but he has transformed it into an academy because he couldn’t afford to continue running the Division 3 franchise.
He is still that man who sells plastics in Karoi but his passion for football hasn’t died especially that he now has some players like Mutukure to point out as his own products.
Those players haven’t forgotten where they came from as time and again, they go back to MaPlastics FC Academy to donate football equipment and food hampers.
They have become the role models, thanks to Mutyanda.
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