Bantu Rovers: Zim football talent conveyer belt

Sport
SINCE joining the local top fight league in 2009, Bantu Rovers Football Club may have only played three seasons in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League, but the club remains an important conveyor belt of football talent in Zimbabwe.

SINCE joining the local top fight league in 2009, Bantu Rovers Football Club may have only played three seasons in the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League, but the club remains an important conveyor belt of football talent in Zimbabwe.

BY FORTUNE MBELE

Warriors midfielder Marvelous Nakamba, who plays for Dutch club Vitesse, is currently the club’s biggest export thus far having joined the club from French side AS Nancy in 2004.

Other players that have come through the Bantu Rovers production line include another Warriors star Kuda Mahachi, who made a big break to South African champions Mamelodi Sundowns after playing locally for Chicken Inn and Highlanders.

Last season, Mahachi was loaned to Golden Arrows but after a solid season, the skilful midfielder is already being linked with a move to Kaizer Chiefs ahead of the new season.

Nqobizitha Masuku, who captained the Dallas Cup team in the United States, is a regular in the national team and last year was on loan to Highlanders. This year he moved to FC Platinum where he has been outstanding.

Castle Lager Premier Soccer League champions Chicken Inn central defender Teenage Hadebe, a product of Highlanders’ juniors, made his local Premier League debut for Bantu Rovers together with Tafadzwa Kutinyu.

Chicken Inn skipper Danny “Deco” Phiri tasted top league football with Bantu Rovers in 2009 from Railstars.

Other players that have gone through Tshintsha Guluva at some point in their careers include Khumbulani Banda (Maritzburg United who is reportedly on his way to Chippa United), Mkhululi Moyo (Bulawayo City), Talent Maphosa (Mbabane Highlanders, Swaziland), Honey Chimutimunzeve (Harare City) Benson Phiri (Highlanders), Wallace Magalane (FC Platinum).

Standardsport this week caught up with the club’s general manager Wilbert Sibanda who chronicled the team’s history since its formation in 2008.

“As you may recall in the first year, we had some of the big names in Zimbabwean football, the likes of Washington Arubi. In 2012 after we had been relegated in 2010 and played Division One the following year, we wanted to shift our focus and look at our strength as a club,” he said.

Sibanda said the team’s relegation from the topflight in 2010 turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it led them to rethink their focus and invest more in youth football development.

“We realised that our strength lay more in junior development. This was the year we decided to participate in the Dallas Cup in the US where we were the only team from Africa and according to its history, we were the second. We took part in the Under-19 category where we played the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Paris St Germain. We did well-considering it was our first year and we were knocked out in the semi-final by Chelsea.”

He added: “That was the turning point because the team that we had came from our junior ranks where we had Marvelous Nakamba, Nqobizitha Masuku, Teenage Hadebe, Kuda Mahachi and Ray Lunga among others and we called that group The Golden Generation. It was no fluke finishing in the semi-finals of the Dallas Cup because in the previous season in the Under-18 they went the whole season without defeat. They actually won all their games in the local junior league.”

Blended with some senior players in the mould of Johannes Ngodzo, Kevin “Skopo” Sibanda, Gilbert Banda, Abraham Mbaiwa and the FC Platinum twin package of Kelvin and Elvis Moyo — who did not take part in the US tournament — that team was to compete in the Southern Region Division One in 2012 and missed promotion to the Premier Soccer League on the last day.

“From that squad we managed to have some of the best talents in the country, with our best export so far being Nakamba, who started playing for us in the Premier League when he was still at high school. At 16, he was already playing for the first team,” Sibanda said.

The brainchild of former Highlanders and national Under-23 coach Methembe Ndlovu and his close associates in the US, the well-funded club has one of the best structures in the country.

It was established in 2008 and played in Division Three for one season before buying the Eastern Lions franchise in 2009 which saw them briefly playing in the topflight league, but since then it has spent most of its life in Division One.

One of its directors, US businessman Peter Grieve, has been touted in the British media in recent weeks as a potential buyer of Barclays Premier League returnees Hull City.

Other directors are Luke Chapman, who is based in the US and Fran O’Leary, an Irish football coach, Brazil-based Tulio Landin (international advisor) while Thabisa Sibanda is the local board member in charge of legal affairs.

Bantu Rovers has international directors at the helm that include board chairman Mike Wilson and director Joe Januszewski, who in 2011 reportedly facilitated the New England Sports Ventures’ takeover of Liverpool Football Club.

Januszewski is vice-president of the US Major League Baseball franchise Texas Rangers.