This was, however, not the case with FC Platinum, which exhibited great patience with their nomadic coach, now football development manager Jairos Tapera.
At one time, the former Black Rhinos defender was given an ultimatum by his employers, the FC Platinum executive, to start producing positive results.

Once he started producing the results, Tapera never looked back restoring his bosses’ confidence in him.
Most fans of the Platinum boys are grateful that their team’s executive retained Tapera against all odds.
After enduring a disastrous start to the 2009 season under Solomon Kaseke, the supporters’ patience must have been stretched to the limit when the new coach, Tapera, struggled and continued to post poor results in his first five games.

It was then that Tapera was handed an ultimatum to “shape up or ship out” and the deciding game became the start of a fairy tale run for the Platinum boys.
Within a short space of time, Mimosa, as the team was then known, became serious title contenders.
The patience that FC Platinum showed in Tapera and the potential in him as a good coach became the difference between promotion into the elite league and failure to do so.

Patience is a virtue that is often found wanting in most teams.
When one looks at FC Platinum, he or she would notice that the team recorded a low turnover of coaches.
The Zvishavane-based team has a history of retaining coaches unless they (the coaches) lack discipline.

In fact, former Lancashire Steel and Warriors’ player Luke Jukulile-Petros was dismissed over disciplinary reasons while Kaseke became the only coach to be fired for result-based reasons by FC Platinum.
Then came Tapera, the championship-winning coach.
In Tapera, considered excess baggage at Chapungu in 2005, FC Platinum saw a shrewd mentor and disciplinarian.

The FC Platinum coach made history by winning the inaugural Coach of the Year award for the Central Region Championship Division One season.
The coach’s quote: “I believe it can only happen through unity and surely no visiting team will win at Mandava Stadium as long as we are united not only as Mimosa (FC Platinum) but as the Central Region.”

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