Obituary By Goodwill Zunidza

I first met Bla Rodza, as we affectionately called him, the day he began his stint as coach of Arcadia United. This could have been in the very late 90s.

I had heard of Charles “Raw Meat” Sibanda before though, through his exploits as a Caps United regular left-back of the early 80s.

Post-retirement, ‘Mabhunu’ as he was also popularly known, was transferred to the Bulawayo branch of Caps Holdings where he worked his day-time duties.

He cut his teeth in coaching in Bulawayo with Eagles FC, owned by his namesake of no relation, Kennedy Sibanda, a top legal practitioner in the second largest city.

Shortly afterwards Raw Meat departed for Botswana where he coached several teams for much of the early to mid-90s.

It was George ‘TNT’ Rollo, then Arcadia United chairman and Sibanda’s former national teammate, who enticed him back to the country from Botswana and handed him the afore-spoken role at the community club.

Being close to Rollo I was privy to the process that reintegrated Sibanda and I was present for Arcadia United’s training session at Danny Bismarck on a Tuesday – the week’s first day of football practice in Zimbabwe – just as I had watched the team’s previous Friday session before the new coach arrived.

Hearing the gangly coach bark instructions to the players in his trademark green and white tracksuit my first intuition was to be in awe of this renowned mentor.

I later caught up with him after the session popping drinks at the team’s clubhouse in the company of my best friend Zivanai ‘Man Zifa’ Chiyangwa who was the Arcadia United manager and bosom buddies with Bla Rodza.

For quick-thinkers, and also for the initiated, I am sure you can tell that the rest is history.

Sibanda was a charming fellow, with easy-going traits that belied his strict firmness when dealing with his players. The latter demeanour had also earned him the moniker Raw Meat because it made him a fearless tackler. They named him Mabhunu for his fair complexion.

Caps United had signed him on in 1977 from Hippo Valley where apparently started his football career.

When I would cite Sibanda in The Sunday Mail as a former Caps left-back it was him who corrected me one day by reminding me that he had been a pioneering member of the Zimbabwe national team at independence, a piece of history I was to find in abundance when I visited the newspaper library.

We had merry times together not only during the Arcadia days but even after Raw Meat continued on to University of Zimbabwe FC, Circle United and Air Zimbabwe Jets in a similar capacity.

Bla Rodza was a focused individual. His stint at Circle United, owned by Circle Cement, helped him with material to construct his house in Westlea where the funeral is taking place.

He took advantage of his contract at Airzim to arrange for an air ticket to London and thus became resident of United Kingdom for five years up to about 2008.

Bla Rodza promised Man Zifa and I shortly before his trip to UK that he would return in a short while and at first we dismissed it as a bluff at worst or wishful thinking at best.

We remained in touch by phone regularly while he was abroad, all that happening in the pre-whatsapp era.

Even as he took up menial jobs just like the majority of African migrants in the UK, Raw Meat’s golden touch never deserted him.

He perched his nest at Stamford Bridge, driving the grass-mowing tractor, a job that brought him to close prolixity on a daily basis with Chelsea players like Dennis Wise, John Terry and a few others I cannot readily recall.

Sibanda returned to Zimbabwe armed with football knowledge but decided he would not revert to his previous occupation as a coach.

In any case he had also bounced back loaded with cash.

He set up his head office along Third Street in Harare and established a van delivery service which proved quite lucrative during the hyper-inflationary era.

At this juncture I would like to pay tribute to Bla Rodza for often coming to my aid at that horrid period of time of worthless bearer cheques as salary. I also grew a lasting friendship with two of his look-alike sons.

Now a formal businessman, the gentle giant then transfigured from a football coach to a football consultant who was instrumental in various endeavours such as the setting up of the Zimbabwe Football Legends Association (ZFLA) which almost swept all Zifa seats during the 2010 elections that however ushered in Cuthbert Dube as president.

Two members of ZFLA, Benedict ‘Grinder’ Moyo and Methembe ‘Mayor’ Ndlovu managed to secure positions on the board.

Sibanda, the ZFLA public relations secretary, was earmarked for Zifa CEO if Charlie Jones had won the presidency.

A valuable source of mine when seeking expert football opinions, either covert or overt, my last interaction with Charles ‘Raw Meat’ Sibanda was on his appointment into a committee appointed by the Sport and Recreation Commission in 2022 to review the Zifa constitution following the suspension of the Felton Kamambo-led board.

I was a strident critic of this irregular committee, arguing rightly that its findings would not be binding as it was a government-driven initiative which flew against Fifa statutes.

Sibanda fully agreed with my point but stressed that he could not turn down an appointment by a legitimate authority and would strive to add value to their ill-fated constitutional review exercise whose outcome never saw light of day.

I do believe though that we spoke by phone earlier this year, chuckling away as usual.

When Man Zifa broke the terrible news to me my heart sank.

We are truly just whiling up time on earth.

Go well big brother, Bla Rodza. You left a lingering impression on both me and Man Zifa who I have also tried to represent in this eulogy.