adminFungai Muderere
THE seventh edition of the Dumisani Ndlovu Foundation football tournament’s finals will be played at Mtshabezi High School on Friday.
The event is sponsored by United Kingdom (UK)-based Zimbabwean school teacher, Dumisani Ndlovu.
It will have four boys school teams Entumbane, Gifford, Milton and the hosts Mtshabezi. There will also be a girls’ match between Entumbane and Mtshabezi.
Ex-Highlanders and Railstars attacking player Collen Nyambiya, who is the brains behind Bulawayo-based Young Flying Stars Academy, will be the guest of honour.
“It’s our seventh edition of the tournament. We are happy that everything ran smoothly since the beginning of the year where we had our first playoffs. We also had the other playoffs in the second term. The third term has presented us with a chance to our finals where there will be lots of individual prizes that include one for the Top Goal Scorer, Player of the Tournament and a floating trophy for the winners,” said the tournament’s co-ordinator Gibson Mpala.
He added: “Each participating school including the girls’ teams will each get four playing kits that will cover them for next year. We want to wish every team all the best. However, they will all be winners as other schools did not get a chance to take part.”
The tourney was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw no action taking place in 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Ndlovu learnt at Mtshabezi and Gifford before going on to teach at Entumbane while his best friend with whom they were together at Mtshabezi and Gifford went on to become an educator at Milton thus the four schools taking part in the tournament.
“He (Ndlovu) has a passion for soccer so when he went to the United Kingdom as a teacher, he wanted to plough back to grassroots so he created this tournament with the four schools he has links with and it runs yearly but was disturbed by Covid-19,” said Mpala.
Each year, Ndlovu supplies each school with a new kit and also brings another set of kits for the finals. He also provides match balls and earlier on this year every school received two new balls.
Siphakeme .Mnindwa
