The Sunday News
THE country’s oldest football entity Highlanders FC hold its extraordinary annual general meeting at its clubhouse this morning amid high expectations as the club once again find itself among the top contenders for the country’s most coveted trophy, the Premier League, that has eluded them since 2006.
Today’s gathering will be keenly followed by their large following, while it would prove an opportune time for the Bosso family to mend fences, reflect, take correct measures with in mind past seasons that have seen them, in particular play second-fiddle to their nemesis Dynamos, losing the title to the Harare giants at the death three years in a row.
Like it or not, Highlanders are a big brand. When it sneezes everyone catches a cold.
Ask a vendor, be it in the stadium or those who sell isitshwala at the shops adjacent to BF, business will not be rosy when Highlanders fall on bad times. This is because they derive their profits from the thousands of people who attend Highlanders’ matches at BF. That would be the same story from the ice cream salespersons, groundnuts vendors, among numerous others.
It is an open secret that Highlanders have always been the best organised and most professionally run football team in Zimbabwe, but in recent years the executives have failed to translate that into dominance in the league.
Former Highlanders executives have gone on to have positions in all Zimbabwe Football Association’s committees to date, save for the Wellington Nyatanga executive.
The grooming they (executives) got at Highlanders has left them in good stead and have gone on to take positions higher up.
The names that quickly come to mind are that of Rodger Muhlwa, who went on to assume the Zifa chairmanship. There was Wyatt Mpofu, Kennedy Ndebele who become the PSL secretary-general and is now the same entity’s CEO, Ndumiso Gumede, who has held various portfolios at Zifa, club chairman Peter Dube who is now the PSL vice-chairman, and former committee member Omega Sibanda is the Zifa vice-president. The list is endless.
Lest we forget, Highlanders is the oldest football club in the country, the only institution that boasts a Royal touch, was founded in 1926 by Albert and Rhodes, the grandsons of the last King of the Ndebele nation, Lobengula.
They are a team that has produced great footballing talent, such as the late Tymon Mabeleka, the Ndlovu brothers, Adam (late), Peter and Madinda, Bruce Grobbelaar, Willard Mashinkila-Khumalo, the late Benjamin Nkonjera and Methembe Ndlovu, among others.
The Highlanders EGM today is important in that it comes at a time when the club heads into the second round of a gruelling PSL season. It’s not lost to everyone including their huge following their team has in the past three seasons flattered to deceive, losing out to Dynamos on goal difference.
Today’s meeting should prove critical in that it has to come up with an antidote to their team’s shortcoming as the team goes into the league’s crucial second and final round. Already, on the field of play the team has been bedevilled with problems to do with the rightback position and lack of a potent strike force.
It is with that in mind that after today’s meeting they should come up with solutions to such problems.
The issue of finances has been said in many quarters as the community team’s Achilles heel. It is because of the monetary issues that Highlanders have failed to hold on to their star players, who have left in droves for greener pastures, and at crucial times.
Ironically, the Highlanders family will be holding their meeting today at the clubhouse that they have failed to turn into a cash cow.
These are some of the problems that many feel should be ironed out at such fora, as today’s EGM.
Someone once said trouble shared is trouble halved. It is with that in mind that many feel today’s meeting would be keenly followed by those who have a BRAND known as Highlanders at heart.
After all Highlanders’ performance has been far from convincing, even during the current season, in which they failed to collect maximum points when it mattered the most.
