The Sunday News
Mandla Ncube, Sports Reporter
A MBEMBESI-based church is organising building a sporting academy to be named after the late football stalwart, Titus Majola.
In a bid to build up the legacy left by the late Highlanders legend Majola, the Apostolic Faith and Acts Church will set up the academy in March. The church has carried out a wide range of philanthropic works in the community of Mbembesi including revamping Mbembesi Shopping Centre.
“Titus Majola is the only person who came out from Mbembesi and achieved something and this is the reason why we want to motivate the boys from here by building a sporting academy using someone they know,” said Dalindyebo Mtyida.
The late Titus Majola (standing second from left) with his Highlanders teammates in the late 1980s
Mbembesi has a tradition called Amakhwenkwe whereby boys who are yet to get circumcised engage in stick fighting which usually results in the lads injuring each other.
“We thought by introducing sports, it will actively reduce this traditional activity because these boys will go and learn at this academy and in a few years’ to come who knows, we might produce a star from Mbembesi,” said Mtyida. The church has since taken steps in acquiring sponsorships to help build the academy.
“We have been allocated a piece of land by the chief to build the academy and we have been looking for sponsors and ultimately we got some sponsors from South Africa.
The Majola family is excited by the idea and Titus’ elder brother Wilfred expressed his delight.
“We gladly accept the idea, we see the idea as a noble idea and yes, we gave them a blessing to use Titus’s name,” he said.
