Bright future for GreenFuel
WHEN GreenFuel FC was promoted into the country’s flagship football league — the Castle Lager Premiership —at the start of the 2023 season, their main aim, being debutants, was to survive relegation, and the club did just that.
Events on the field of play, from the onset of the season to the end, are clear testimony that the achievement surely did not come on a silver platter!
Starting the season without a home to call their own, as GreenFuel Stadium was still under refurbishments to meet minimum domestic premiership football expectations, was not easy at all for a team that had to be on the road week-in week-out.
In fact, GreenFuel FC plunged into the turbulent waters of top-flight league football, an environment that is usually unfriendly to novices, with a poor streak of results that have seen the Ethanol Boys remain rooted at the basement of the 18-team log after six rounds of league matches in the season.
Like they always say, the grass is not always greener on the other side, it is green where you water it, and so was the sweet tale of GreenFuel FC’s survival.
The GreenFuel FC administration had to work long and hard to restore sanity in the camp and ensure desirable results are earned.
In response to the chaotic scenes that were being witnessed in their camp, GreenFuel FC administration replaced Lloyd Mutasa as head coach with Bekithemba Ndlovu after just one round of league matches in the Premiership.
Fast forward six weekends later, GreenFuel FC leadership wielded the axe again, and this time removing the technical department in its entirety, leaving the club under the tutelage of veteran former Ngezi Platinum gaffer, Rodwell Dhlakama.
Better days were surely coming when the club was put under Dhlakama’s tutelage.
Dhlakama, the eloquent football gaffer, who traces part of his eventful past to the remote Chikore community in Chipinge District where he attended school at Rebai Primary School, a few kilometres from Chisumbanje where he has now settled at GreenFuel FC, was just what the doctor prescribed for the team, as he ably took the team out of the murky waters of relegation.
Dhlakama duly stirred the ship out of the drop zone and the club impressively survived relegation with a match to spare before the curtain came down on the eventful 2023 season.
At 39 points, with only two rounds of matches remaining before the curtain comes down on the 2023 season, GreenFuel needed to win one of their remaining matches or at least settle for draws in the remaining two league encounters of the season to survive.
The team at the relegation cut-off spot, Triangle, had 34 points.
In their last two matches of the season, GreenFuel engaged Bulawayo Chiefs, before taking on Triangle on the final day of the season at Gibbo Stadium in Triangle.
Boys DzeNharo, as they are interchangeably referred to with their other moniker — Ethanol Boys, did well to survive relegation on the penultimate round of league fixtures with the season’s final match against Triangle FC being rendered irrelevant in their fight against relegation.
Thus, their mission in the Premiership debut season, which was primarily to keep their top-flight league football slot, had been accomplished.
No wonder why their chairman, Fred Moyo believes for 2024 their main task is to build on the achievements of the 2023 season as they seek to remain part of the country’s flagship football league for many more years to come.
“Ideally, when we were promoted, we wanted to make sure that we were not relegated after one season. We wanted to remain in the premiership, and we are happy that we have managed to achieve that as a club.
“Relegation has never been part of our vocabulary. Even though it was not easy, we remained confident that we will be playing premiership football next year and many more years to come,” said Moyo.
The GreenFuel FC boss said they are guided by the principle of leaving no place and no person behind as they strive to give a platform to showcase football talent to the rural folks of Chisumbanje and Chipinge as a marginalised district.
“This is an initiative that we want to see benefiting the people of Chisumbanje and Chipinge at large. We want to see youngsters achieving their dreams through this project. Therefore, we can only achieve that if we make sure the project stays afloat,” said the GreenFuel boss.