The Sunday Mail
Langton Nyakwenda
DYNAMOS’ most successful captain and one of the club’s longest-serving players, Memory “Mwendamberi” Mucherahohwa, has waded into the Mutuma-Chinyama fallout, saying the incident is proof of the fighting spirit synonymous with the league champions. In an interview from his base in the United Kingdom, Mucherahohwa added that the bust-up between the two strikers was testimony that pressure was on as the league headed to the wire.
“It shows you pressure is building up, the players now believe it’s a possibility for them to win a fifth straight title for DeMbare. When you have players with a fighting spirit, like we have at DeMbare, if you have players who show they want to win, there will be frustrations and misunderstandings at some point.
“As a coach, they (players) are showing you they all want to win. It is different from a case where they are fighting over a woman or other things which are not football related,” said Mucherahohwa.
He said such fallouts were normal during his playing days.
“We used to have a lot of these fights and most of them would happen during matches. I still vividly remember one incident, around 1986, during a match against Black Rhinos at Sakubva. It was David ‘Yogi’ Mandigora versus Gift ‘Ghetto’ Mpariwa, the two had a serious altercation.
“Mandigora was pushed off the ball from a perfect scoring position by Mpariwa.
You know Ghetto had this hunger for goals.
“He (Mpariwa) ended up getting the goal and yet Yogi (Mandigora) was the one who was supposed to bury that one home.
Mandigora was not amused. The impasse persisted even after the match.“In 1987, after a painful 0-1 loss to Zimbabwe Saints at Rufaro, we wore an unusual yellow kit for that match I remember.
“There was a heated argument between centre-back Misheck Marimo and ‘keeper Lucky Dube after the match, the two had to separated in the dressing room.
They were blaming each other for the goal we had conceded.
“Those were signs of players who wanted to win at any cost. Even at training such bust-ups occurred. I saw Eddie Mashiri and Wesley ‘MaPipe’ Gilbert fighting in 2000 just before my retirement.”
