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THERE is no doubt that these are trying times for Highlanders’ supporters as their team has been on a downward spiral since the beginning of the Premier Soccer League season.

In fact, signals of the present meltdown first showed during the team’s pre-season when all senior players abandoned camp in the hills of Matobo over non-payment of salaries, rendering head coach Madinda Ndlovu’s plans useless. The players remained on strike for a good three weeks.

When the players were eventually paid and returned to training, they only had two weeks to get into shape and work on combinations before the 2019 Premiership season kicked off.

It was, therefore, not surprising when they drew their opening league match 1-1 against Black Rhinos in Harare. They looked promising in their scoreless draw against Caps United in the second game, but signs of unpreparedness were bare for all to see as the players quickly tired and Caps United ran rings around them.

The wheels then came off in the capital when they surrendered a one goal lead to lose 3-1 to Harare City. That is when Bosso fans and some neutrals began asking what was going on at the country’s oldest football club because Ndlovu kept blaming the pre-season disturbances for his team’s poor performance.

Bosso’s woes haven’t abated since that defeat by Harare City and have instead mounted.

The chaos on the field is now matched, if not surpassed, by the shenanigans off it, spelling danger that the run of poor results may continue until something drastic is done to halt the crisis.

Most present day Bosso fans can’t recall such a dreadful start to the season by their team, which has not won a game in its opening seven matches of the season leaving it languishing second from the bottom of the league table with four points. 

While the team is performing poorly, infighting has also rocked the club’s executive committee which saw the board suspending vice-chairman Modern Ngwenya and secretary-general Israel Moyo pending disciplinary hearing.

Their suspension is a clear indication that all is not well at Bosso and divisions within the executive seem to have clearly filtered down to the technical staff and players. 

It would seem either some members of the executive, board or technical staff are deliberating sabotaging the team for self-aggrandisement.

We don’t expect the oldest club in the country to be rocked by such petty management squabbles as is playing out at Highlanders. Other clubs should be learning from Bosso, but instead greed and arrogance have replaced decency and integrity among some in the club’s leadership.

We want to remind the club’s leadership that no one is bigger than Highlanders and they must urgently get their act together or step aside so that others who are capable of rescuing the team can takeover.

This Highalnders culture or way of doing things that the club’s leadership often refers to has to be modernised to mirror present day realities. Bosso can’t continue using 20th century solutions in 2019. These are desperate times for the club and desperate times call for desperate measures.

The most urgent job right now is to restore pride and bring back respectability to Highlanders. The team is in a bad shape and if solutions are not urgently pursued in favour of the laid back “Highlanders’ way of doing things”, supporters will stop going to watch Bosso games and that will                                                                                          hit hard on the club’s already dire finances.

Bosso is a club with a wonderful history and joyful memories, but their long suffering supporters cannot continue holding onto remembered happiness when they know that glory days can easily be returned to the club if sanity prevails among the players, coaching staff, executive and board.

It’s useless defiantly shouting “ayisoze ibulawe” instead of confronting the afflictions head-on because Bosso is slowly dying right before our eyes.