Chiefs, Gunners: Beggars on a beach of gold
Mqondisi Dube | Monday October 3, 2022 16:00
Both sides command massive support from across the length and breadth of Botswana, but that has not reflected in their bank accounts. Instead the clubs have become a fertile breeding ground for endless internal fights.
The wrangling has only helped to shove the darlings of local football further into the abyss. Something needs to be done and with urgency. For two consecutive seasons, Extension Gunners have needed reprieve in order to get a licence to play in the Premier League.
The custodians of this great institution from the historical town of Lobatse have seen it fit to continue dragging the team’s image in the mud without an iota of regret. Successive committees come and go without offering any hope for the black and white outfit.
Take the A1 road, about 120km north of Lobatse, and you will land into similar problems at another black and white side in the Kgatleng capital of Mochudi. There is the constant battle of attrition which has become the daily life of Chiefs.
For the uninitiated, Chiefs is the side that blazed the trail, along Township Rollers, between 2008 and 2016. After 2016, it has been a free-fall for a team that had succeeded to dust off long standing cobwebs to canter to their first league title unbeaten in 2008.
From 2010 to 2016, the league title exchanged hands between only two sides; Rollers and Chiefs. But Chiefs’ glorious moments are sadly fading into distant memory.
The good moments have been replaced by hard and long summers. In fact, if you are looking for Chiefs in the elite list of Botswana football clubs at the moment, you will be searching in the wrong category. Instead, you can find Chiefs in the dusty grounds of the First Division and not the lush green pitches of the National Stadium, Obed Itani Chilume Sports Complex or the Lobatse Stadium.
Chiefs players used to be a permanent feature at these facilities, but not anymore as they have, for four seasons, traded the turf for dust (talk of biting the dust). Last week, it emerged, Chiefs are headed to court to fight for the name of the club and there are no surprises there. Actually, it’s a very normal day in Kgatleng. And it’s not that the court will be the panacea to the club’s problems. You can be assured that the dogfight will continue long into the night with no outright winners.
It is not an ideal situation for both Gunners and Chiefs as Botswana football desperately needs these two firing on all cylinders, not the sputter they constantly produce. Football is a game of numbers and the beautiful scenes that the Chiefs supporters create at matches should be on display at Premier League and not First Division games. Gunners’ fans deserve a smile and not to be paraded as a laughing stock by their successful rivals, Gaborone United and Township Rollers. Then there is the red matter of TAFIC in Francistown; another beggar sitting on a beach of gold. These clubs have unlimited potential to climb back to the highest echelons of local football. But their leaders constantly connive to deny these enduring brands their rightful place in the sun.