The story of CAPS United

Zimbabwe’s finest have a thing about capital letters – just don’t ask them about the days when Simba S**thole played upfront…

“THEY ARE ZIMBABWE’S REIGNING CHAMPIONS, FINISHING AHEAD OF CHICKEN INN AND TRIANGLE UNITED”

There’s something gloriously satisfying about a club that is called CAPS United who insist on spelling out the ‘CAPS’ in capital letters – the caps lock firmly turned on. The Zimbabwean outfit’s name in full is the rather wordy Central African Pharmaceutical Society United Football Club – they were formed in 1973 to entertain pharmaceutical workers in the capital city Harare – so you can see why they often use CAPS.

They play in the 60,000-capacity National Sports Stadium and have a range of glorious nicknames, such as the Makepekepe, the Kekekepe Bhora, the Green Machine and the Cup Kings, in honour of their nine Zimbabwean Cup triumphs. CAPS are also the current Castle Lager Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League champions, finishing ahead of esteemed rivals such as Chicken Inn, How Mine FC and Triangle United.

Northern Irishman Sean Connor and former Stafford Rangers boss Mark Harrison have managed CAPS, and the club has also produced some of the greatest-ever player names, including Danger Fourpence, Shacky ‘Mr Goals’ Tauro, Joel ‘The Headmaster’ Shambo, Laughter Chilembe, Ray ‘Left Drive’ Undi and Agent Sawu.

Wikipedia even lists possibly FFT’S favourite player of all time, a man going by the name of ‘Simba S**thole’, although we were saddened when looking at the club’s official website and discovering that the striker’s name is really Simba Nhivi Sithole. How disappointing.