By Nigel Nyamutumbu
Let me begin by declaring my culpability in attending the much awaited homecoming of the Zimbabwe national football team, the Warriors as we fondly call them – rather late.
Scheduled on a Monday, at a stadium located at the ever busy Bulawayo road, which I have used for years – I should have known better than to start making way two hours before kick off.
Three hours or so would have been ideal.
But then again it was a Monday, a working day with competing interests that balancing the anticipated jamboree and professional interests were a challenge.
Also, at least at the back of my head, the online ticketing system was organised and I was excited at having a seat number at a local football match.
How wrong was I.
What should have been a celebration of the Warriors homecoming show and of adoption of a new online system was stained by the all-too-familiar sight of police batons raining on ordinary fans.
I witnessed it myself.
My ticket as those of my friends indicated that we were to use gate 3.
Our thinking was with such “order and designation”, getting into the stadium was going to be seamless.
It turned out to be such a chaotic scene that as the crowd swelled, police lost control not of the crowd, but of themselves.
Indiscriminate beating. Old men, young boys, women clutching tickets being shoved, whipped and shouted at as they tried to make their way into the stadium they had paid to enter.
There was no crowd control, only crowd punishment.
It came as no surprise when reports filtered through that one person had died in the chaos outside the stadium.
While the circumstances are undergoing investigations, the fact that a football match — a moment of national joy — can end in loss of life should shame us all.
To be fair, the online ticketing system is a step forward. Buying a ticket from your phone is progress. But Zimbabwe needs to do much more on gate and traffic management.
Because gates were poorly managed and at one point simply overwhelmed, many people got in free, pushing and squeezing through. Meanwhile, genuine paying spectators who had followed procedure were left outside, frustrated, listening to cheers from inside a stadium they could not enter. When the system rewards gate-crashing and punishes compliance, it breeds anarchy.
Inside, however, the atmosphere was pure carnival. This is what we missed. The full-throated singing, the drums, the dance, the sheer joy of being Zimbabwean together in one place. Top-notch entertainment, even before the football started.
For 90 minutes, our economic hardships, our political differences, were forgotten. We were just Warriors fans.
It was rather telling and to some extent heartbreaking that one of the loudest cheers of the evening was for sprinklers. Sprinklers!
When the stadium staff turned on the pitch sprinklers to water the turf at halftime, the crowd erupted as if a goal had been scored.
This to me showed how starved we have been of basic, functional things. How novelty has become what should be normal.
Outside the stadium, Zimbabwe needs a serious rethink on traffic management. With limited official parking, fans were forced to park at private residences in Warren Park, Belvedere and surrounding suburbs, walking long distances in the dark after the game.
The lack of street lighting, combined with the long, isolated walks, made many, particularly women, vulnerable to crime. Football should not end with fans fearing for their safety.
On the pitch, our beloved Warriors lost. But all hope is not lost for Zimbabwe. There is talent, there is passion, and there is clearly a public that still believes.
A crowd that will still fill the National Sports Stadium given a chance.
Off the pitch, we must do better. The police need to be better trained to handle crowds. There is no need to indiscriminately beat people and use force unnecessarily. We cannot police football fans like rioters. We need professional, humane crowd management.
The online ticketing system needs improvement and integration with gate management. And traffic, lighting, and safe passage must be planned before the next home game.
It was great that the Warriors finally came home. Let us make sure home is welcoming — not brutal.
Nigel Nyamutumbu is a Harare based media development practitioner. He can be contacted on nj****@***il.com or +263 772 501 557
