MTN LEAGUE CHAMPS...GREEN MBAMBA!

My dearest readers...It has been more than nine years since this State-of-the-Nation-Sports Address (SONSA) commenced. I have always tried my damndest to ensure it keeps its proud tradition of tackling issues without fear or favour; speaking truth to power and laying out the truth in its most naked form.

I verily believe I owe this to the more than 100 000 people whose weekly diet this column is. I respect my readers and I want them to believe every single word they read on this hallowed page and to trust the information that I share with them in this Tuesday sports conversation called ‘Lwazi’s Pandora’s Box’.
The most repeated and continuous refrain used to describe, as my favourite columnist Ndumiso Ngcobo from South Africa’s Sunday Times is wont to say, is something along the lines of being a ‘most welcome respite from the depressing hard-core news in the main pages’.

This is usually prefixed by ‘it’s the very first page I go after I get my paper on Tuesday’. We like this. And by ‘we’, I am referring to the Times of Swaziland, the ancestors from the rolling mountains of Khalangilile, who walk with me wherever I go – and Yours Truly.

One of my High School English Teachers from St. Christopher’s refers to SONSA as ‘insightful nonsense’. I get the ‘nonsense’ part because she doesn’t give a hoot about local sports. ‘A written version of Seinfield!’  she often teases me. I have always thought to attack a columnist of not being objective is a bit like attacking an Olympic sprinter for running too fast. The judicious use of crudity is an essential part of a columnist’s arsenal and while I deploy it rarely, I don’t flinch when the time is right.

inform

Since our beat is to tell stories, analyse situations – we inform our readers about their world and societies, we entertain them, we anger them sometimes and sometimes we make them sad and despondent.

We are not angels – and as idealistic as we are – we have never purported to be on a higher plane than the rest of human society.
Just as others make mistakes, so will we. And when we do, it is incumbent on us to say sorry. To say sorry to those we have hurt but the readers who consume our information.

That’s why SONSA would be the first to raise its hand and admit, its league winner’s prediction was horribly wrong. For weeks on end, this column predicted the ribbons on the glittering league trophy will be blue and white. After getting my prediction right on both the Ingwenyama Cup and EswatiniBank Cup, maybe, like an over-praised soccer star, I became complacent.  Or maybe the dearly departed Zambian born coach, Francis ‘Mkhulu’ Banda was right to say, “Sports journalists are the only people foolish enough to predict the outcome of a football match,”

stewardship

I bow down today to 2018/19 MTN league champions Green Mamba, who ironically last won the Holy grail of local football under the stewardship of the late ‘Mkhulu’ Banda. Lest we forget, it was in extra-ordinary circumstances when Green Mamba eclipsed hot favourites Manzini Wanderers to win the 2010/11 MTN league trophy on three goal difference as the two teams were tied on 50 points.

Just like it happened eight years ago, Green Mamba won the coveted league title on three goal difference as they have been tied on 58 points with Royal Leopard, who only have themselves to blame for throwing away the league crown when it was right under their nose.

Leopard had a healthy five point lead with five games remaining looked to be on course to win the title until they suffered the 2-0 loss to Green Mamba in what was invariably the league title chase turning point on March 27. After that crunching loss, which reduced their lead to just two points, the league title race was wide open again.

resurgent

It looked to be crystal clear when the police side ended both capital city giants, Mbabane Highlanders and Mbabane Swallows on the same week towards the end of last month only for them to suffer a crippling 1-all draw to resurgent Matsapha United – a result which saw Green Mamba go to the final game last Sunday as hot favourites.

As fate would have it, both teams won their respective games but the ‘Correctional Services’ side healthy goal difference ensured it was Caleb Ngwenya and his boys who were to lift the glittering trophy as ‘Kings of the Castle’ for the 2018/19 season. Indeed ‘Inyoka Eluhlazana’ has left Leopard green with envy!

All hail to the new MTN League Champions! Hail to Caleb Ngwenya and his boys for being consistent, not taking their eyes off the ball even when they suffered a mini-slump in the final third of the season and for believing in themselves. They are worthy champions. MTN league champions...Green Mbamba!

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