The ManicaPost
Moffat Mungazi’s FOOTY FOOTNOTES
COMPLIMENTS of the new season, fellow football fanatics. Here’s trusting that the year 2019 will not come to any complications but be blissful and fruitful.
With Manica Diamonds entering the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League and Mutare City Rovers exiting the fray, the promotion and demotion of this duo has brought into sharper focus how these shores have fallen short in having two teams compete in the elite league concurrently.
But that – chasing the seemingly elusive Premiership Mutare Derby dream – is a story for another day. Today’s is about the maiden voyage that awaits the Gem Boys as they set out for their debut campaign among the aristocrats of the domestic game.
Having secured elevation into the top-flight league from the second-tier Division One at the first time of asking in emphatic style, all eyes will be on the diamond miners to see if they can pull their weight and conjure the staying power among the Premiership cast.
Without any shadow of doubt, this project has since its formation and subsequent accomplishments excited Mutare’s football community and is likely to command a growing following that shall be eager to endorse it as the face of the game in the diamond-mining city.
Manica Diamonds have their work already cut out.
For good measure, the club has put together an impressive set boasting seasoned personnel on the administration, technical and squad side of things.
Masimba Chihowa (chairman), Sugar Chagonda (secretary general), Lloyd Chinawa, Lazarus Muhoni (both committee members), Luke Masomere (coach) and some experienced, talented players are expected to skipper the Manica Diamonds ship against other buccaneering pirates of the Premiership and protect it against any wreckage.
As things stand the top-flight league newbies may likely not use Sakubva as their home ground owing to the ongoing renovations at the facility and have to turn elsewhere for an alternative venue – most probably Vengere in Rusape due to its proximity – and, therefore, they have to chin up to the vagaries of the rugged landscape that the Premiership is.
Some sources within the Gem Boys have, however, been quoted as saying that the club’s immediate goal is to preserve their Premiership status beyond this season and ensure that they build some momentum to establish their permanence as elite league protagonists.
The sincere trust is that they have read and learned from the “How Not to Have a Hello-and-Goodbye Season in the Premiership” manual which will come in handy as they navigate the terrain.
The ultimate aim is to stay up and be a flagship team from Mutare.
May Manica Diamonds’ presence in the elite league linger longer. May their existence in the Premiership be not ephemeral.
And long may their existence as a club continue because Mutare’s football-crazy community has for long yearned for a franchise they can emotively connect or identify with and finally comes along a club with those finer makings.
They may have been tried and tested in the Eastern Region Division One, but can we trust them in the Premiership? Only time, the greatest master of all, can tell.
It is certainly game on for Manica Diamonds.
If it is about football that you care let’s share the cheer because we are made for the game, mad about the game!
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