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Simba Jemwa, Sports Reporter
HE was the darling of the crowd during his playing days, but at first sight he seemed unlikely to take on the defensive link-men of the day, let alone hard-as-teak defenders who came in one size — big, clumsy and very likely to break a leg or two.

A former Highlanders player, manager and chairman, this football deity — a footballer of abundant talent — succumbed to diabetes at Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo on August 10 last year.

With his slight frame, Ernest Sibanda seemed more destined to end up in a less physical discipline than on a football field.

But put a ball at his feet, and the man they called Maphepha could just about do anything.

On the first anniversary of his death, it is right that football remembers the pleasure he gave people and the non-conformity with which he played the game he loved so much and went to administer with distinction as club and national team manager and then club chairman.

The art form of dribbling might have been invented for the boy from Njube, who played with a freedom of spirit and, at times, a reckless disregard for the “end product” that is difficult to fathom in a sport now dominated by results.

This writer’s father who watched Sibanda at his peak said of the footballer: “He was an angel with the ball.”

He and his carefree attitude on the football field endeared him to many football lovers and created the legend that today his peers, friends and family alike remember his genius on the field and his affable personality off it.

Maphepha enjoyed remarkable success in his football career and boasts of five league championships, four as a manager and one as chairman, apart from silverware won during his playing days at Caps United and Bosso.

He announced his arrival on the football scene at Second Division with Contex between 1977-78. One year later Bosso came calling attracted to his skill and naughty charm ahead of their campaign in the unified national league, the National Professional Soccer League.

At Highlanders, he played with other club greats like Tymon Mabaleka, Majuta Mpofu, Lawrence Phiri and Josiah Nxumalo.

Sibanda arrived and became a part of a team that won the Chibuku Trophy, beating Rio Tinto 4-0. They also won the inaugural Heroes Cup 3-2 against Dynamos, but were drubbed 1-8 on aggregate in the Rothmans Shield by a marauding Caps United, who he would join the following year.

But 1981, only two years after arriving at Amahlolanyama, Sibanda got a job in Harare and joined Caps United. It was a side teeming with great talent in the likes of Shaky Tauro, Joel Shambo, Stix Mtizwa and Stanley Ndunduma.

But Maphepha was about so much more than trophies. He helped create the legend of beautiful football, the mythical status which the very name Bulawayo football conjures up around the country.

“My God could he play,” said Stanford Jemwa, a fan of Maphepha.

“He attacked with such pace and I believe he was more of a danger than most footballers at the time who were given more credit and fame at the time — he was a phenomenon, capable of sheer magic.

“It was difficult to know which way he was going to go and because he was as comfortable on his left foot as his right, so he could cut inside or go down the line and he had a ferocious shot too.

“Maphepha would have been a real star today, no question about it — a superstar,” gushed a former Zimbabwe Saints secretary-general.

One of the most extraordinary entertainers in sport was taken by the demons of diabetes and lived a life so tragically short.

Yet the anniversary of his death gives football a chance to pay tribute to one of its greatest sons.
Maphepha, the “joy of the people”, must never be forgotten. — @RealSimbaJemwa