The TNM Super League ends today. It has to. After nine months of endless action, we are excited, thrilled, confused and exhausted.
The script has been written that Silver Strikers are, for a boring third consecutive season, taking the league’s Holy Grail back to Area 47.
It’s fair that having missed out on the Presidential Cup, Carlsberg Cup and Standard Bank Knock-Out Trophy, Silver must get a K9 millon pay cheque.
Two trophies each for Lilongwe and Blantyre sound a fair deal huh!
Theories aside, Silver are the only domestic side with the financial muscle to buy quality players. The rest could only go for cheap labour and with it, cheap results.
At Kamuzu Stadium, Big Bullets end their season with a match against Red Lions today. It will certainly be an emotional farewell to coach Eddington Ng’onamo whose gamble in accepting the then uneviable challenge has paid off.
A second-place league finish and the Presidential Cup is not bad. Afterall, Bullets are still work in progress.
At Nankhaka, Carlsberg Cup kings Blue Eagles cannot yet transfer cup form to the league. Elsewhere, Blantyre United were good, but for obvious financial limitations, not good enough.
At the Lali Lubani Road, Standard Bank Trophy is a consolation for a hard-fought season, but truth is that Mighty Wanderers are in transition. The only challenge is that when you are blue to the bone marrow, success can only be measured in league titles.
Down the table, Escom United, Bvumbwe Research and Kabwafu United are, on evidence of results, not good enough for the Super League. It is harsh but true.
Whatever justification, Escom management does not come out clean in its unpopular decision to get rid of the bulk of its players then coaches.
This seemed management’s premeditatated act of relieving itself of the burden of running a team without sponsorship.
This was among the sad stories of the season just like the fixtures which refused to be harmonised, thanks to FAM and Sulom’s lack of harmony.
It was so sad just like the stone-throwing orgies and fist fights that characterised the season with coaches and players joining supporters in these primitive acts.
That is why my man-of-the-season is coach Stereo Gondwe for ordering his Mafco charges never to, irrespective of officiation standards, argue with referees.
Generally, it was a good season.
Thank you TNM for always being with us.
