By Fungai Muderere
“Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding on the 20th,” Julie Andrews once said, and these words certainly ring true when one considers the fate of Tanzania-based former Highlanders utility player Bruce Kangwa.
After a seven-year hunt, unsuccessfully, for a chance to play in the jungles of African football while representing his boyhood club Highlanders, Kangwa will finally get a long awaited taste of continental football amid revelations that he will be part of the Azam FC squad in the forthcoming Caf Confederations Cup competition.
This follows their 1-0 triumph over Lipuli at Tanzania’ FA Cup final played just before the conclusion of the 2018/2019 season.
Kangwa, a speedy player who became part of the Bosso senior team in 2009, had never represented Bosso at Caf inter club contests as the Bulawayo giants, since 2007, have failed to qualify for either the Champions League or Confederations Cup competitions.
Winning the 2013 Mbada Diamonds Cup, then Zimbabwe’s richest cup tournament, could not even help Kangwa and his then Bosso teammates to explore the jungles of African football as the Bulawayo giants were serving a ban for taking part in Caf sanctioned inter club contests.
But after three seasons of doing duty for Tanzania’s Azam FC, a club he joined in mid-2016, the African football safari now beckons for the Tshabalala-bred footie star.
“It’s every player’s wish to represent his club in Caf competitions. I’m glad that I am now talking of a plus in my career. I would have loved to play in the African Safari with Highlanders but for the seven years I spent at the club it never happened,” said the pint-sized ex-Masuku Primary and Nkulumane High pupil outside his family home in Nkulumane 11 where he had paid his grandmother and aunt a visit.
The player is enjoying his off-season break and probably counting his Benjamins that came courtesy of an Obrey Chirwa strike, a priceless effort which helped them get the better of Lipuli in Tanzania’s lucrative cup competition.
Chirwa is a Zambian international who previously did duty for FC Platinum.
Azam FC are also home to Kangwa’s compatriot Donald Ngoma who was also formerly with FC Platinum.
Meanwhile, Kangwa (31) has extended his stay in Tanzania’s topflight league outfit Azam FC with two more years.
His initial three-year contract with the Central African side signed in mid 2016, ran out at the end of last month. B-Metro
