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SICKLY SWALLOWS NEED A MANDELA-LIKE MOTIVATION

17/07/2018 00:53:00 BY Lwazi's Pandora's Boxs

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My dearest ... Today, July 17 2018, the country’s invincibles, Mbabane Swallows will be on a quest to take another major step in the mission to conquer Africa when they take on Tunisian top side, Etiole du Sahel at the modest Mavuso Sports Centre at 3pm.

By all accounts, this is a mammoth task because the ‘Brigade rouge’ of Tunisia are not just regarded one of Africa’s top sides but have a star on their red and white playing kit which indicates that they have won the premium CAF Champions League once.

The CAF Champions glory came in 2007 for the team founded 93 years ago. The Tunisian side coach, Lili Chiheb, upon arrival here at Eswatini on Saturday, told the hacks that they are on a mission to attain a second star.

To achieve this, they would have to, among other things, take Mbabane Swallows to the cleaners in this afternoon’s top-of-the-table clash.

They will have to overcome a Swallows side that previously instilled the fear of God to the opposition teams at home before a catalogue of administration bungling, devil-may-care attitude, player unrest and an off-season shambolic transfer higgledy-piggledy saw the red and white glamour side make newspaper headlines for all the wrong reasons for weeks on end.

Twinkle-toed midfield maestro, jersey number 11, Banele ‘Pupu’ Sikhondze, who pulled the strings in midfield and deservedly won the man of the match award in his final game for Swallows during the 1-0 win over Angola’s De Augusto is now RamaG’s new teammate at Polokwane City.

The fitness level of Felix Badenhorst and first choice goalkeeper, Sandile ‘Nkomishi’ Ginindza, who missed more than a week of training due to unpaid signing-on-fees, is causing coach Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati’s sleepless nights. Striker Sandile Hlatshwako’s contractual quandary left a bitter taste in the mouth and then Richard Mcreesh’s insatiable appetite for sweet things without paying for them have exposed cracks in a team that for so long was regarded as the epitome of a perfectly administered club. The sad demise of club boss Victor ‘Maradona’ Gamedze, gunned down in cold blood by a buffoon with no regard for life on the fateful Sunday of January 14, 6:53pm, has evidently left a gaping void nay wound. The cracks are there for all to see.

Recent events reflected a house as divided and chaotic as Nigeria’s Big Brother’s house.
All these events and other behind-the-scene administration red tape do not give this grandson of Mlonyeni the same enthusiasm I have felt each time I travelled the breadth and width of the African jungle with Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati’s brave battalions. I was at the beautiful 18 000 seater, Taieb Mhiri Stadium in Tunisia on Saturday, May 13, 2017 when they put up a brave fight to lose 1-0 to CS Sfaxien. On March 7, 2018, I was at Zambia’s Nkola Stadium, on a sodden pitch, which looked far worse than a grazing field at my humble background of Khalangilile, when Richard Mcreesh scored the winning goal which was as sweet as a Yogi Sip (heek, heek, heek) in a 2-1 victory that left the whole Zambian nation in perpetual agony. It was the first away win by a local club in the land of Kenneth Kaunda and probably the biggest away win since Sihlangu Semnikati – before it became an enclave of abject failures posing as coaches – scaled COSAFA Castle Cup highest peak by beating Zimbabwe’s Brave Warriors on the unforgettable Sunday afternoon of July 5, 2002. The mere thought of that 2-0 victory courtesy of goals by Siza ‘King Pele’ Dlamini and Sibusiso ‘Spoko’ Dlamini still gives me goose bumps to this very day. I still recall vividly how I danced like a hippo with a spear on its back on that memorable Sunday afternoon at the National Stadium in Harare.
Today, I am tiptoeing on eggshells. Swallows, at the moment, are as sickly as a parrot. I am not as confident as before even though today’s game is ostensibly a home match. Maybe the electioneering slogan of former USA president Barack Obama, “Yes we can’ can inspire Koki Vilakati’s troops this afternoon. Obama is today expected to deliver the annual lecture in memory of the great statesman Nelson Mandela, who would have turned 100 years tomorrow. Maybe his slogan can re-live the fight in the belly of Swallows and they would overcome all the administration challenges and bring us joy as a nation as they best know how.
You can write off this great Swallows side at your own peril. In the CAF games – and when the stakes are high – most often than not, they come to the party. They are made of sterner stuff. Their resilience, falsely derided as mere luck by their detractors, comes like a second nature.
Resilience, as the boss of bosses, Dr. Irvin ‘Iron Duke’ Khoza, Chairman of that great institution called Orlando Pirates Football Club founded in Orlando East in 1937, which gives me more joy and pain than any woman ever could, described it – talks to elasticity as it does to hardness. It is contained in both pliability and toughness. “Resilience is an indispensable requirement for prosperity. Prosperity eludes those that are hard yet not elastic, tough to the point where they are not pliable, so spirited that they find it inconceivable to be flexible,” said the ‘Iron Duke’ of South African football during the ‘Bucs’ 75th anniversary celebrations I attended on February 4, 2012 at Sandton Convention Centre. “It’s the resilience of the human spirit,” said the all-too-powerful Khoza in his moving and emotional speech.
This is what, in many ways, describes the Swallows of Mbabane. It is not an overstatement that these two great teams seem to be cut from the same cloth – and so were their leaders, Khoza and Gamedze. Never mind that I know too many people who support both sides with ebullient passion.
Clubs you will find permeate the peaks and troughs of the entire, in Swallows case, 70 years and Pirates 81 years, of the life of these great institutions. It is not only evident when they win; in fact it manifest more when they do not. Very few people might be aware that these two sides have had the unfortunate scenario where two teams under the same name once honoured a match.
Both teams have survived a few threats of relegation, splits, infighting, bankruptcy, a loss of relevance and mass appeal.
In the case of Swallows right now, their journey in the African jungle, where the hunter becomes the hunted, even in the absence of their amiable boss, Gamedze, has been nothing short of extraordinary.
The ‘Beautiful Birds’ 1-0 win over Angola’s Primeiro de Agosto, in the last CAF Champions league match on May 15, was a gusty display by ‘Koki’ Vilakati’s charges. They will need to do more of the same this afternoon if they are to keep their hopes of becoming the first team from Eswatini to reach the quarter-finals of CAF’s premium club competition. No one can bet against the Swallows of Pius ‘Mkhari’ Dube, of Gift ‘Cracker’ Masina, of Differ ‘Different Strokes’ Maphanga, of Ronnie ‘Valiant’ Dube, of ‘Sizwe Shabangu, of Friday ‘Paras’ Shongwe, of Wilton ‘Baggio’ Magaya, of Patrick ‘Nkola’ Mkhwanazi. The Swallows of Victor ‘Maradona’ Gamedze, of Bheki Simelane, of Sibusiso Manana, of Luke Malinga, of Collin Ntiwane, of Sam Carmichael, of Nqaba Dlamini, of Pat Greenhead, of Chillies Shongwe, to mention but a few of the fore bearers of this great club formed in 1948.
The class of 2017/18 carry the hopes of over one million souls of this tiny Kingdom of Eswatini today. Kubo Mkhonto Ka-Shaka!