The Sunday Mail
Langton Nyakwenda
Sports Reporter
AN emotional Facebook post by former Dynamos chairperson Patson Moyo in which he paid glowing tribute to Warriors and DeMbare legend David “Yogi” Mandigora summed up the late coach’s character.
He said humility, articulation and astuteness defined Mandigora, the country’s first Soccer Star of the Year after independence.
He was the last coach to guide a local team to the CAF Champions League semi-final, a feat many teams have struggled to achieve.
Following his death on June 12, Yogi’s remains have since been interred at Glen Forest Memorial Park, but his legacy lives on, especially among those he worked with at Dynamos.
It is on players who were part of the Dynamos class of 2008 that Mandigora’s personality made an impression, as he came close to guiding the Harare giants to a second Champions League final.
Moyo was club chair when the Glamour Boys blazed a trail that year.
Yet the businessman was only seven when the ex-DeMbare gaffer won the Soccer Star of the Year award in 1980.
He recalled his first encounter with the legend in his June 12 Facebook post, hours after hearing of the coach’s death.
“I used to walk barefoot to watch you my hero play against Zisco (Ziscosteel). How passionate I have been with Dynamos!
“As a young ghetto boy, I would line up after the game by your team bus so I could shake my hero’s (hand). And the day I talked to you, shaking your hand stretched my smiling muscles to the limit.
“And there you said ‘mupfanha, kana wakura ndichakupa jersey rangu’. It was a dream come true for me and my friends,” said Moyo.
Twenty-eight years later, he landed the chairmanship at Dynamos and as fate would have it, his childhood hero was the coach, and the pair joined forces as the Glamour Boys wrote another piece of local football history in 2008.
“It was a dream come true working with Mandigora,’’ he said.
But a year before being elevated to the chairmanship, he was part of the Dynamos executive as a member of the marketing team when the team won the league title in 2007, ending a 10-year drought for the title.
When he assumed the helm in 2008, the country was in the throes of one of its worst economic crises.
And Moyo still remembers a day when his executive had to run around to secure $10 trillion which they needed for the team to fulfill a Champions League fixture.
“It was quite tough. Zimbabwe was having a lot of challenges economically. High inflation, low foreign currency reserves and the corporates weren’t willing to partner football because companies were also struggling,” he said.
“We wanted to go on, but sometimes we didn’t know if we would be able to fulfill the next match. We had to run around with the begging bowl; we also had to dig deep into our pockets and we had to approach friends.
“However, with people like Mandigora around, the task was made easier. He was a good listener and he was always willing to be criticised.
“He was fatherly and we managed to learn a lot from him, that’s how the journey started with him and that’s how we managed until we reached the semi-finals.”
Calming effect
There was something about Mandigora that struck Moyo from the onset — his strong character.
“He never panicked.
“Dynamos is a big team and there is pressure. When you get into town, people want to ask you about what’s going on, they want results, but David was a cool person on and off the field.
“He would urge me to relax even in times when I thought we wouldn’t sail through the challenges.”
The businessman is now into mining and construction.
He still has a blue heart.
“Maybe one day you will see me back in some capacity,” he says.
“I had an opportunity to meet up with the current chairperson, Isaiah Mupfurutsa, before the Covid-19 outbreak last year.
“He has good ideas; given the chance, he will do well. I would also like to applaud the board chairperson, Bernard Marriot, there is so much professionalism at the club.”
Motivational
While Mandigora’s strong character charmed Moyo, the late gaffer’s motivational skills blew Edward Sadomba away.
He was Dynamos’ leading scorer with five goals in that 2008 Champions League campaign.
There is one incident that has remained etched in Sadomba’s mind — the way he persuaded him to play a Group A game against ASEC Mimosas at Rufaro Stadium when his late sister Portia’s body lay in state at their Mbare home.
“Even in difficult situations, Mandigora was a great comforter. In 2008, the day before our Group A game against ASEC Mimosas, I lost my sister Portia.
“I called him and told him about the situation. He drove to where I was and we had a lengthy meeting with him.
“I still remember his words up to now. He said, ‘Duduza, a wounded lion is not a dead one, so let’s do it tomorrow not only for Dynamos but for your sister and the whole of Zimbabwe.’”
A then 24-year-old Sadomba went on to score twice, as Dynamos began their 2008 CAF Champions League Group A campaign with a 2-1 win over the Ivorian giants.
His emotional story was even carried on FIFA’s website.
“In Yogi, we have lost a brave warrior, we have lost a father and a great motivator.
“Together with David George (Mandigora’s assistant) they made us believe. We were champions in 2007 after 10 years.
“I believed in Mandigora’s strictness and I always joked with him that he was a true son of a policeman because he always had his shirt tucked in. “We learnt a lot from him and we cherish the good times that we had. He would joke even in difficult times. Rest in peace, Bla Yogi!” he said.
Dynamos’ fairytale was eventually stopped by Coton Sport Garoua of Cameroon in the semi-finals.
But, the Harare giants had attracted worldwide attention, especially after downing defending champions Etoile du Sahel in the qualifying rounds.
Fairness
Murape Murape, who won the 2007 Soccer Star of the Year award before starring for Dynamos again in their continental journey, remembers how the late coach moulded them into a “big and united family”.
Dynamos had finished sixth in 2006 during Mandigora’s first season in charge, but by the end of 2007 they were champions of Zimbabwe football again.
“We had become a family because Yogi had instilled discipline, love, fairness amongst everyone involved with the team.
“He had a very good and calm way of dealing deal with winning and losing, as well as instilling confidence in the players.
“He rewarded hard work, which made us very competitive as individuals and as a team,” Murape said.
Ex-Dynamos goalkeeper Zondai Nyaungwa still recalls the coach’s belief in his players.
On one occasion, Nyaungwa, who was usually second choice to Willard Manyatera, was thrown into the fray unexpectedly, but the support he got calmed his nerves.
“It was in the build-up to a league match against Shabanie Mine in 2006. He just came to me and told me, ‘Zondie, you are starting this week.’
“But, he assured me that he would convince the executive to move the match to the National Sports Stadium because he feared the crowd in the Vietnam stand at Rufaro would unsettle me.
“I started that match and we won 3-0. I worked with a number of coaches in my playing career but Mandigora was one in a million,” he said.
Mandigora cut his coaching teeth at Cone Textiles, later renamed Darryn T, where he worked as one of Wieslaw Grabowski’s assistants.
The Polish mentor saw something special in him during those formative years.
“He was a very ambitious and yet constructive guy,” said Grabowski, who claims that he once facilitated a one-month coaching course for Mandigora in Germany.
“We first met when he was my assistant, Never Gombera and him. He was very cool, very patient, very polite and very quiet.
“Mandigora contributed a lot of positive things to Zimbabwean football. He brought enthusiasm to the young generation and I am sure a number of players benefited a lot from his character and knowledge.
“A lot of them (players) can say thank you to him.”
According to Grabowski, Mandigora also had another peculiar attribute — “his love and belief in juju!”
“Back then at our club we knew he was our juju reference and we always joked about it as a technical team. He believed a lot in these spiritual things,” said the Polish coach.
A versatile player during his long playing career, Yogi was also a former Warriors assistant coach.
He had club coaching stints with Lancashire Steel, Triangle as well as in Mozambique and Eswatini.
