The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sunday Life Correspondent
THE National Art Gallery in Bulawayo on Thursday hosts the official launch of the Bosso@90 Photographic Exhibition that would showcase Highlanders Football Club’s history in pictures.
The event is part of the club’s 90-year commemorations that started at the beginning of the year.
Bosso@90 Celebrations Committee chairman Luke Mnkandla said while the main focus would be on photographs they would also be showcasing the club’s trophies, jerseys and video footage.
“They say a picture tells a story of a thousand words and we believe it is apt that we tell the history of the club through photographs but we also have a 1982 jersey that was worn by Lawrence Phiri on show.
“There is a video of the match against Sable de Batie of Cameroon and a documentary on the history of Bosso that would be showcased during the exhibition,” he said.
Gallery director Voti Thebe said they are happy to be associated with Highlanders, a team that has become part of the historical narrative not only in the city but countrywide.
The exhibition is expected to run for one month.
Mnkandla said the photographs would be up for sale.
He said the picture present an opportunity for supporters, members and those who value the club to have an item of value with a lasting memory of Highlanders.
“The exhibition not only shows Highlanders as a football club but rather as a sporting institution it is. Remember many other sports codes have been played under the Highlanders banner among them basketball, rugby, darts, table tennis, volleyball and netball and I am glad to say some of the teams have been revived and are playing in competitive leagues.
“People would be able to acquire the photos for posterity. They serve as a good memory of the club they love and I am sure such items would appreciate in value,” said Mnkandla, thanking the gallery for offering them space for the event.
Highlanders are one of Zimbabwe’s most popular and highly decorated soccer clubs founded in 1926 by the grandsons of the Ndebele King Lobengula, Rhodes and Albert, and their friends.
Events held this year to mark this momentous occasion include visits to the graves of club’s founders, brothers Albert (Gwatemba) and Rhodes Khumalo (Grahamstown, South Africa), a multi-discipline sports festival, exhibiting at this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, a raffle that saw fans winning original club replicas and visits by school children to watch Highlanders playing at home.
In an interview with The Chronicle in 1997, the late Nsele Hlabangana, who was part of the founders, said the team was formed to stave off boredom.
Hlabangana, who was part of the founding team along with his brother Jeremiah and Charlton Ngcebetsha, said the royal grandsons, on arrival from South Africa, found it boring with no social amenities and decided to start the team in Makokoba with the popular venue being Efusini.
Highlanders’ name over the years has been associated with professionalism and quality administration and remains one of the few clubs to own club offices and a clubhouse.
