Kamba’s heart bleeds for DeMbare

Sport
BY BRIAN NKIWANE DYNAMOS legend Ernest Kamba’s blood is blue but his heart bleeds for the club that made him famous. 

Clad in a short-sleeved checked shirt and a grey short that exposed his ageing knees, the 1973 Soccer Star of the Year was not prepared to talk about his football career saying a lot has been written about his “magic”.

He however opened up, when he started talking about what he called a leadership crisis at DeMbare.

“When we start talking about Dynamos ownership my heart bleeds because I am one person who is supposed to be benefitting from the club but as I speak, I am getting nothing at all,” Kamba said at his Mbare home in Vito Street.

“I have actually distanced myself from the club,”

Kamba said Dynamos was formed by a group of workers who worked for BAT Company with the exception of Jimmy Finch (late) who was employed somewhere else.

“According to our 1963 constitution, all players who joined Dynamos from 1963 to 1968, are the people who own DeMbare,” Kamba added.He said the leadership that is currently at Dynamos was not the leadership that they elected at the club’s Eastlea offices in 2008.

“By law, George Shaya is supposed to be the chairman of Dynamos as we elected him in 2008, but we ended up not finishing the election as 60 thugs were sent to disturb the election. We had to run for our dear lives.

“The thugs actually wanted to kill us. Richard Chiminya is not supposed to be chairman of the board of directors telling us anything because he was playing for a certain team in Kwekwe and only played for Dynamos for two seasons, way after 1968. So according to our constitution, he does not have any place at all,” Kamba said.

Kamba added that at one time other aspiring administrators wanted to hijack Dynamos ownership and tried to amend some sections of the constitution, but were stopped by the Supreme Court which referred everything to the first constitution crafted in 1963.

Kamba, who did his primary education at Mount Kazim Mission in Marondera before proceeding to St Ignatius for his secondary education in the early sixties, where he was already a feared striker, also took us down memory lane.

I had always wanted to play for DeMbare: Kamba

Kamba had always wanted to play for DeMbare, even during his young days growing up in Marondera.

“During my time at school I had always wanted to play for Dynamos so when I came to Harare I joined Mashonaland Home Defenders preparing myself for a move to DeMbare,” Kamba said.

At the end of the 1966 football season Kamba signed for DeMbare from Mashonaland Home Defenders replacing Freddie Mkwesha who had moved to a Portuguese team, De-Bragga.

The time that he started featuring for DeMbare is when he was called up for national team duties.

“I played for Rhodesia national team  from 1967 up to 1975 when I left for Malawi. Gibson Homela, George Shaya and I were the youngest players in that national team,” he said.

He then left the country for South Africa where he played for Moroka Swallows for a season before moving to Malawi where he was appointed player coach for Hard Wasters.

One of the greatest things that Kamba claims to have achieved is convincing Peter Fanuel to ditch basketball for football after which he (Fanuel) became one of the best goalies in the country.

“When I came back from Malawi I coached Dynamos for a season and won the championship in 1983 and left football for a while. I bounced back some years later when I was tasked to save Black Aces who were fighting relegation. That is when I took Fanuel from basketball to football,” Kamba said.Kamba concluded the interview by blaming politics for derailing sport.

“Everything has been politicised, politicians cannot be football administrators. Let former players run football and you will see the results;” Kamba said.