Online Reporter
Tendai Chara
Zimpapers Sports Hub
On late afternoons in Chingwere Village in Mhondoro, the dust hangs a little longer after the last kick.
Boys drift back toward homesteads with boots in hand, laughter trailing behind them.
For years, that was where football ended here, at the edge of a rural pitch, far from scouts, leagues and notice.
Then Chingwere Football Club kept winning. Quietly at first. Then decisively enough that the village had to look again at what was happening in its midst.
Now Division One football is coming to Mhondoro.
Chingwere FC, a team formed just two years ago in this rural corner of Mashonaland West, have defied distance, expectation and limited resources to earn promotion into the Northern Region Soccer League. It is a leap that stretches beyond the touchlines, carrying with it the hopes of a place long used to being passed over.
The journey was never meant to be accidental.
From the beginning, there was a clear idea guiding the project, one shaped by memories of what never reached Chingwere.
“My dream is to bring top flight football to Chingwere Village,” said club founder Edmore Samoyo. “Promotion into Division One was not accidental. It was part of my grand plans to bring top flight football to my fellow villagers.”
Samoyo, a 48-year-old miner and farmer, founded the club in 2023 with a simple conviction that rural talent does not lack quality, only exposure.
The zeal and discipline shown by the team on its climb into the NRSL has only strengthened his belief that the highest levels of Zimbabwean football should not feel unreachable from places like Chingwere.
Nothing about the promotion campaign came easily.
Under coach Ntongazabo Bachi, Chingwere had to outlast established Division Two sides from Chinhoyi, Kadoma, Norton and Chegutu in a tightly contested Mashonaland West Division 2B race.
The defining moment arrived in the playoffs against Barca Kadoma. After a tense goalless draw, promotion was decided from the penalty spot.
Chingwere held their nerve, winning 4-2, a release of emotion that confirmed what the village had begun to sense weeks earlier, that this team was ready for the next level.
For Samoyo, the achievement carries a deeply personal edge.
He sees in his players a reflection of a path that never fully opened for him.
“By the way, I used to play football with Memory Mucherahowa here at our local grounds,” he said, laughing softly. “I was actually a better player than him. He, however, made it to the top when he moved to Harare.”
The humour fades into something more reflective.
“I was definitely going to play for such teams like Dynamos. I was a very good player, but scouts from PSL teams never came here. I do not want that to happen to the many talented youngsters that we have in our midst.”
Those youngsters form the backbone of a side popularly known as the “Trabablas Boys,” a nickname earned rather than chosen.
Chingwere began in the Norton Area Zone before steadily climbing into Division Two football, carrying mostly local players who trained and travelled with a sense of shared purpose.
Their numbers tell a story of dominance.
Across 34 matches, they recorded 28 wins, four draws and only two losses, scoring freely and conceding little.
But inside the camp, the talk was never about records. It was about belief.
Captain Tendai Mukaratigwa, a seasoned attacking midfielder with premiership experience at Buffaloes, Lancashire Steel and Chrome Stars, insists the team has not come into the NRSL to make up numbers.
“I know teams from urban settings will underrate us.
“They will underestimate us at their own peril,” said the 33-year-old.
“Division Two teams from Kadoma, Chegutu and Norton made that mistake and gifted us the title.”
Mukaratigwa led from the front, contributing 17 of the team’s 87 goals, but his value lies as much in composure as in numbers.
He has seen the demands of top flight football and believes Chingwere are capable of adapting.
Club chairman Usherby Bvopfo traces the club’s nickname to the style that unsettled opponents long before the trophies arrived.
“If you look at the Trabablas Interchange in Harare, you will see vehicles interchanging, moving in different directions,” he explained.
“Our team plays football that confuses our opponents. We were actually given that name by our opponents after giving them torrid times.”
Ambition, though, is being managed carefully.
“Our target for this season is to survive relegation,” Bvopfo said.
“Next year we will be aiming for the PSL ticket.”
That balance between dreaming and planning is visible in the work being done away from the pitch.
Chingwere Stadium is being upgraded to meet Division One standards. Until the second half of the season, the club will use Pfupajena Stadium in Chegutu as its home ground.
A borehole has been drilled to water the pitch, while toilets and changing rooms are under construction, small details that signal long term intent.
Life in the NRSL will test the club in new ways.
Teams are spread across Harare, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central, with long trips to places like Bindura and Chinhoyi now part of the routine.
Samoyo remains confident the club is ready for the demands.
“Like I said earlier, we did not get into the NRSL by accident,” he said.
“This is a carefully planned project that took into consideration all the related costs.”
Team manager, Sam Samoyo, shares the same confidence and little of the caution.
“The so-called big teams like N’ombeyawora and Golden Eagles are going to bite the dust,” he said. “I know that some people think that teams from rural areas are not that good. We are going to surprise them.”
In Chingwere Village, the noise around football has changed.
It is no longer just the thud of a ball against hard ground or the echo of boys calling for a pass.
It is the sound of a place recognising itself in a wider game, of a team carrying more than points and promotion as it steps into Division One.
