The other side of Malajila

Sports Reporter
ALTHOUGH he has played for two of the country’s biggest clubs Dynamos and Highlanders after making his domestic Premiership debut with Chapungu, Cuthbert Malajila has rarely opened up on his life outside of the football pitches and how he grew up in the mining and farming town of Kadoma.

The man some fans affectionately call “Spindipindi” or “Gaddafi” recently let out a few facts about his life in an interview with top selling South African soccer magazine Kickoff.

Majalila, now a key member of the Bidvest Wits attack that is spearheading the Clever Boys’ hunt for the ABSA Championship that many in the football fraternity did not know:

Cuthbert Lifasi Malajila is the only child born to his mother and father who were never married, which is why he uses his mother’s surname Malajila.

His father Ernest Makosa played for Rio Tinto and the Zimbabwe senior team. Makosa has children from other relationships, while his mother also got married and has two other children, Gideon and Brenda.

Gideon (15) is a promising striker who top scored in his age group league last year.

There are also his cousins Obert and James Malajila, who are also coming from football ranks.

Malajila’s parents have their roots in Malawi and were part of the massive migration of labour to Zimbabwean mines and farms in the 1950s.

Cuthbert struggles with Chichewa the language spoken by his parents with Shona being his preferred language.

Cuthbert is married and has three children, two girls and a boy.

The 31-year-old first completed his Ordinary Level in 2001 before venturing into football while playing in his home town of Kadoma, a mining and cotton producing area.

Malajila started his career in the country’s lower division at David Whitehead Textiles where he worked as a general labourer for 18-months at the fabric and thread producing unit of the company.

He revealed that he was lucky not to have been sent to military training when he joined Chapungu. The team was doing so well that the coach did not want to lose him.

His uncles Bwanali, James and Malajila Malajila all his mother’s siblings played for lower divisions clubs in Kadoma at Wildcats, Dairibord and Conrock respectively.

Bwanale is childhood best friends with SuperSport United assistant coach Kaitano Tembo, who also hails from the same town.

Through his success in football Malajila has also been ploughing back to the community and is a director of the CUMA Football Academy which he co-owns with his friend Hubert Manyowa.

At the start of the Libyan civil war which ultimately led to the demise of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Malajila was playing in the North African country for Al Akhdhar.

With gunfire just 100km away from his base in Al Bayda, he had to escape taking a 12-hour bus drive to Egypt.

From there he took a flight to Johannesburg and then Harare.

Due to his stay in Libya he now has the nickname Gaddafi.