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Tadious Manyepo recently in CHIPINGE
The excitement hangover is evident.
This pocket of the country is passionate about the game.
Never mind it’s one of Zimbabwe’s remotest parts.
GreenFuel have just made history. They have sealed Premiership football promotion to become the first team from Chipinge to play top-flight football. The celebrations haven’t died down, as yet.
It’s only hours after Lloyd Mutasa and his charges scripted that intriguing story.
And a few kilometres from the GreenFuel Sports Arena from where that feat was attained a day earlier, some boys have gathered and are speaking the same language in different tones and undertones.
They appear oblivious of the heavy winds blowing the dusty football pitch and disturbing the football drills they are undertaking.
They are unconcerned. They have learnt to live with the semi-arid conditions at Checheche Growth Point.
An area they call home.
A place they intend to cut their teeth into the world of professional football.
They are listening to every instruction being dished by coach Samson Sithole.
The latter is the Chawira Academy gaffer under whose umbrella all these boys fall under while he also coaches some of them at Checheche Primary School where he is a teacher as well.
Of course, these boys are the happiest, as they later reveal, with the promotion of GreenFuel.
But, they have their own heroes, none of them from the GreenFuel team
Just under a shed near a disused block, old framed pictures dangle from the roof.
It’s very hard to ignore the sight. It’s an archive. There are hordes of pictures in photo albums and some of the boys are actually perusing.
A closer look at one of the fading portraits reveals Philip Marufu.
Yes, the former Chapungu captain who played in the CAF Champions League semi-finals in 2008 when he was on loan at Dynamos.
He rarely visits this area.
It’s understandable given Marufu hails from Murehwa.
But his mind is always in Checheche, of course.
His father, Goodbye, who played a key role in his becoming a big name footballer, was a security guard at Arda Chisumbanje.
And Marufu inevitably grew up in this area. He was a goalkeeper until he broke his leg aged 14.
“This place is closer to my heart,” Marufu says.
“It’s an area that groomed me into being the Philip Marufu you all know. I faced trials and tribulations. I almost aborted my football journey after fracturing my leg. My late mother tried, in vain, to stop me but my father, Goodbye, who was also a lower league footballer kept on pushing me…”
Marufu was amongst the pioneer professionals to graduate from this not-so-ideal surface where these boys are training.
The surface has the potential to end football careers.
Yet folks here have learnt to build careers on it.
Probably it wasn’t surprising when Marufu was discouraged by former Dynamos assistant coach July Sharara.
“I took Philip to Sunday Sport Shop which belonged to Sunday Chidzambwa. That was back in 1998 and the idea was to have him play for Dynamos, a team which I supported,” said his father Goodbye.
“But Sharara flatly refused saying Philip was too tiny to play for Dynamos. It got my son worried and he wanted to quit the game before I told him to keep the focus.”
Hearing the not-so-pleasant news, his colleagues back in Checheche were discouraged as well.
Philemon Ndorera, who is currently coaching in GreenFuel junior structures, said that episode was disappointing for every aspiring player back home.
“It took the verve off most of the guys here. Marufu’s father had been transferred from Arda to Harare and he had left him under some people’s care just to allow him more time to play football and develop as a player.
“And then for him to have gone and being rejected even without kicking a ball was very disappointing,” said Ndorera.
But in no time, Marufu got an opportunity to try his luck with Chapungu United at the start of 1999.
He dazzled the Chapungu United technical team led by the late Nkulumo Donga and the rest is history.
He wrote many good episodes during his stay at the Air Force of Zimbabwe side which also facilitated for his enrollment into the force.
But it is being the Soccer Star of the Year first runner-up in 2005 that stands out and, of course, his helping Dynamos reach the 2008 CAF Champions League semi-finals, especially after notching a match-winning group stage brace against Asec Mimosas away in Cote d’Ivoire.
At 44, Marufu is still playing the game and his portrait is still being kept at the very pitch it all started.
He is the one who was being idolised by the pair of Luke Musikiri and Stephen Chatikobo who are both currently playing for Dynamos.
The two, both 18-years-old, are often together at training or even at home.
It’s not surprising given they grew up together and even shared the same class at Checheche Primary School.
It was Chatikobo who had the passion to play football.
For him, seeing Marufu scaling dizzy heights made him believe the game could save him from acute poverty he was living in.
“I was very much convinced that this game would somehow salvage me. I remember well that throughout my primary school years, my mother failed to pay for my school fees,” said Chatikobo.
“But, I thank God, when I was in Grade 6, the school waivered my debts and committed to see me through my primary level as they said I was serving them well in the football field.”
Musikiri was also in the same predicament but he wasn’t very much keen to play football until Sithole convinced him to try the game while in Grade 6 in 2015.
“That is how I started. Football wasn’t something I liked. But I was aware of some players like Philip Marufu whom our teachers always gave us as examples to inspire us,” said Musikiri.
“When I was taken to the field of play, I sparkled and I never looked back.”
Chatikobo and Musikiri would be picked for national NAPH tournaments and subsequently represented the country in 2016.
Interestingly, Sithole was the coach for that NAPH team which represented the country in the COSSASA Games.
As soon as they announced themselves at the big stage, there was a stampede for both with ACES Youth Soccer Academy writing to Chawira Academy and Checheche Primary Schools offering scholarships for both Chatikobo and Musikiri at Allan Wilson.
It was during the same time that Prince Edward came knocking.
And their handlers settled for the latter.
The two are currently on loan at Dynamos from Prince Edward Academy and there are inquiries from South African teams.
The two, just like Marufu before them, are inspiring the next generation of players who were training under the scorching conditions hours after GreenFuel’s coronation.
“These guys (Musikiri and Chatikobo) are our role models. Imagine having two of our players from here going straight to Dynamos. It is something we take with both honour and pride. I am a 15-year-old player and my dream is to walk the same path these guys are walking,” said Tadiwanashe Buwerimwe, one of the boys who was shirtless and barefoot.
For Diouf Chibare, who played in the same team with the now Dynamos pair while at primary school level, keeping the eyes on the ball is key.
“I played in the same team at Checheche Primary School with both of them. They are a talented lot and I am glad scouts now know there is also talent in remote parts of the country like here,” Chibare said.
“I am working hard every day to be at the same level with them.”
Chawira Academy director, Silas Chawira, said all the players who have made it big from his academy give him reason to continue in his untiring mission to transform lives through football.
Online Reporter