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IN the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies, though today many scholars recognise a fourth category, romance, to describe the specific types of comedies that appear as Shakespeare’s later works.
“Comedy”, in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare’s other plays. Who does not like a story with a happy ending, the Romeo and Juliet kind of act?

We all love happy endings, and in fact, football players, coaches and fans love happy endings and that is why they become bitter enemies as they engage in close combat for the duration of the match,  and all is then forgotten after the final whistle. The happy ending that teams will be fighting for is a positive result on the field of play.

Author Dona Fasano says “every love story involves a little heartbreak . . . in the world of romance novels that’s called The Black Moment. But the best love stories have a Happily Ever After that makes your toes curl!”

However, in our pursuit for a happy ending in the beautiful game, there emerged the story of the week that involved lots of heart break-not just a black moment, but a perpetual sad reading that one would want to forget in a hurry.

This came when former Warriors defender, one of the finest left backs of his generation, in the mould of Onesimore Bhasera and Vusa Nyoni, Jhaimu Jimmy Jambo announced that he had retired from football at a young age of 26.

The lad was forced to hang up his boots by a knee injury that kept him sidelined for the past two years at Kaizer Chiefs in South Africa, and  as testimony to his talent, his bosses still kept a place for him in the squad hoping he would be fit enough to play again.

“I can tell you right now that the one foreign space in the team is the one which has been opened by Jimmy Jambo who had to hang up his boots,” Kaizer Chiefs football manager, Bobby Motaung.

The club also confirmed Jambo’s retirement news on their official twitter handle. “Jimmy Jambo has decided to hang up his boots because of his injury” – Bobby Motaung #KCPressCon.

It was thought that Jambo could return to the game after the injury but, according to Motaung, he had been given a chance to return to the game but he struggled.

“He decided to focus on other things as we tried to give him a chance but he could not handle it,” Motaung said.
Jambo’s departure has seen Chiefs sign Moroka Swallows leftback Levy Mokgothu as cover for Tsepo Masilela.

Media reports locally said what made it worse is the fact that the decisive tackle that wrecked the Mbare-born defender’s career was delivered by compatriot and former team-mate Tinashe Nengomasha. But if truth be told, in professional football, no one harbours any ambitions of ending one’s career and there is really no need to ostracise Nengomasha. The best we can say is “ tough luck” just like what footballers say to each other on the field of play.

There is no doubt that if he had recovered, Jambo was going to be of service to his nation, although he had taken a back seat from the Warriors fold following the Asiagate match-fixing scandal.

Jambo spent most of his formative years in the Dynamos junior ranks, where he was highly regarded and was tipped to be a future Glamour Boys star. In a bid to get more game time, the young defender moved to the newly-formed Gunners in the first division in 2005, according to daily news.

There, he became a household name and led the club to their promotion into the top-flight league in 2007. By that time, Jambo was a regular in the various Zimbabwe age-group national teams and immediately caught the eye of AmaKhosi, who signed him in 2008.

Former Gunners coach George Madira, who oversaw Jambo’s development at Gunners, was shocked with the news that the defender has hung his boots.

“This is bad news because he was one player who had a lot of potential,” Madira told the Daily News this week. “Since he went to Kaizer Chiefs he was one player whose career was affected by injuries but I never thought it could come to an end at such any early age. With the potential he had, I was confident Jambo was going to be one of the best left-backs on the continent.”

According to Madira, Jambo was a dedicated footballer who showed good leadership qualities at a young age.
“At Gunners, we made his the team captain when he was still a teenager at only 19 in 2007. At that time he was already a regular with the Young Warriors squad. He was very humble and was one player who listened to the coaches’ advice all the time. He even gave a lot of advice to the other players even those that were older than him. It’s just sad that his career has been cut short and I expected him to have at least another 10 more years playing at the highest level.”

Do people really care much?
After the trip by the Zifa leadership to Brazil to watch the final of the 2014 World Cup, the nation was made to believe that the bill was met by Fifa, but it turned out otherwise and Zifa Chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze was forced to do some fire fighting, or to set the record straight, depending on what angle you view Zifa and its affairs.

Mashingaidze then told the world that Fifa had pledged come up with strategies to arrest its $5m debt, and after going through the following online story, I asked myself a simple question. Do people really believe what comes out from Zifa anymore? Are we going to see the reduction of that debt anytime soon? The story was as follows, and by the way, you can make your own interpretations.

“Zifa officials have said Fifa pledged to second a marketing expert to help them with strategies to arrest the ballooning $5 million debt.
The development was revealed by the national association’s chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze.

He said during his recent visit to Brazil for the World Cup together with president Cuthbert Dube, they met with Fifa secretary general Jerome Valcke and Fifa head of development programmes Cyril Loisel and discussed the crippling debt.

Mashingaidze was quoted on the Zifa official website saying the Zurich men pledged to send to Zimbabwe the men to help the body.
“We were in Brazil not just to watch the World Cup finals but we held a number of meetings with various people in the global football family,” he said.

“Zifa president and I had the opportunity to meet with the Fifa Head of Development programmes who in turn facilitated a meeting with the secretary-general Jerome Valcke.

“Fifa assured us of their commitment to help Zifa to find strategies to retire the huge debt that we have and they assured us that they will be sending a marketing expert who will help us with our initiatives.

“As you know we have already planned the dollar for football initiative and we now need to drive it through the implementation phase as part of the efforts to erase that debt,” he said.

Zifa is battling to spruce up its battered image which has been hurt more by the dismal performances of national teams.”

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