IMAGINE THAT CAPS’ LAST LEAGUE TITLE CAME BEFORE FACEBOOK OPENED ITSELF TO THE WORLD

THE joke in town this week was that Dynamos, with 39 points, might need to borrow the points amassed by Border Strikers, who have 14 points, for the Glamour Boys to catch up with CAPS United’s tally of 53 points.

It’s a measure of how things have dramatically changed this year, the Green Machine fans can now find an oasis of comfort, where they can come up with such jokes to mock their bitter rivals, in what used to be a bleak desert of discomfort when they repeatedly took a pounding, for half-a-dozen years, at the hands of the Glamour Boys.

Such has been the stunning change of fortunes that, even if CAPS United were to call time on their season today, donating the remaining 12 points on offer to their opponents, starting with Dynamos in tomorrow’s Harare Derby, the Glamour Boys will still finish below Makepekepe on the final standings.

After all, 39 plus 12, the maximum possible number of points DeMbare can get should they win their last four games, will only get them to 51 points — the lowest number of points the Glamour Boys have accrued since 2006.

It’s the first time, in 10 years, that CAPS United will finish the championship race ahead of their biggest city rivals with the Green Machine set to amass their highest points tally since they last won the league title in 2005 with 58 points.

Life has never been this good for the Makepekepe fans in a very, very long time and while tomorrow provides their men with a chance to inflict backto-back victories over the old enemy, for the first time in 11 years, the bigger picture remains the quest for them to become champions again.

Imagine their last championship came before Facebook, which had been launched in 2004 as a social networking service for the Harvard students, opened itself to the world in September 2006, rising from being just a college project into this technological giant with 1,65 billion monthly active users which generated $18 billion in revenue last year.

Their last championship success story was written five years before WhatsApp was released, can you believe it, especially now that it has become a big part of our lives and has also been transformed into a very profitable business that was acquired for a cool $19,3 billion by Facebook in February 2014.

That last league title, won on a dramatic final Sunday of the 2005 season which saw CAPS United being humiliated 0-3 by Black Rhinos only for their blushes to be saved by Dynamos’ dramatic victory over Masvingo United where the winner, on a rain-swept afternoon at Mucheke was scored by Elliot Matsika in the very final minute of regulation time, came five years before the world got to know of Twitter.

Since then Twitter has since grown to have over 300 million active users, those 140 characters that have become not only fashionable, but also a means of communication where we even assume new identities, like @Chakariboy, and turned itself into big business generating more than $2 billion in revenue last year.

And we have seen Jah Prayzah rise from a rookie artiste who used to play before just a few patrons at Jazz 105 every Wednesday night, who probably didn’t care a thing about what he was singing, to become this superstar who now commands a massive following of fans in this country.

Where we used to virtually ignore him, back then, as he belted out his stuff, unaware he was taking the first baby steps towards greatness, we now sing along every time we hear his hit song, Eliza, being played. “Mapurisa andipa tiketi Zvikanzi soja unomhanyirepi? Kune ka sweet chokoreti, kunge kaZim-Asset

Kagugule pa Internet, izvi hazvidi secret

Akambotamba paMarket akaita mashiripiti Pakazouya riot Kukanda tsvimbo mubhasiketi (aya hoye!)

Eliza, iwe dzokorora! Kutamba kwako kunondifungisa Katarina.”

If you are one of those who miss Katarina, the late musician-cum-actress who was part of the Mukadota Family, one of the greatest stars to grace our television screens when genuine stars like Susan “Amai Rwizi” Chenjerai, the immortal Safirio Madzikatire, Chibhodhoro and Mai Phineas used to light up our evenings, then you probably understand the pain the CAPS United fans have endured, waiting for the rain, and missing the days when Charles Mhlauri turned them into kings on the domestic front.

It looks like a long time ago, of course it is, if you consider that it was also the year we witnessed the Miracle of Istanbul when Liverpool somehow came back from three goals down, in the first half, to score three times in the second half and then defeat AC Milan in a penalty shootout to win their fifth European crown.

That was 2005 and they have even made a blockbuster movie about the events of that night when captain Stevie G and his lieutenants simply refused to buckle under the weight of a blitzkrieg from the Italians and somehow found a way to fight back in a remarkable display of the never-die-spirit that had to be seen to be believed.

THE HARARE DERBY AND THE NORTH WEST DERBY OF ENGLAND

Tomorrow’s Harare Derby, in which the hosts are looking for redemption after more than a decade searching blindly for the league championship, comes just a day before the 197th North/West Derby, the flagship fixture in the English Premiership in which the hosts will also be looking for redemption after more than two decades in a blind search for the championship.

Liverpool, the team whose immense popularity among local football fans is rooted in their partnership with our very own superstar, Bruce Grobbelaar, who starred for them in a career that touched the heavens, will host their bitter North/West rivals Manchester United for the 197th time since their first meeting on April 28, 1894.

Back then, United were known as Newton Heath, and Liverpool triumphed in that first meeting as they won the contest 2-0.

And, just like our Harare Derby, the biggest victory in the North/West Derby also saw the triumphant team scoring seven goals as Liverpool hammered United 7-1 on October 12, 1895.

CAPS United’s seven-goal demolition of Dynamos remains not only a source of pride, for the Green Machine fans, but a reminder of a time when their heroes stood up to be counted, in the game that matters the most to everyone who belongs to the Makepekepe family, and inflicted considerable humiliation on their biggest rivals.

Of course, the Harare Derby — just the North/West Derby in England — is more than just a football match.

And the rivalry, which at times even spills into hatred, is well pronounced and one of the best letters to the Editor I have read in a very long time, was published in our sister newspaper H-Metro this week when a CAPS United fan said he was relieved the country’s leading goal-scorer, Leonard Tsipa, who is making a strong case for winning the Soccer Star of the Year award just three months before his 35th birthday, would not be available for tomorrow’s game.

His argument was that while Tsipa, who has been scoring crucial goals for his team as he refuses to let the dam- age — both physical and emotional — inflicted by more than 15 years of playing in the trenches of top-flight football, has a very light fuse and tends to become very, very emotional, on such big occasions.

He was concerned that chances were high the hitman would have been sent off in the event the DeMbare defenders find a way to frustrate him, either by marking him out of the game, or mocking him that he is a mudhara, the one Jah Prayzah was singing about in his hit song “Mudhara Vachauya”, who should be sitting on the bench with Lloyd Chitembwe right now.

After all, there is a precedent this season, when Tsipa was sent off in the Battle of the Cities in Bulawayo in what was the turning point of the match, with Highlanders making the most of their numerical advantage and powering their way to a 1-0 victory courtesy of a goal by Bruce Kangwa.

Whether that fan is right, or not, remains to be seen but, even in an era where the current Dynamos team have been an insult to the reputations forged by the likes of George Shaya and Moses Chunga as they helped turn Chazunguza into the most successful, and dominant football club Zimbabwe football has ever known, the Derby should, at least, provide them with a spark to show that even in their worst season in recent memory, they still can fight against the old enemy.

There are things that are simply not acceptable when it comes to Dynamos, like being so ordinary, they are just one of the four teams that have lost to relegation-bound Border Strikers all season with the other ones being Tsholotsho, Harare City and Ngezi Platinum (maybe the Beitbridge side have a liking to beating clubs coached by former DeMbare sons).

To imagine that DeMbare are just one of the two sides who have conceded more than a goal, in one game against Border Strikers all season, hammers home the point of how average these Glamour Boys have been this season.

Especially when one considers that the same Border Strikers have failed to score in 18 of their league games, for them to score twice against DeMbare, as happened that afternoon when Chazunguza, or whatever remains of the beast that used to dominate Zimbabwe football, crashed to that humiliating defeat in Beitbridge, was simply mind-blowing.

In a season in which they have been, at best, a mockery to the high standards that this club represents and, at worst, an insult to its profile, which is known all over the continent, which generations of the country’s finest footballers, including a dribbling wizard so good they named him Digital and a medical student so brilliant they named him The Flying Doctor, helped to build, the least that these Glamour Boys can do to cheer the deflated spirits of their long-suffering fans is to derail CAPS United’s quest for the league championship.

That is what football rivalry is all about.

IN THESE TOUGH TIMES, IT CERTAINLY WASN’T A WISE MOVE

I can’t understand why the CAPS United authorities decided to hike the cheapest price, for fans who want to watch tomorrow’s Harare Derby, by about 66.66 percent from $3 to $5.

Of course, it’s one game that the Green Machine could be hoping to make the most of ticket receipts, but it’s a fact that people simply don’t have that disposable income to play around with anymore and a $2 increase might look minimal, but it is quite significant when one considers that money is tight to come by these days.

Those CAPS fans, who have stood by the team in these difficult times by coming to the stadium to support its cause, will feel they are being punished by their team on an occasion when their side needed to have most of their fans on their side.

The other thing is that Dynamos haven’t been playing well, and the numbers that have been coming to watch their home matches provide testimony to that, and it’s unlikely there could be a dramatic change in terms of numbers now that they are playing CAPS United in a season when they are already out of the running for the league championship.

If I was part of the CAPS United leadership, I would have reduced the entrance fee to even $2, or $1, for the rest of the ground tickets and attract more people, let’s say 50 000, which is better than attracting seven thousand people who can pay $5 each.

But I’m just a football writer crying out for a classic contest between the capital’s two biggest clubs and waiting for another twist in this riveting battle for the league championship.

TO GOD BE THE GLORY! Come on Warriors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Khamaldinhooooooooooooooooo! Text Feedback – 0772545199 WhatsApp Messenger – 0772545199 Email – robsharuko@gmail.com Skype – sharuko58 Chat with me on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @Chakariboy, interact with me on Viber or read my material in The Southern Times or on www. sportszone.co.zw. The authoritative ZBC weekly television football magazine programme, Game Plan, is back on air and you can interact with me and the legendary Charles “CNN” Mabika every Monday evening.