The Sunday News
Lovemore Dube
LAST Saturday (14 December) was a painful day for me and thousands of others who have over the last seven decades supported or been a Wankie FC (Hwange) sympathiser.
The club was relegated from the country’s elite league for the umpteenth time. Where did they go wrong this time around? This is the question many may be asking but without a strategic path to follow and a crippling economic equation thrown into the works, this may really mark an end of a journey that created many heroes and legends of the game.
The big question is will the club which disbanded and released all players from their contracts rise again?
Yet with over 10 primary schools, the whole province of Matabeleland North and four secondary schools within its precinct, facilities that Dynamos, Caps United and Highlanders do not boast of, the club was let to go down the drain by a plethora of reasons.
Looking at the 2019 team, fears were raised at the beginning of the year that over reliance on a majority of the boys who did duty in Division One last year would not realise a positive impact. Poor funding from a model that has failed in the past is also to blame and a secretariat led by Khumbulani Mbano whose claim to football are only known to those who have kept him at the club for this long despite his known failures.
Saturday, December 14, was indeed a sad day not only for Hwange but for the Airforce of Zimbabwe football family who saw Chapungu join the jungles of Division One football.
The truth is uniformed forces and community clubs cannot stand the competition exerted by company-sponsored clubs — FC Platinum, Ngezi Platinum, Manica Diamonds or Chicken Inn.
Back to Hwange, the four times FA Cup winners, they represented a province where only football has remained as the bastion of hope in sporting endeavours after the spectacular fall of Hwange athletics.
In the past athletics occupied and soothed many’s hearts as residents turned to it for solace and the once untouchable tug-of-war team.
If football did not bring glory in those days, residents and sporting fans looked forward to the tug-of-war team, cyclists and athletes to hog the limelight and headlines.
In life after death, one wonders what greats like Posani Sibanda, Stephen Chuma, Barton Mwalukuka, Rodrick Simwanza, Benson Soko and James Mwape Sakala are saying to each other when they peep down mother earth.
These were extra-ordinary ambassadors who risked limbs to protect the burning ambers logo. They knew what good results meant to surrounding areas’ chiefs Nekatambe, Mvuthu, Dingani, Pashu, Hwange and Shana with their subjects.
Judging from the good crowds of people drawn from nearby rural villages who would cycle to the Colliery Stadium, residents from the railway compound, Zesa township, colliery villages and local board area, the football club united Hwange.
It brought people together, many being those from outside Matabeleland North who found going away for the weekend too expensive.
Football would be the only entertainment to keep them occupied and thinking positively only about once or twice a year would you find the seemingly Hwange FC loyal turning colours.
This would be when the giants of Zimbabwe football Caps, Dynamos and Highlanders are in town but there would be the faithful ones stuck on their beloved side.
Decades of perennial under-achieving had up to this last week left Hwange lurching onto no hope at all of ever rising from the ashes.
Sadly due to mismanagement or reckless neglect a number of top players in recent years have left as free agents. Proceeds from the sale of players like Carrington Gomba, Rodwell Chinyegetere and Evans Rusike would have ensured that a foundation is laid for the future.
Matabeleland North needs Premiership football. Sport tourism was thriving with big crowd clubs like Dynamos and Highlanders boosting the economy whenever they visited Hwange as hotels, pubs, eateries and even the ordinary vendor on the street pavements made good sales on the day.
Every visit to Hwange Stadium by a cross generation of fans told a story.
The generation that sang or heard the song: “Wankie inawina cup” reminisces the heroes of the 1970 3-2 victory over Arcadia in the Castle Cup and the 9-8 penalty shoot-out victory of 1973 officiated by the legendary Premji Giga.
The stars of that era were Aaron Lowani, Barry Daka, Mwape, Posani Sibanda, Amos Rendo, Daniel Rendo, Twyman Ncube, Chris Yoyo, Masiiwa Sakala, Chimao and Sam Mutende.
The arrival from Victoria Falls of Rodrick Simwanza, Nyaro Mumba from Gwayi River Mine, Joseph Mapholisa and Jimmy Sibanda from Eastlands and David Khumalo saw the club maintain the momentum of being among the best in the land with a top three finish in 1978.
With a vibrant and effective community responsibility programme, ran so well by committed cadres, a caring Wankie Colliery Company, football had the luxury of monitoring talent through primary school football where Grade Threes up to Seven played in two leagues yearly. The secondary schools captured some of the promising talent, kept it within monitoring distance of the coaches while those that went to boarding schools came to play for local clubs during holidays.
The club was never short of talent and activities were co-ordinated well and the advent of Independence saw the arrival of Soko, David Zulu, Alberto Kaunda, Francis Mwinga, Skeva Phiri, Barton Mwalukuka, David Phiri, Johannes Kazambiya, Philemon Nyathi and Gideon Zulu younger players with an appetite to succeed who were coming in to fill the void of the retiring battalion, heroes of the 1970s Castle Cup conquests.
Kakoma Kayonga, Knight Mathe, Mebelo Njekwa, Labani Ngoma, Weekly Mwale, Shepherd Muradzikwa, Venancio Ncube, Chris Piningu, Godfrey Tamirepi, Isaac Tshuma and Antony Sibanda were the topical players of the late 1980s to don the Chipangano colours.
The Hwange side of the 1990s would be incomplete without the mention of Taboniswa Ncube, Brian Njobvu, Vitalis Kamocha, Johannes Tshuma, Fabian Zulu, Nation Dube, Juma Chitonje, Luke Masomere, Kenneth Ngulube, Stanley Nkomo and Cosmas Ngwenya.
It was sad to see the club go down with Gilbert Zulu who was about three goals short of a century Premiership goals, a milestone achievement.
Zulu, Chenjerayi Dube, Geoffrey Ndlovu, David Boriwondo, Gomba, Obert Moyo, Chinyengetere, Rusike, Method Mwanjali are names that will stay engraved on the annals of the club’s history as having been among the best stars in the land who plied their trade in Hwange.
For now it is time for a sober reflection, a self-introspection exercise where stakeholders or concerned people engage in positive debate.
Hwange has a football DNA and needs Premiership football.
So many companies making a living out of the black rock must do something that brings Hwange people together and puts smiles on their faces. And that thing is football.
Wither Beloved Chipangano
