All good things must come to an end and last week we said goodbye to a domestic top-flight league season rich in entertainment.
And it is now that painful period when most of our football stars and their spouses gather under street lights in the evening to catch ngumbi for relish because their teams cannot afford to pay them monthly upkeep allowances. Oh yes, that time when some of our players have no choice but sneak into maizefields to pinch dowe because they cannot afford to buy a five kilogramme maize flour pack and bonya.
Yes, we take a bow to a season when Big Bullets underlined their credentials as domestic football powerhouse by winning the league with a yawning 16 points. A season in which their fan George Wonderson—of the ‘wamkaka’ fame— hogged the limelight by ‘bathing’ in milk everytime his side won.
And it wasn’t without drama—Be Forward Wanderers flamboyant fan Yona Malunga took it upon himself to set the hype for the Blantyre derby against Bullets when he declared that his team would come out triumphant in the first round of the TNM Super League and was ready to bet K2 million and put his car as collateral.
But alas!—the Nomads were beaten 2-1 and when a Bullets fan went to claim the house, Yona hid under his Take Away stall bench, but was forced to jump from his ‘hideout’ after being stung by a naughty scorpion—the rest is history.
And then, of course, there was the jazz about the woman sing’anga called Ayaya, who reportedly ‘cursed’ Wanderers by concealing their opponents goal to prevent them from scoring, for allegedly failing to settle her dues after she provided them with charms to beat Bullets in a Carlsberg Cup final match—it was one of the light-hearted stuff that hogged the limelight last season and charmed the hearts. Glory be to God. Uloliwe…uloliwe wayidudula hah!, neng’esiza [The train is pushing]. n
