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Sharuko On Saturday
FOR a man who had just been fired, Tonderai Ndiraya was amazingly relaxed, refreshingly calm and unexpectedly composed.
His small army of trusted colleagues were not.
They were angry, which was expected, they were loud, which was natural and, now and again, some of them even swore.
They swore at Bernard Marriot, for what they claimed was an abuse of power in which yet another young coach had been turned into a sacrificial lamb by the DeMbare godfather.
One of them said this was what Marriot and the people he handpicks to pretend as if they are running the club, while he calls the shots, had done to Kalisto Pasuwa.
And, this was what he had also done to Lloyd Mutasa, this is what he had done to the other Lloyd with the craziest nickname in world football, MaBlanyo.
Of course, that crazy nickname doesn’t take away the fact that Lloyd Chigowe is a good and knowledgeable coach who is just underrated and, more importantly, he is a very good man.
These are men who swore to serve Dynamos with both loyalty and royalty, a group of me for whom the Glamour Boys will always be home sweet home – the mothership where it all started.
Amid the ocean of chaos, where Ndiraya’s dignified presence offered an island of tranquillity to the madness around him, I arrived at Kensington Shopping Centre on the border where Milton Park shakes hands with Avondale in Harare.
The date was May 21, 2022, and autumn was starting to give way to winter and it was quite a chilly night in Harare.
I had been called to come to that shopping centre because Ndiraya wanted to say something personally to me in the wake of the explosion of the news that he had been fired.
The caller said the young coach was a bit dazed but had specifically chosen me to be the man who would hear his story and broadcast it to his team’s fans and others at large.
Even though I worked with the likes of Sunday Chidzambwa and Reinhard Fabisch, and earned their trust at some point in our careers, I have always found it humbling that this crop of young coaches also has a lot of faith in me.
Wanisai Mutandwa, the businesswoman who is widely known as Mahwindo, was also there at Kensington Shops.
And, so was businessman Brighton “Pan Jap” Ushendibaba.
He is the all-weather brother of Ndiraya, and a whole cast of former Dynamos stars, who include Edward Sadomba, Zondai Nyaungwa and Masimba Dinyero.
I later learnt that Brighton had come to offer unconditional support for Ndiraya and, far away from the madding crowd in the bustling CBD of Harare on a Saturday night, Kensington provided a perfect setting for all that.
Brighton kept telling Ndiraya that this was not the end of the world and rather than be crushed by the hostility, which the DeMbare leaders had shown him through their actions, he should find inspiration to prove them wrong.
To prove to them that he was a fine young coach and there was only one way of doing that – winning major trophies wherever his journey would take him.
Ndiraya looked shattered but to his credit he remained calm and composed and he told me that all his dreams for the year had been shattered in a very cruel manner.
What hurt him the most, he told me, was that the club’s leaders had deliberately chosen a path to portray him as an arrogant man, who felt he knew everything and had no respect whatsoever to authority.
He said he knew that coaches lived by the day and being fired was part and parcel of the adventure but what he could not take was this deliberate distortion and assassination of his character.
Mudhara, just go and tell the people that I will always be a Dynamos son and this will always be my home.
Then, for the first time that night, his emotions overpowered him and he shed a tear.
FIRED FOR FINISHING THIRD
Ndiraya was reinstated the following week, amid the rebellion among the Dynamos fans, who questioned how a coach, who was in second place and only a point behind the leaders Chicken Inn, could be fired.
But, Dynamos never recovered from the chaos which was bred by that ill-timed move and by the end of the season, Ndiraya was gone.
He was fired for finishing third when, in reality, this was a huge improvement from having finished in ninth place, in the previous season, before Covid struck, and in 11th place, in 2018.
That he could possibly have won the league had these leaders-from-hell not disrupted the season by firing him, in May, when he was just a point behind the leaders, was all forgotten.
That he could probably have won the league had Dynamos been a proper football club, and not this Marriot creation masquerading as the Glamour Boys where one man turns himself into the closest thing that football has had to a god, was all forgotten in that chaos of dismissals.
Even Isaiah Mupfurutsa, the man who was the DeMbare chairman and had resisted the moves to fire Ndiraya because he saw potential where others saw arrogance, was also forced out.
Mupfurutsa is a banker, a top one, who has held important posts within our banking system.
And, there are things that he sees in human capital which others, especially the ball boys that Marriot always wants to convert into Dynamos leaders so that he gets a free hit in the way he mismanages this institution.
Simba “Buju” Ndoro, the man who created Simba Bhora from nothing, is a very successful businessman in the gold industry and there are things, which he sees in human beings, which ordinary folks don’t.
The same is also true about Brighton – you really need to be a good manager and motivator of men, the people who work for you, for you to create a company like Pan Jap from nothing and turn it into this leading brand when it comes to the buying and selling of cars.
When Simba Bhora booked their ticket into the Premiership, Simba and Brighton came together and turned to Ndiraya to be the man who would lead the club in the top-flight league.
It was a risky move for Ndiraya.
I come from a similar mining community like Shamva and in these communities we are loyal to our homeboys when it comes to the players who play for our team and the coaches who coach our team.
Ndiraya was an outsider from Harare.
And, I was so sure he would struggle to fit into such a community where we place a certain value on things like Nyau dancers – ChiMaria Chinagwa Bere (Big Maria Whose Breast Fell) and so forth – muganda and all sorts of things.
But, he took the risk and, as they say at AfricaBet and MWOS, the bigger the risk the bigger the reward.
YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN
When Simba Bhora battled relegation last year, Buju didn’t fire Ndiraya who, in his last job, was fired for ensuring Dynamos finished third in the championship race the previous season.
Instead, Buju did a proper SWOT analysis and realised that the Achilles Heel wasn’t the coach but it was the environment which had taken away their home advantage and eliminated the strength that comes from his home support.
A little community team like Simba Bhora, just like our own Chegutu Pirates, is nothing without a home and without its home fans.
So, Buju invested in the renovation of Wadzanai and created quite a decent stadium and the results are there for everyone to see – NO DEFEAT AT HOME ALL SEASON.
He also invested in players because it dawned on him that a romantic attachment to the boys who had taken him from Division One would not work in the tougher world of the Premiership.
At least, now he could judge Ndiraya.
On Wednesday, Buju’s dreams came true when Ndiraya delivered the first league championship to Mashonaland Central, in general, and the little mining community of Shamva.
This is HUGE.
It’s something that Mhangura, for all their fame and galaxy of stars, including the famous Chieza brothers, failed to do.
It’s something that Rio Tinto failed to do.
And, this was a team which had a great coach called John Rugg and an even greater player called Joseph Zulu.
This magician called Zulu was so good his name would regularly feature among our greatest five players of all-time if he had played for Dynamos, CAPS United or Highlanders.
It’s something that Hwange, with players like Nyaro Mumba, Amos Rendo and Rodreck Simwanza, failed to do.
It hasn’t been a good week for Marriot.
Pasuwa, the coach he fired in the year he became Dynamos board chairman, has just been named the new national team coach of Malawi.
Ndiraya, the coach he fired two years ago, has just become the first Dynamos son to win a league championship since Pasuwa delivered the title to the Glamour Boys in 2014.
Since being forced out of Dynamos, for winning a fourth straight league title, Pasuwa has won five league titles in Malawi and has now risen to become the national coach in that country.
Since being forced out of Dynamos, for finishing third, in what was a huge improvement for a team which had finished ninth the previous season, Ndiraya has delivered the first league championship to a little gold mining town.
And, for Marriot and this flawed and funny version of his Dynamos, rooted in his family and not the people who are the real owners of this giant institution, the wait for a league championship continues.
It’s the longest barren run without a league championship for the Glamour Boys in their 61-year history.
In the 10th year of their previous longest barren spell, between 1997 and 2007, David Mandigora won it in 2007 and the following year took his team to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
In his death, the DeMbare godfather disowned him and Yogi must be turning in his grave right now and in our culture, this comes with consequences.
They sent Ndiraya to Belgium to boost his coaching credentials but still fired him and now Simba Bhora, a club which was formed in the year Yogi took Dynamos to the Champions League semi-finals, are now enjoying the return on DeMbare’s investment.
For me, it all goes back to that night at the Kensington Shopping Centre two years ago – Ndiraya’s bravery amid the storm, his passion to prove some people wrong and his belief in himself.
Thank God, in this tough life, sometimes good men also come first.
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! Text Feedback: 0772545199,WhatsApp: 0772545199, E-mail: [email protected]
You can also interact with me on the ZTV football programme, Game Plan, where I join the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika on Wednesdays
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