by Ronny Zikhali

A journey down memory lane would reveal that middle tier and small teams in the
Premier Soccer League in Zimabwe prefer to be safe rather than spectacular. To them the championship was for the ‘big boys’, hence they made no attempt to fight for the big bone.
In 2007 former Eastern Lions (now Bantu Rovers) coach Brenna Msiska was even proud to come out in the press saying: “For now the challenge is to avoid relegation….”
Some might say Msika was being realistic, but realistic my foot!
This defeatist attitude is understandable when it is exhibited by the smaller relegation fodder clubs, but Monomotapa and Gunners’ championship triumph in 2008 and 2009 respectively should see more clubs graduating from this negative attitude.
Monos and Chando kupisa’s triumphs should be an eye opener for the other so called smaller teams to be overtly ambitious. Monos were a died in the wool middle tier club, but last season they joined the pantheon of champions.
This season Gunners did like wise.
It might still hard to accept, painful to face reality and next to impossible to stomach the fact. But that will not alter anything – two so called small teams have won the league ahead of the fancied so called giants called Dynamos, Caps United and Highlanders.
There are some of course who threw up their hands in horror as they struggled to come to terms with the fact that Gunners succeeded Monomotapa to be champions. For them it is as if a barbarian battered on the doors of football civilization and smashed them to smithereens.
But they should face reality - the time when the championship was a reserve for Dynamos, Highlanders and Caps United is past gone.
Gunners won the championship because they accumulated more points than the ‘giants’. They had technically gifted players throughout the team. Ramson Zhuwawo is probably the country’s most cultured locally attacking midfielder. Never mind that the national team selectors are wearing blinkers. Try to think of one better. You can not because there is none like him.
As for Dynamos the 2007 champions, 2008 and 2009 runners up, they are a good team and they deserve a thumbs up for keeping the championship race exciting. But compared to Gunners’ never say die spirit, they just looked like perennial Northern division one contenders Douglas Warriors.
Sure they reached the last four of the African Champions league and are highly rated in Africa and the world. But in the domestic scene they are just mere subjects in the Chando kupisa kingdom.
Gunners are the capo di capi (the boss of bosses) in the league and no one can take that away from them. Apart from power and passion, they dominated the league because they were technically superior to their rivals. Come to think of it, no one gave them a prayer in the title race after they had been dislodged by Dynamos from the top of the league take with just four games to go before the fat lady sang.
Despite that setback Gunners transcended that sense of loss and ruin and that saw them to glory land. They reached the apex because they unraveled that knot in the pit of their gut. They brought themselves back to the very peak of their form and began scaling heights that others dared not attempt through the sheer magnitude of their struggle.
Thumbs up to Lengthens for making sure that the ‘giants’ finished the season without filling their trophy cabinets by winning the BancABC Sup8r cup, proving that 2009 was indeed the year of the underdogs.

Hwange started well, threatening to break into the top four. They gave bookmakers headaches on how the log table would look come end of season but they then fizzled out of the top four. Realists say they should have kept their powder dry.
Only Gunners were in the top four. In 2008 Sundowns and Monomotapa managed to defy all odds by breaking into the top four, even though the top four are said to be on another level altogether.
Taking the game to the traditional big four (although since the demise of Amazulu there is no traditional top four to talk about) is however easier said than done. Winning the ball is one thing, keeping it another, creating and scoring is a different ball game altogether.
Highlanders, who stuttered the whole season, proved that when they finished fourth on the log, silencing detractors in the process and sending a bold statement that Bosso are still around.
But it is not impossible, thus we hope that Gunners, Monomotapa and Lengthens will maintain their form and even better it. And other smaller clubs will make 2010 more exciting by taking the game to the three giants, Dynamos, Caps and Highlanders.
The days when a club won the championship by a wide margin should remain a thing of the past and that will be so if the small and middle tier clubs take points from the top teams.
Gunners proved that it can be done by outclassing, outrunning, outscoring, and outpacing Dynamos to a 2–0 drubbing in a championship winning match in front of their legion of fans at Rufaro.
A lot happened in 2008 as it happened in 2009 and more should happen in 2010. Twists should occur as champions are felled and turns aplenty as opportunists capitalize. The unforeseen must be seen as legends are dishonoured. And above all the unimaginable should come to life as the power base is shaken violently.
As Monomotapa head coach Norman Mapeza said to me at Rufaro Stadium in 2008 in the so called championship decider where his team lost by three goals to nil to Dembare: “We win because we have nothing to prove. After all, is that not the plot of every human drama, the ability to rise to the occasion, to triumph in the face of adversity?”