Happy days are back at Highlanders
HIGHLANDERS Football Club is a community club. And is community participation that guarantees its very survival.
The onus is therefore on the club in general and the players in particular to ensure that there is constant community interest through professionalism, playing good football and what winning.
The twin involvement of both the community in return keeps the brand called Highlanders alive. There is a semblance of that!
The team is playing attractive football and winning. In approval fans, coach Brito calls Beautiful, have started flocking in Emagumeni, supporting and behaving.
It might be early days yet to talk about success, but we live for the future, while finding life in the fidelities of the present. The present is the tonic for the future.
Ironically, Bosso have rediscovered their form at the arrival of Portuguese mentor Baltermar Brito.
Everyone is happy, the Bosso matches are suddenly gaining momentum in terms of patronage.
The Bosso family just like the Proverbial Saints, are marching in unison as they look to the future.
There was excitement galore at the match venue and its environs last Sunday ahead of the clash between Bosso and visiting Manica Diamonds.
Business associated with match day was back to normal.
It was brisk business for women selling edibles such as isitshwala at the shops just adjacent to Emagumeni.
Perhaps the women will be engrossed in their business oblivious of what’s going on inside the stadium, but would be grateful for the buzz generated from that.
The mood was electric elsewhere, at a nearby sports bar, bottle store and beyond.
In the field of play there were glimpses of the rebirth of Umantengwane’s trailblazing domestic performances of yester year.
Expectations were heightened by coach Brito’s decision to introduce youngsters in the team such as 16-year-old sensation Prince Ndlovu.
It was a welcome of the Highlanders junior policy of the 1980s and 1990s, which was the envy of all the teams in the country.
Sadly that supply line from the ranks had unceremoniously dried up whether by default or design we can’t tell.
Highlanders rarely bought players from other clubs as they always looked to their booming juniors programmes which ensured a constant supply of quality players to the senior team.
Many of the team’s legends of yester year were products of that well-oiled conveyer belt.
Peter Ndlovu remains a glowing example of the quality that was “manufactured” at the Bosso juniors factory then.
There were also the likes of the late Mercedes “Rambo” Sibanda, Willard Khumalo(late), Peter “Oxo” Nkomo, Benjamin “Mackanaky” Nkonjera (late), Nhamo Shambira, Netsai “Super” Moyo, Tobias Mudyambanje, Makheyi Nyati, Honour Gombami, Noel Kaseke, Mkhokheli Dube, and Melusi “Mabaleka” Sibanda, the current club’ s juniors Bosso90 coach, the list is endless.
All these were products of the junior policy that exuded a lot of pride and was indeed unrivalled by any on the domestic scene.
Most of the junior players who made it big were honed by the now forgotten coach Ali “Baba”” Dube, and no wonder he remains the most successful juniors coach ever in this country.
Dube’s departure in 1999 to neighbours Railstars signaled the end of an era for Bosso as the juniors supply line dried up.
Perhaps that is the reason why when coach Brito introduced the Prince, there was jubilation, for some of us it was nostalgia for the once successful Bosso juniors replenishment exercise.
The Highlanders family might be consumed by the team’s current form but should be reminded that the road to success is a process. And along the way there might be obstacles.
Rome was not built in one day, and that patience is key to everything. You can get the chicken through hatching the egg and not smashing it.
Winning is part of the game, and losing is also part of the game.
Just like Coach Brito said, in football there are no easy games.
We should brace on any eventuality and build on it.