It's derby weekend, may football win

IT'S a weekend of big derbies around the world, the Manchester Derby which is the most expensive football match ever played, the fiery Glasgow Old Firm Derby between Celtics and Rangers and our Zimbabwe Derby which features the country's two biggest and most successful clubs - Highlanders and Dynamos.

Bosso and DeMbare clash in a Castle Lager Premiership showdown at Barbourfields tomorrow with the Bulawayo giants, who this year ended a 10-year wait for a league win against their biggest rivals, hoping to complete a rare double over their greatest rivals.

The Bulawayo showdown might not have the financial rewards, or global audience, which will be generated by the battle in Manchester between Man United and Man City at Old Trafford this afternoon, which is set to be watched by a billion people around the world, the match at Barbourfields is still a very big match.

It's always the biggest football match in the City of Kings and Queens, when Dynamos come to town, and this time the Glamour Boys arrive in Bulawayo to face a club that finally found a formula to beat them in the league, after 10 years of trying, with Bosso deservedly winning 2-0 at Rufaro earlier this year.

The last time Highlanders had won a league match, against Dynamos, was in 2006 when Bosso last won the domestic league championship under the tutelage of Methembe Ndlovu.

The club's fans will be hoping that their win over Dynamos is a good omen and Bosso, who are third in the championship race and within striking distance of leaders FC Platinum, can erase the deficit, in the final eight matches of the season, and win the league title.

Dynamos, who traditionally do very well at Barbourfields where the club's players feel they get more support, from their fans in Bulawayo than they do from those who watch them regularly at home at Rufaro, also have a chance to win the title should they win all their last eight games and leaders FC Platinum and CAPS United falter in the final phase of the campaign.

The Glamour Boys haven't set the stage alight, this season, but it's a fact that they are now in better shape than what they were, during that disastrous flirtation with Portuguese coach Paulo Silva, at the beginning of the season and, under Lloyd Mutasa, they have become a tougher team to beat.

There is no better place, in terms of atmosphere, in domestic football than a full-house at Barbourfields and Highlanders are expecting a capacity crowd to roar them to a victory they need to keep the pressure on CAPS United and FC Platinum.

While we can't wait for the big match to begin, we also have to caution both sets of fans that this is just a football game and, like in any other sport, they have to acknowledge that there could be winners, losers or the match could end in a draw.

Our plea to the fans is that they shouldn't be dragged by the emotions of wanting to beat their rivals, at whatever cost, to the extent that they end up losing their senses and spark scenes of violence either during the game or at the end of the contest.

We have every reason to be concerned because, when Highlanders last hosted a high-profile game, in their Bulawayo Derby against defending champions Chicken inn, things got a little bit messy.

Violence has no place in modern day football and we have seen too many violent incidences at our stadiums, in recent months, we should say that enough is enough.

Zifa president Philip Chiyangwa promised recently that he would lead a team into Bulawayo to try and find out what really sparked those disturbances when Bosso hosted Chicken Inn and we hope that their findings will play a part in bringing normalcy to the game and guarantee the safety of fans at our stadiums.

We were charmed this week when we heard the Bosso chairman, Peter Dube, who is also the Premier Soccer League boss, telling the country that hooligans will not be tolerated in our top-flight league and we hope that his message was fully grasped by his club's fans ahead of the big match tomorrow.

The Dynamos fans, too, need to know that this is just a football game and there is need for them to respect the decisions of the match officials who might get some calls wrong and a poor decision should not trigger a flood of stones from the Mpilo End that is the home of the DeMbare supporters at Barbourfields.

We also call on the match officials, whose handling of some of the Premiership matches has been questionable of late, to up their game so that the better team wins simply because it was superior on the day and not because it was aided by suspicious calls.

The Fifa representative for Southern Africa, Ashford Mamelodi, on Thursday said our football was on the rise and this was cheering the spirits of the game's leaders in Zurich who are likely to inject funds to help our game – which has seen the Warriors qualify for the 2017 Nations Cup finals and the Mighty Warriors qualify for the Rio Olympics – develop even further.

With the Fifa leaders' focus firmly on us, we cannot afford an explosion of lawlessness in our biggest club football game.