Bulawayo City. . . . . . . . . .(1) 2 Chicken Inn . . . . . . . . . . (0) 1
BULAWAYO City brought Chicken Inn back to earth with a thud after the council-owned side prevailed over the 2015 champions in a tense Castle Lager Premier Soccer League encounter at Barbourfields yesterday.
BY SAKHELENI NXUMALO
The GameCocks won big on day one of the 2017 season when they hammered Premiership returnees Bantu Rover 5-0 but a strike in each half by veteran Mkhokheli Dube and the outstanding Kelvin Madzongwe were enough to condemn the Rahman Gumbo-coached side to their first defeat of the season.
Former Young Warriors striker Thomas Kadyaridze scored the consolation goal for Chicken Inn in the second half on 78 minutes, having replaced veteran striker Obadiah Tarumbwa barely a minute earlier.
Chicken Inn were the first to settle and Tarumbwa could have given them an early lead, but his effort crashed against the crossbar on six minutes.
The first quarter of the match was characterised by rough play and as tensions threatened to boil over, Bulawayo City head coach Mandla Mpofu and his Chicken Inn counterpart Gumbo had a verbal confrontation on the touchline.
After the match, both coaches attributed the spat to the tension that characterised the derby and claimed that there was no bad blood between them.
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“That is water under the bridge and there are no hard feelings, we even had a chat after the match. I am trying to build a team that is going to win games and picking up the three points is a good motivator going into our next match,” said Mpofu.
His Chicken Inn counterpart Gumbo said: “It was a typical derby and we gave it a good shot. We made two mistakes that cost us the game, but my boys gave it their all.”
After having managed to soak the pressure from the visitors, the hosts found the opener through Dube, who capitalised on a poor clearance by the Chicken Inn defence to riffle home on 29 minutes.
In the second half, Chicken Inn continued to control proceedings in terms of ball possession and their efforts were rewarded when substitute Kadyaridzire headed home a delivery from the right flank by the evergreen Clemence Matawu.
A blunder by the GameCocks goalkeeper Pride Zendera put paid to their thoughts of coming away with at least a point after he failed to hold on to a free kick by Bulawayo City leftback Munyaradzi Mungadze and Madzongwe pounced to slot the ball home for the winner.
TEAMS:
Bulawayo City – L Chirava, M Kadzola, M Mungadze, Z Sibanda, N Mukumbi, K Madzongwe, R Pavari, B Ncube, H Masuku (I Kutsanzira, 77’), M Moyo (Z Ngodzo, 86’), M Dube.
Chicken Inn – P Zendera, P Bernard, D Lunga, M Jackson, T Hadebe, T Goredema (G Majika, 60’), I Mucheneka, K Gurure (I Lawe, 46’), C Matawu, T Kutinyu, O Tarumbwa (T Kadyaridze, 77’)
