BILLY MWANZA
Billy M wanza was o ne o fthe m o st talented and hard-wo rking Z am bian players to play in the D Stv Prem iership.The fo rm er defender jo ined Lam o ntville Go lden Arro ws in 2006 alo ngside his co untrym en and fo rm er Po wer D ynam o s team m ate, Kalililo
Kako nje, after the duo were spo tted playing fo r their natio nalteam in the COSAFA Cup to urnam ent After o nly two seaso ns at Arro ws, M wanza went to China and jo ined GuangzhouCityFC Hehunguphisboots in 2014 after winning two league titles with Z esco U nited in the Z am bian Prem ier League. Billy, welcome to the pages of Soccer Laduma. Just take us through your career starting from your days in Zambia.
I started playing professional football at Power Dynamos, and I was still young and playing for the Zambian national U20 team at the time. The Power Dynamos assistant coach was also working as a national U20 coach for Zambia, and he is the one who actually recommended me to join the team. The experience was fantastic because Power Dynamos is one of the biggest teams in Zambia. But the training sessions… eish, the less said the better.
What happened?
They were too hard and demanding. In fact, I couldn’t play my first match for the team because I hurt my back at training. We always ran 10 laps before training and the football pitch was too hard, it took me two months to adapt. After a few weeks, I wanted to go back to Lusaka because of the hard training but fortunately I had a great teammate, Francis Chansa, who encouraged me to stay with the team. But I’m not going to lie, things were tough.
And how did you end up at Golden Arrows?
I was spotted by Golden Arrows playing at the COSAFA Cup tournament, we hosted the tournament and beat Angola in the final, which was played in Lusaka. In fact, there were two teams which were interested in me: Free State Stars and Golden Arrows. But I chose Arrows. My other Zambian countrymen Kennedy Mweene, Clive Hachilensa and Joseph Musonda were at Free State Stars – but I asked my friends which city was better to live in between Durban and Qwa-Qwa and they told me (it was) Durban and that is how I chose Arrows over Free State Starrs. Qwa-Qwa is different because it’s in the farms. I joined Golden Arrows with Kalililo Kakonje because we were at Power Dynamos together and that made it easy for me to adapt in Durban. We had guys like (Mlungisi) “Pro” Gumbi (now Mdluli) who was always making fun of us. This man was always telling us that Zambia was a bush, and we were overseas in South Africa, ha, ha, ha. And every time they talked rubbish about Zambia, I used to kick them at training because they knew I didn’t like that. But I had good times there and one of my friends was Mabhudi Khenyeza.
So, why did you decide to leave Golden Arrows in 2008?
At the time I was playing for the national team, and we couldn’t agree on terms with Golden Arrows. I asked them to improve my salary but they wanted to reduce it. I told them no ways, because I was a national team player. I said to them, the only way for me to stay with the team was if get an improved salary and when that didn’t happen, I left. I wanted to join African Warriors in the National First Division while they were coached by Molefi Ntseki and I trained with them for three weeks. But the work permit was taking too long, and I was just training and playing friendly matches. In the end, I told them that I wanted to go back to Zambia because it was frustrating to train without playing. Coach Ntseki wanted to sign me and my relationship with him was good, but work permit was taking too long and in the end I got frustrated and went back to Zambia.
And your next destination was surely that must have been a shock for you?
China, culture
It was a big culture shock. I went to China for trials, which were organized by the Zambian FA Communications Manager, Eric Mwanza. The time difference, language, food – it was not easy to adapt in China. I was the only black person in the team and when I was walking down the streets people used to stare at me. If I went to buy food at McDonald’s – they would move away from the queue so that I could buy whatever I needed and leave, ha, ha, ha. I’m laughing now when I think about it but at the time it
Did your teammates speak English?
No, they did not except for one Chinese guy who used to play in England before. He used to translate for me and the coach. But the problem was that we used to compete for the same position and sometimes he would get jealous because I used to play ahead of him. Sometimes he would get frustrated and refuse to pass me the correct information from the coach. It was really bad, my man. He would give me wrong information on purpose, ha, ha, ha. One day, I told him that it was not my problem that the coach was not selecting him and it’s not my problem that we were competing for the same position. This guy sometimes would give me wrong training times. One day he told me to greet the coach by saying: ‘Good morning, you son of a dog’ in Mandarin. Since I trusted him, I went to the coach and said: ‘Good morning, you son of a dog’ in Mandarin, ha, ha, ha. The coach looked at me and he ended up laughing. All my teammates started laughing. But the coach knew that there was no ways I could insult him, someone must have taught me that. Life outside football was fine, for pre-season training all the teams went to the same province and that is where I found James Chamanga. I went to China without an agent and that is what made things difficult for me, but I learned a lot.
Is that the reason you decided to move back to Zambia and join ZESCO United?
I was also lonely in China. Before I joined the team, we agreed that they were going to buy flight tickets for my family to join me and they didn’t honour that promise. They also promised to find an English-speaking school for my kids and they didn’t do that. So, I thought there was no point of staying. I moved back to Zambia and joined ZESCO. We won the league twice and I was happy that I was happy.
When Zambia beat Bafana Bafana 3-1 in September 2007, there was an incident between yourself and Benni McCarthy. Was that something serios?
You know football is a game of emotions. We played that game and Chris Katongo scored. When Isaac Chansa was being substituted, he was walking slowly and taking his time. So, Benni started pushing him. I was near Isaac, and I was not going to let that happen in front of me. So, Benni told said to me: ‘Do you know, I can all pay you (salaries) including your technical staff?’ Ha, ha, ha. I said to him, let’s just play football and not talk about money, we know that he has money. I’m sure he was just frustrated because we were beating Bafana Bafana. That is one of our best games we have ever played.
Last but not least, what is your most memorable time as a player?
I went to France and trained with Bastia. They had Alex Song, Youssouf Hadji – Mustafa’s younger brother. I went there with Jacob Mulenga but things didn’t work out. But I had a great experience.