The Sunday Mail

Fatima Bulla
AS I lined up with other “athletes” for the annual Tudor Bismark 10 kilometer race on October 17 last year nothing prepared me for meeting Eric Rosen for the last time.
Having reported a lot on Motor Action Football Club I had grown to know Eric and his wife Liz a lot.
Passionate football fans they were.
But on this day the issue at hand wasn’t football.
Yes the starting and finishing lines might have been at Motor Action Sports Club but this one was a gathering of people who fancied running for 10 kilometers.
I felt good stepping up to the starting line shoulder to shoulder with some seasoned athletes but half an hour into the race all that confidence evaporated.
As we turned into Boundary road off Samora Machel I realised I was kidding myself trying to run at the same pace with the seasoned athletes.
I dropped off the leading pack and went solo.
It was tough but just as I was mulling giving up Rosen caught up with me and after the customary greetings he urged me to push on.
“Let’s go, never give up,” he urged.
Though it was embarrassing at my age to have a 69 year old catch up with me, I gathered my energy and struck a conversation with him.
We talked about a lot of issues, most being football.
From Zifa’s battered image, administration woes and what could be done to revive the world’s most beautiful game in this country.
His sentiments were that the debt which was suffocating Zifa could be paid off easily, not by a cash rich Zifa president but by a good and professional football administrator.
“You know Fatima it’s not always about a person who is rich and can give his money any time,” he said.
“You just need a professional individual that can be trusted by investors with their money. With that, that debt can easily be dealt with.”
Rosen went down memory lane telling me how the Mighty Bulls came to be.
Then I diverted the discussion to his personal life.
How come he ran 10km at his age?
“I run every morning, even this morning I did some jogging at the sports club and that is why I am feeling a bit tired now,” he said.
Rosen also spoke about plans to start an academy for Under 16 years and with his facility Motor Action Sports Club in place, he reckoned the foundation was already laid.
“Early next year I should be kicking off an academy. You see with the Motor Action facility I have somewhere to start from.
“The youngsters are the future,” he said.
Rosen made it clear that though his wife Liz had supported him throughout their lives she had made it clear that she wasn’t going to be part of the academy project.
“The way the football club collapsed hurt, we invested out all into that project and you can imagine the pain. I understand why Liz doesn’t want anything to do with this thing,” he said.
However, Rosen felt there were spanners being thrown into his works to start a water purifying business , he hoped to use to sustain the academy, by officials at Harare City Council.
“Everything should be set early next year but the problem is I have been trying to start my water purifying business it’s not being cleared at the Harare City Council.
“I have followed all due processes. I was referred to one person to the other but nothing is moving. Its only one person to the next and there is no real reason why it’s being delayed,” I remember Rosen saying with a worried look on his face.
In the midst of strolling through the seemingly never ending 10km, he revealed why he thought the city fathers were playing hard ball.
“Harare City approached me with a deal for Motor Action Sports Club and I said no…my guess is am paying the price for that decision,” said Rosen.
I asked if he was interested in making this public and he insisted on us making an appointment.
I agreed.
Sadly due to work commitments we couldn’t manage to sit down for the interview.
Maybe we will do so in the afterlife.
Just as Rosen completed his race on that hot October day, I believe he truly ran his life’s race, kept the faith.
Rest in peace Mighty Bull!

Rosen the fighter, strategist and father

Joey Antipas
THE news of Eric Rosen’s death caught me off guard and the fact that I could not attend his burial because of commitments with my club Chicken Inn, makes it more painful.
Rosen was a fearless and disciplined leader who loved his players like his own sons and this I discovered as soon as I got into football contact with him.
That was in 1998.
Rosen was the chairman at Arcadia Football Club and then I was a young coach eager to learn the ropes.
He believed in me because he had this uncanny ability to discern someone’s hidden potential and there from my coaching career began.
Football ran through Rosen’s veins, he was so passionate about the game that he decided to pursue his own dream when he had a disagreement with the Arcadia community.
It was during the year 2000, with the never fading supporting from his wife Elizabeth, better known as Liz, that he decided to buy the Blackpool Football Club franchise .
That transaction marked the beginning of a beautiful 15-year journey that saw Motor Action become home to some of the finest footballers ever to play in the local Premiership.
Alisara Kondowe, Marlon Jani, Clyde Musiya, Salim Milanzi, Edmore Mufema, Clement Matawu, Masimba Mambare and Charles Sibanda are some of the talented players who passed through Motor Action Sports Club.
I was part of the birth of Motor Action, the team we passionately termed the Mighty Bulls and I know firsthand how this team tickled Rosen.
It took 10 solid years for Rosen to achieve his dream of winning the league and play in the African safari.
Being the coach of that Class of 2010, I felt honoured and somehow up until today, I still think that was the best way to repay the faith Rosen had shown in me back in 1998.
That it took 10 years for Motor Action to win the Premier Soccer League title did not deter Rosen.
Those who knew him better will tell you Eric was a fighter, a strategist and a father.
We became one big family at Motor Action, we knew each player’s personal problems and Rosen was a kind football team owner who lived up to his promises.
Ask all the players who played at Motor Action, they will tell you it was a joy working with Rosen.
The economic situation, especially after dollarization in 2009, impacted negatively on Rosen, but somehow he found the strength and acumen to soldier on.
Motor Action remained the only team with an individual owner even at a time when company-owned outfits were invading the Premiership.
You could see he was struggling to keep the team afloat but his passion and never say die spirit kept him moving.
But things got worse, the funds were drying and he sought for partners as he could no longer go it alone.
He could not find any.
Then the saddest moment for all of us associated with the Mighty Bulls came at the end of December 2014.
The team was relegated and the following year the team was no more.
The last time I met Rosen, recently, he had that familiar smile on his face and I knew something was up his sleeve.
He had plans to bounce back into football with a Mighty Bulls Academy based at Motor Action Sports Club.
Rosen refused to lie down.
He was never one to succumb to adversities, the reason why even at 69 he still had this unique drive to return to the game.
It is very unfortunate that he is no longer here to complete the project.
Such is life.
I am really pained, due to work commitments I can’t be with Liz and her family, to console them.
I got the sad news as we were about to depart for Zambia where Chicken Inn are playing in an invitational tournament as part of our preparations for the maiden CAF Champions League dance.
Thanks Eric Rosen for the good times we shared.
To Liz and the family I say have the strength, have the courage to pull through this difficult period.
God bless you all.
Joey Antipas, the Motor Action championship winning coach, was talking to our sports reporter Langton Nyakwenda.

Mighty Bulls’ finest XI

Langton Nyakwenda
MOTOR ACTION football club was home to hundreds of players, some of whom cut their teeth at the Mighty Bulls’ kraal, while others passed through the club during its 15-year dance in the top flight league.
Clement Matawu won the Soccer-Star-of-the-Year award in 2006 before Charles Sibanda replicated the feat four years later, after the Mighty Bulls had romped to their first ever league championship.
The Sunday Mail attempts to come up with a Mighty Bulls Finest XI, made up of players that illuminated the scenes in front of the famous Motor Action Brass Band, much to the delight of the late Eric Rosen and his wife Liz who was also the club’s number one fan.
Mighty Bulls’ All-Time XI (4-5-1)
Goalkeeper: Marlon Jani
Defenders: Lovemore Mapuya (RB), Edward Tembo (LB), Prince Matore (CB), Salim Milanzi (CB).
Midfielders: Alisara Kondowe (DM), Francis Jayman (CM), Clement Matawu (RM), Charles Sibanda (LM), Allan Gahadzikwa (AM).
Striker: Edmore Mufema
Coach: Joey Antipas
Substitutes: Ronald Mudimu (GK), Passmore Bernard, Clyde Musiya, Masimba Mambare, Allan Johnson, Mike Bingadadi, Cassidy Sutu

What they said at the funeral

POLITICIANS, football personalities, businessmen and family all gathered at Motor Action Sports Club to pay their last respects to a “true football hero” and here is what some of the mourners said about Eric Rosen.
“Football had a different meaning to Eric Rosen, to him football was a vehicle to uplift Zimbabwean youths.
“The man had a family but thought of other families, our families and yet he wasn’t getting anything out of football.” – Salim Milanzi, the former Motor Action skipper who spent the better part of his 18-year career with the Mighty Bulls.
“I am devastated, I cannot talk much…I am shattered and confused.” – Clement Matawu, who won the 2006 Soccer Star of the Year gong at The Mighty Bulls.
“He taught us how to be a good father, good husband and a good businessman at the same time.” – Maxwell Mugabe, Motor Action football club executive member.
“We have lost a true football hero.” – Kelvin Mushangazhike, former Dynamos, Lengthens and Kaizer Chiefs striker.
“It’s sad man, I can’t believe we have lost a great guy like Rosen.” – Charlie Jones, former Arcadia United executive.
“Eric Rosen and his wife Liz were the greatest volunteers of football. He deserves football knighthood for sure and ZIFA will support in any way the football academy he was about to form.” – Omega Sibanda, Zifa vice president.
“I will miss the arguments we had after matches, one day it would be about whether we fire Joey (Antipas) after a painful loss, or whether to bring in Keegan Mumba (now late) or not.
“Rosen has left a legacy, what legacy will you leave when you breathe your last?” – Simeone Jamanda, former Motor Action chief of protocol.
“Women have to fight for their marriages, support their husbands through thick and thin. My big sister, my favourite one, Liz, managed it since the day they got married with Eric in 1968.” – Margaret Stephenson Wiffen, Elizabeth Rosen’s sister.
“Eric Rosen shaped the Premier Soccer League and was instrumental in the conclusion of the deal with Supersport. Coincidentally the first game to be beamed live on Supersport was Motor Action against Dynamos in 2011.” – Kenny Ndebele, PSL chief executive officer.
“Father, you have left a void that will be difficult to fill.” – Sydney Eric Rosen, Rosen’s eldest son.