HELLO and welcome! I hope I find you well after my disappearance without notice. Well, the good
thing is your weekly dosage of social issues as viewed by the man and woman in the street is back.
So much happened in the past few weeks. Of course, the watershed plebiscite being topical.
So much has and is still being said about the August 23 elections. Our lot has been talking about the
elections for so long so much that we all agreed that despite reservations from some quarters – the
people of Zimbabwe showed a lot of self-restraint and peace was the biggest winner.
Unfortunately, there still some individuals who perceive elections as the beginning or the end for
them. Like the coming of the new year after every 12 months, elections are just but one of many
other occurrences in your life that cannot change one’s life as a single event unless you are one of
the contestants.
The rest of us are just pawns in a board game- the real players seldom have anything to do with the
pawns at the completion of the game. If you know, you know!
With the English premier soccer on international break, we thought it was an opportune time for us
to draw our attention to our domestic premier football. Luckily for us, the two biggest soccer clubs in
Zimbabwean soccer squared off at Barbourfields Stadium.
We looked forward to an afternoon of entertaining football. What a disappointment it turned out to
be for us. The match never made it to half time as hooliganism which has become synonymous with
these matches pitting the two giants reared its ugly head again for the umpteenth time at
Barbourfields stadium.
This is probably the third or fourth time in the last five seasons that matches between these two
traditional bitter rivals have been abandoned, more so at Barbourfields.
While our lot might not have witnessed the events that led to the abandonment of previous
encounters, we were privileged to have followed the proceedings via live coverage provided by one
of the independent indigenous TV stations on satellite.
True to its billing, the first 20 minutes had all the entertainment a match of that magnitude was
expected of until one of the players decided to be so dramatic about a an incident that looked very
minor.
Nothing can be taken away from Dynamos’ first goal, two minutes into the match- save to say
Highlanders defenders have themselves to blame as they were caught napping.
As far as our assessment was concerned it was Dynamos second goal that threw the game into
turmoil. As highlighted earlier on, the goal resulted from a free kick that Dynamos had been awarded
following that dramatic fall from a tackle by a Dynamos player. It appeared too soft. The referee was
fooled and awarded a free kick to Dynamos.
It was the awarding of that foul and the resultant goal that set the referee on a collision course with
the Highlanders multitudes.
For, prior to that goal, Highlanders had Dynamos against the wall and looked like an equaliser was
on the way from the relentless pressure. Unfortunately that goal remained elusive which caused
agitation in the Bosso faithfulls.
Against the run of play, Dynamos got their second goal much to the chagrin of Highlanders
supporters. As fate would have it their player was impeded upon as he ran goal ward and the referee
saw nothing wrong with it and waved play on. If the Dynamos player who earned the foul that gave
his team the second goal dramatized his fall- the Highlanders player took it a step further.
He wriggled and rolled and remained on the ground, minutes well after the incident. To anyone
watching the player on the ground from afar, it appeared as if the player was in excruciating pain.
When finally play was halted, it was already too late. Fans had had enough and were already on
their way onto the pitch.
We feel the event organisers did not make adequate preparations for any crowd disturbance
considering the reputation of Barbourfields fans. The two players involved in the two fouls
highlighted earlier on acted irresponsibly by exaggerating with evident intent to stir the emotions of
both teams’ fans.
The Premier Soccer League and fans seem to be colluding to bring our game into disrepute.
