The Sunday Mail
Deputy Sports Editor
THERE is at least some level of honesty around the nightmare at Harare City Hornets, and nobody best exemplifies this than coach Andrew Chitauro.
After a pay dispute that saw most of their personnel leave the club, the former champions have since been forced to rebuild.
The timing of the dispute and player exodus has been less than desirable, coming during the half-way point of the 2021/2022 season.
And to make matters worse, only Duncan Shenje and a returning Nathan Warikanda remain of what used to be a giant in Zimbabwe basketball.
On the women’s side, Hornets have been forced to build a new side around four Under-20 players.
Chitauro looks to be one of the most affected.
He has been forced into double duty, coaching both the men’s and women’s sides.
In arguably one of the most honest moments of his career, he admitted that Hornets now carry the “underdog tag”.
Granted, he was mostly referring to the Hornets’ match against JBC slated for Richwood this evening.
“We carry the underdog tag and, as such, there is no pressure,” said Drew, as the Hornets coach is popularly called in basketball circles.
“The pressure is on them to beat us.
“We have prepared for the game as best we can, and like always, we intend to play to win,” he said.
The rebuilding exercise has certainly taken its toll on the coach, forcing him to extend training days as he aims to help new players adjust.
While Hornets normally trained twice a week, they now do so from Mondays to Thursdays.
The women train three times a week, with Chitauro jumping from coaching one group to the other during those days.
“If the rebuild had occurred during the off-season, then that would have been fine.
“We would have more time.
“However, the fact that it happened at the halfway mark means we have had to put in more hours with some of the new guys.
“Most of them are very young and need more time and effort.
“Hopefully, everything will fall into place soon and the team won’t have been affected too much,” he said.
While both sides were initially reluctant to open up on what exactly transpired, that has since changed.
“Players had gone unpaid for something like five months, and then contracts expired at the end of December,” said former men’s coach Tawanda Nemutambwe.
“With no new contracts on the table and most of the guys still owed, the players started asking questions that we could not answer.
“The executive’s stance was that they were yet to receive funds, after which the players started refusing to train and fulfil fixtures.
“A meeting was held with the goal of ironing out these issues, after which a decision to disband was reached.
“I then decided to resign soon after, as player welfare is a top priority to me, and here it was not being met,” he said.
Much of this was corroborated by the Hornets’ chairperson Sunny Mbofana.
“We are sponsored by the City of Harare, but they also have challenges.
“We didn’t lose our sponsorship but what happened instead is that there were some disbursement challenges.
“The City of Harare faced some challenges and had to make tough decisions like putting more emphasis on service delivery,” he said.
The issues have reportedly been resolved and the former players will possibly get their dues in the weeks to come.
But, for now, the new-look Hornets can focus on their HBA campaigns in both the men and women’s leagues.
