In his illustrious 10-year football career in the Super League, until 2006, Richard Chipungu was shown a yellow card only twice. He got both punishments due to minor and silly offences.
The former Moyale Barracks left-winger was first disciplined in 1997 for playing without wearing the soccer pads in a crucial Super League encounter with the now defunct MDC United.
After joining Civo United a year later, the 35-year-old Zomba City Council employee was shown another yellow card as he mistakenly picked the ball meant for Big Bullets goal kick and took it for his side’s corner kick. That was during the Press Cup final, which they lost 3-2 at Kamuzu Stadium.
“I vowed to come out clean from my football career, but these two silly blunders spoiled everything,” said Chipungu who now coaches women football outfit Zomba City Queens.
However, winning two Player of the Month accolades in three months in the 1997 league season is something he treasurers as the sweetest fruits of his soccer career.
Such decorations and his flying pace on the left-flank when he featured for Flames in friendly games against Mozambique and Zimbabwe in 1998 were the main reasons he became one of the country’s most sought-after left-wingers by local top clubs such as Mighty Wanderers and Bullets.
Apart from Moyale and Civo, Chipungu, who quit active football in 2006 due to the recurrence of an ankle injury he sustained in 1999, also played for Blue Eagles and Eagle Beaks between 2002 and 2006.
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