The Sunday News
Yesteryear greats with Munyaradzi Munzabwa (pic byline noel munzabwa)
WITH the curtain coming down on the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League at the weekend with coaches, players and sports journalists due to select a Soccer Star of Year, the local game may seem to be forgetting one of the country’s finest products – the late Stanley “Sinyo” Ndunduma.
To borrow from the late Simon Chopper Chimbetu’s Kune Asipo “mabiko ataita isu kune vamwe vasipo, tatadza kukanganwa isu, kukanganwa takoniwa” (there are people missing the festivals we are hosting, we have erred by forgetting, we have failed).
With both what could have been 60th birthday early in the year – 5th March to be precise, and most recently the 28th death anniversary on 2 November seemingly forgotten, Zimbabwe football most probably deserves a place in the criminal court dock for a trial before their lady- the judges under a guilty plea.
Perhaps the league flagship sponsors, Delta through their brand Castle Lager, a long term association of local, may exonerate us and consider an idea to honour one of the finest footballers produced in Zimbabwe and two-time winner who at 20 clinched the Soccer Star of the Year award in 1981.
Then an indisputable football prodigy along the likes of Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa played for Caps United and also a founding member of Black Rhinos while for the senior national team, Sinyo was known as “evergreen” and for 10 years he made the right-wing position his own.
Through this long 28 years since his departure, quite a lot has changed since then with Zimbabwe football three traditional giants Caps United, Dynamos and Highlanders struggling to stamp their authority against now four time league champions FC Platinum, another big football house headed to third tier football, Eiffel Flats, Mhangura, Rio Tinto, Shabanie Mine, Ziscosteel in the football trash cans and Hwange dithering between relegation then promotion in those 28 years since Sinyo passed on.
Sinyo’s last club, XI Men in Flight has disbanded and almost forgotten and his last paymaster Moses Motsa having turned his back on football and now concentrating on beautifying Siteki with an almost complete mall at the football of multi kilometres Lubombo Escarpment which stretches from Mozambique’s Maputo to Richard’s Bay in South Africa sided by the India Ocean and the vast sugar belt.
Stanford “Stix” Mtizwa
The elite word “Premiership” has since replaced the “Super” and at the site of the accident scene where he took his last breath now stands one of Eswatini’s almost complete imposing highways emerging from hub city of Manzini through a meander of an easy to-get-lost interchange and leading to an equally imposing King Mswati III International Airport.
Indeed quite a lot has changed but this is certainly not a leverage to forget our fallen football heroes thus we stand guilty as charged for a crime of both commission and omission.
While we may be developing fading memories, for many of Ama2000 soccer fans who stand to be forgiven, the name Sinyo the closest to their knowledge is a mere nickname of some probably forgotten late football player without emotional and memorial attachment to it.
But in Eswatini for one Zakhele Dlamini a former defender at XI Men in Flight (now defunct 1994 Eswatini football champions) the name carries tones of library-like memories that potentially oozes out for days, as it thumbnails probably the peak of his illustrious career.
With passion gloss painted all over his face narrating the crescendo of the trophy laden career phase, before wearing a mourning face towards that untimely death of his late Zimbabwe born coach, Dlamini surged through his narrative.
And yet 28 years of weariness have literally not faded away any iota of the emotional and memorial embedded career phase having crossed the flow from Mbabane Highlanders.
“We had won the league title adding to the 1993 BP Cup and were at the peak of our performance blessed by Ndunduma and the financial muscle of the business mogul Moses Motsa with every soccer player wanting to join our ranks that also had Changara and it all looked smooth sailing for us.
Devastation was to rock us all as we woke up to the news of our coach’s untimely death after succumbing to an accident while driving from Manzini to Siteki.
He would occasionally spend time in Manzini for his other passion which was casino. It hurt us the most, look here, here was a coach who had spelt to us what football was and had breathed into us self-belief which became the pinnacle of the collective team confidence culminating in the success on the field of play.”
Dlamini reckoned Ndunduma among other coaches from Zambia and Malawi, this was probably the moment Eswatini soccer benefited technically from the three nations. Ndunduma, a veteran soccer player who played for Caps United and Black Rhinos during his heydays winning the soccer star player of the year title twice in 1981 and in 1985 who left Zimbabwe in early nineties to coach football in Eswatini then Swaziland bagging league glory just months before his subsequent death in a car accident on Wednesday 2 November 1994.
At the time of his death in an early dawn road traffic accident along the Manzini to Siteki highway, Sinyo was coach at XI Men in Flight then home to another Zimbabwean Tarisai Changara and later days Phillip Mbofana and Ricky Sibiya, among others.
It was 1994 when the Zimbabwe international breathed life into XI Men in Flight first ever league title before adding another two years later under a replacement coach.
Determining the last Zimbabwe born coach to ever land a prestigious Eswatini premiership football league gong may probably require a big scrounge into history data but, just maybe, the late former warrior Sinyo could probably be the last highly possibly the standalone figure.
Eswatini is a country where hordes of Zimbabwe born coaches have come and gone, cast the glory shows in knockout cup triumphs. And yet with names like the late Friday “Amayenge” Phiri, the late Benjamin Moyo, Shepherd Murape, Julius Chakupewa, Saul Chaminuka, Tavaka Dread Gumbo, Hebert Maruwa, Rodwell Dhlakama, Wilson Mutekede, Phillip Mbofana, Lloyd Mutasa, Takesure Chiragwi to name but a few, it takes an iota of imagination that Sinyo casts a lone figure on the glory podium even 28 years into his death.
The best after Zimbabwe coaches have achieved is dominating the National First Division bagged by Chaminuka (with Matsapha United in 2017), Tarisai Changara (with Tambuti FC in 2018), and Ikabort Masocha (shared season with Maruwa with Mbabane Citizens in 2019) with Dhlakama being last to bag a premiership trophy, the SPTC Charity Cup, with Manzini Sundowns (now Denver Sundowns) 11 years ago.
A year before, Lloyd Mutasa had bagged the Eswatini Bank with Green Mamba and ever since Chaminuka (2016 and 2018) and Maruwa (2017) have only managed bridesmaids status in the closest ever. Ever since the late Sinyo’s 1994 grace, most recently, notably only players namely Ephraim Mazarura, Talent Maphosa, Stanford Ncube, Knowledge Jimu have tasted premier league glory coincidentally all with dominant Mbabane Swallows.
