Sport Page 51 Enock Muchinjo HawkZone A HEART-WARMING video of the joyous Netherlands cricket team in their team bus in Bulawayo, belting out a local Zimbabwean song in full throttle to celebrate their World Cup qualification, was testament to the beauty of sport. In their innocence, the Dutch, in fact as I have discovered even a lot of Zimbabweans, did not know the not-so-pleasant origin of that tune, a fun song as it is with no intention to hurt. “Munomupirei doro, munomupirei hwahwa…hona, adhakwa, akutaura zvisina basa (why do you give this guy beer, why do you give him booze…look now, he’s drunk, and talking nonsense!).” Last weekend, in the abandoned football match between Highlanders and Dynamos, Zimbabwe’s biggest two clubs who have a famously fierce rivalry, another song that sounded similar was sung by a section of the visiting team’s fans – some words replaced to take a tribally offensive form. In the rather nasty version, the DeMbare supporters – in celebratory mood – jibed, tongue in cheek, that Ndebele people should not be consuming alcohol because they become troublesome when drunk. A humorous and light-hearted song had been twisted to ridicule an ethnic group, it appeared. Quite the contrary, because what we heard on Sunday at Barbourfields Stadium is, in fact, the original version of the one that has been popularised by Zimbabwean cricket fans in the last two years and taken to the world such that the Dutch’s New Zealand-born star Max O’Dowd was singing it to reporters when the Netherlands squad landed at Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo Airport in Bulawayo in June for the World Cup qualifiers. Incidentally, a Pan-Africanist website with Dutch links, This Is Africa, commissioned me in 2016 to produce a feature on the underlying aspects of the great rivalry between the two Zimbabwean football giants – not an easy story to do. In research, I reached out to Mehluli Sibanda, a fellow sportswriter, who was then a senior journalist on the Sunday News in Bulawayo. Never one to sugar-coat the truth, Mehluli was thankfully honest with me and helped with the words of the taunt songs on both sides of these great football institutions. That is when I first knew, seven years ago, of the existence of that stuff we heard last Sunday at Barbourfields. On the other side, there are equally other not very flattering songs by the Highlanders faithful, like one in which they urge on each other to put on boots in readiness to harm the Shona tribe. In the end, Mehluli and I chuckled at the whole affair and agreed that a lot of the folks who join in these chants, in real life, are otherwise good people who do not care a hoot about the next guy’s ethnicity or even believe what they are uttering amidst the great euphoria of this iconic sporting fixture. I wish this could not happen because, truly speaking, reference to tribe and race, and in that manner, is just not right. However, I do not see it going away. What can possibly be done to put an end to it? But without trying to justify any of the slurs, it says something that both teams have fans who belong to the country’s two main ethnic groups and they sing along in support of their team. I have never been at Barbourfields for a Highlanders-Dynamos clash and I can only imagine what I have been missing. It definitely is some atmosphere, a sporting experience to remember. Having covered countless international cricket and rugby in Bulawayo, it feels disproportionate that I have been to Barbourfields overall on just a couple of occasions. The first time was during a cricket assignment for a series between Zimbabwe and the West Indies in in Bulawayo in 2007 when a rest day at the cricket coincided with an international friendly between the Warriors and Lesotho at Barbourfields, drawn 1-1. I was back exactly five years later when Highlanders defeated How Mine to win the Mbada Diamonds Cup and what theatre it is to experience once the crowd finds its mojo! It will be such a big shame if people do actually put into action what they voice in song and dance in the stands, be it at the football and in life. It might be banter, but it must never be allowed to live in people’s hearts Highlanders vs Dynamos NewsHawks Issue 148, 15 September 2023
NEWS $60 Covid tariff for visitors & tourists CULTURE Community radio regulations under review @NewsHawksLive TheNewsHawks www.thenewshawks.com Thursday 1 October 2020 WHAT’S INSIDE ALSO INSIDE Finance Ministy wipes out $3.2 Billion depositors funds Zim's latest land cStory on Page 3 Story on Page 8 Chamisa reacout to Khupe Unofficial president calls for emergeFriday 15 September 2023 ALSO INSIDE It might be banter, but it must never be allowed to live Sports Brought together by the power of sport, and a family affair LEWIS Chitengwa, who as a youngster once defeated the world’s greatest golfer of all time, Tiger Woods, has been remembered again for his prodigious talent, 22 years after his tragic and sudden death in Canada before a tournament in 2001. Chitengwa died of meningitis in Edmonton on 30 June 2001 at the age of 26 to send multitudes of adoring fans across the globe into mourning. A young Chitengwa beat Tigers Woods at the Orange Bowl in 1992 to announce his arrival as a future superstar of the game who was tipped to go on to become one of the sport’s greatest. In 1993, Chitengwa made history when he won the South Africa Amateur, the first black golfer to achieve the feat, and two years after the end of apartheid, at that. In a PGA Tour programme by broadcaster Jacques Slade this week during the Lewis Chitengwa Memorial Golf Tournament in Charlottesville, Virginia, coach Mike Moraghan spoke in awe of the young Zimbabwean’s famous victory in South Africa. “For Lewis, as a black kid to go in there, a black kid from Zimbabwe, winning the national championship, was very much like Jesse Owens (iconic African-American track-and-field champion) winning gold medals in front of Hitler,” said Moraghan, who coached Chitengwa at the University of Virginia. “Black folks, white folks, rushed to the green, lifted him up and carried him off the golf course, and he became an instant hero to folks in sub-Saharan Africa.” Back at his US base, Chitengwa continued on his journey to stardom, which was fatefully cut shot. “Lewis would have won Majors on the PGA Tour had he lived,” added Moraghan. “He was a rare fantastic talent. He could pump the ball, he was always amongst the longest drivers at any level and had a great imagination.” Chitengwa was admitted to the University of Alberta Hospital and died less than an hour later. “It was horrific, it was horrendous for everyone who knew him, loved him and spent time with him,” commented Moraghan. “To hear this news that he had died suddenly was shocking. It was heart-wrenching.” Chitengwa is inducted into the Southern African Hall of Fame alongside such global greats of the game as fellow Zimbabwean Nick Price as well as South Africans Ernie Els and Gary Player. — STAFF WRITER/SPORTSCAST. Lewis Chitengwa Remembering Zim’s black golf amateur who once beat Tiger Woods