Things You Did Not Know About Highlanders Football Club
Highlanders Football Club is a Zimbabwean football club based in Bulawayo, that plays in the Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League. It is also known colloquially as iBosso.
Things You Might Not Know About Bosso
- Highlanders Football Club was founded in 1926 as Lions Football Club. It was composed mainly of boys born in Makokoba (Bulawayo's oldest township) by two of the Ndebele King Lobengula’s grandsons, Albert and Rhodes, who were sons of Njube.
- The club's name was changed by players in 1936 to Matebeleland Highlanders Football Club.
- They were relegated in 1971 after they only amassed a paltry 7 points the whole season. Bosso who had been promoted back to the elite league after topping the lower division in 1972 following their demotion in 1971 when they finished with a paltry seven points, relied on the brilliance of players like Tymon to assert themselves as one of Zimbabwe’s top sides.
- Highlanders won their first major title in 1973, the Chibuku Trophy beating high-profile Mangula (later on renamed Mhangura) at Rufaro Stadium. Players who clinched the honours included Ananias Dube, Billy Sibanda, Kenny Ngulube, Edward Dzowa, Andrew Jele, Tommy Masuku, Lawrence Phiri, Josiah Nxumalo, Geoffrey Mpofu, Boet Van As, Tymon Mabaleka, Gavin Dubely, Bruce Grobbelaar, Barry Daka, Tony McIlveen, and others.
- In 1976 they were disgruntled with the national administration led by Mr. John Madzima, and pulled out of the Rhodesia National Football League (RNFL) to help form the South Zone Soccer League (SZSL).
- Highlanders' most bitter rival is Dynamos Football Club from Harare and the matches between these two giants have been dubbed Battle of Zimbabwe.
- Highlanders uses Barbourfields Stadium as their home ground
- The late Mercedes Sibanda was the first Highlanders Football Club player to be crowned Soccer Star of the Year in 1987. It had had taken them 18 years for one of their players to be crowned Soccer Star of the Year and it has also been 18 years since a Highlanders player was crowned Soccer Star of the Year in 2002 and Dazzy Kapenya was that last player.[1]
- Number 18 looks like the lucky number for Bosso because it was after 18 years when the club first had a player crowned Soccer Star of the Year; Peter Ndlovu was 18 when he was crowned Soccer Star of the Year on his own in 1991 after having shared it with George Nechironga the previous year. It took Highlanders 18 years, since finding their way out of Division Two, at the end of 1972, for them to finally complete their transformation into Zimbabwean football champions in 1990.
- Highlanders Football Club was the first club in Africa to produce a player, Peter Ndlovu, that featured in the English Premier League and he also became the first away player to score a hat-trick against Liverpool at Anfield featuring for Coventry City.
