Crazy football stories with Alois Bunjira

By Alois Bunjira

So some time back in 1995 Zimbabwe was invited to the Simba 4 Nations Cup in South Africa. Sunday Chidzambwa was in charge of the team after Fabisch had left. The Semi finals were supposed to be played in Mmabatho in the NorthWest.

We were supposed to play Egypt in one of the Semi finals while SA was to play Cameroon. As we were in the changing rooms preparing for our match in the night, power suddenly went off and there was darkness in the whole stadium. We stayed in the changing room for close to an hour in the darkness until a generator for only the changing room lights and corridors was switched on.

There was an announcement that full power would be restored in about an hour from that time and they asked for patience. When power was eventually restored, the announcer announced that the match between us and Egypt was to go ahead.

Unfortunately when we were about to go for warm up, we were told that Egypt had gone back to their hotel and refused to come back to the stadium. So we also had to go to the hotel and sleep, while waiting to hear the way forward the next morning.

The following morning we were told the match was now to be played in Pretoria at Loftus and were moved to Karos Indaba Hotel in FourWays. When we arrived at Karos Indaba we decided to ask for our allowances. We had been told that our allowances were to be given to us on arrival in SA but we had not been paid yet.

So our Captains on that tour, Bruce Grobbelaar and Francis Shonhai went to the head of delegation, Roger Muhlwa to ask for our money. From what we had heard, each player was supposed to get R3000 each as appearance fee for the tournament.

So when Bruce and Shonhai went to Roger Mulhwa, a meeting was called in the boardroom and the head of delegation announced he was giving us R1500 and the rest of the money was going to ZIFA.

Ha the guys complained about it because the SA players had told us each player from all the teams was getting R3 000. It was then agreed that we should call Sue, (the now COSAFA CEO), who was the head organiser of the tournament to clear the air about player allowances.

Using the landline phone in the boardroom, a call was made to Sue by Bruce and put on Speaker, with the ZIFA officials on the tour all listening in with all the players. Sue then said, “all players are to receive R3 000 each. We also gave each Football Association R150 000 as appearance.

But as for Zimbabwe, we have given your officials a further R100 000 to be shared among the players and coaches as a bonus for your patience after the power cut in Mafikeng last night. All other teams went back to the hotel except Zimbabwe. So you guys should be happy, extra money for you ”

….hahaha…I will never forget the look on Roger Mulhwa’s face after Bruce hung up. And the first words Bruce said were “ah mudhara iwe (in his Shona accent), give us our money”. I don’t remember if Shonhai was given the Roger Mulhwa briefcase or he grabbed it.

All I know was seeing Shonhai and Bruce with Mulhwa’s briefcase full of hard cash in Rands and counting the money while Mr Mulhwa was sweating and looking on. Bruce and Shonhai counted all the money, gave us R3000 each and a further R2 500 from the bonus R100 000.

We ended up getting R5 500 each when the ZIFA officials wanted to give us R1 500 each….kkkkkk. They had not even planned to tell us about the R100 000. It was drama chairo..Ndopandakatenga maziFILA sneakers angu… .kkkkk…Ha zvemari izvi zvakabvira kudhara neZIFA.

Havasikuda kuchinja havo…..but in our group of players, we had gangsters as leaders….kkkkk