Fucking hell tell me about it. Lord Butcher is in full flow in that book.
You've read it haven't you, BRM? He really does go on about the wining and dining of Harare so much. Every chapter has at least 5 pages of his drinking escapades. And he slags off Signature, the best place in H town!!
Yeah I have, I knew exactly what you meant, it read like a collection of colonial adventures in modern-day Rhodesia. With that said, I enjoy reading that sort of stuff. Like the time he called Bvute when he and Vitori got pulled over by the police, that sort of stuff is classic Zim.
Peter Godwin's books are full of interesting anecdotes as well. There's one which is memorable (I think it was a Peter Godwin one) from when he was doing national service out in the middle of Matebeleland or something, he was out on a drive when he had to pull over to have a leak. He stepped into the bush, and he just randomly happen to see a forgotten old pioneer memorial which he cleaned up and made look nice. To me, that just seems like an amazing story - I guess in 1979 those sort of things would have been more commonplace, but I bet there's still random pioneer memorials about the place which haven't been looked at in decades.
This world wide obsession with canning coaches of failing teams has been something ZC has grabbed with both hands and needs to stop here in Zim specifically.
They need to find a coaching team that is doing a good job regardless of short term results. There’s no escaping the hard truth that we’re in a long rebuilding phase at best.
100%
Dav Whatmore was the best example he was a world renown coach who had proven results over an extended period of time with different sides, he also had done a good job in his 12 months coaching Zimbabwe with many players noticeably improving under his guidance. His results were pretty good considering he lost BT and Chatara after the WC but after losing to Afghanistan twice he got sacked. History will show Zimbabwe still haven't beaten Afghanistan and I think Zimbabwe stuffed up big time sacking Whatmore, I think we'd be in a much greater position and probably heading to the WC if he was still in charge
The problem is you’ve got to find a “neutral” coach that suits everybody which is why local coaches generally run afoul of somebody. Whilst we’ve had guys that get along with all the influential players they all ultimately butt heads with ZC and possibly some of the support staff.
I haven’t had feedback on the current coach.
Most of the other big teams have players who have an established game when they take charge so the coaching role is more managerial, psychological and game planning, we need someone that actually coaches!
I’ve watched so many guys that just stand at the top of the nets and don’t seem to say enough.