Dynamos has 18 titles, not 19

THERE has been a lot of confusion related to how many league championships Dynamos have won following conflicting reports that have been carried both in the mainstream media, on websites and on social media forums.

When the state controlled daily published the initial report last week saying Dynamos were eyeing their 18th Premiership crown, there was a flurry of feedback from the club's fans who believed that the Harare giants had apparently won 18 league titles already.

To them, victory over Kiglon on Sunday, would bring a 19th league crown to the Glamour Boys and, as they boasted on the Facebook forums, on the same level as Manchester United.

The club's official website had not helped matters either as it even claimed on the eve of the Kiglon game that Dynamos had already won 18 titles and a victory on Sunday would bring the 19th crown.

"The club's historians would like to correct an inaccuracy that has been published by mainstream media," said the DeMbare official website.

"Dynamos have actually won the domestic league title 18 times already, not 17 times as reported by the media," said the website.

"The titles came in the years - 1963, 1965, 1966, 1970, 1976, 1978 (Rhodesia National Football League) and 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2007 (Zimbabwe Premier Soccer League).

"Should the Glamour Boys win on Sunday, that will make it 19 times DeMbare will have lifted the local crown."

Wow!
That has apparently formed the basis on which some of the fans have built their argument and yesterday Facebook was again buzzing with a number of supporters saying there was a deliberate ploy by this newspaper to give DeMbare fewer titles than they have won. Well, for the umpteenth time, we have to say that this was Dynamos' 18th league title since the country's biggest football club was formed in 1963.

While the DeMbare website gets it right in all the other years that the club won the title, they get it wrong in 1966 because the biggest prize on the domestic scene did not go to the Glamour Boys but to St Paul's Musami. The fact is that Dynamos finished that season, split into the South and North Zone, in fourth place after St Paul's won the North Zone. Callies were second, with 25 points from 18 games, after winning 10, drawing five and losing three of their matches, scoring 61 goals and conceding 33.

Mangula finished third, with the same number of points as Callies, but had an inferior goal difference.

Callies thrashed Aracia United 9-3 in their final game to shut the door on Mhangura's quest for second place and the copper miners' 3-2 win in Alaska was not enough at the end.

Dynamos finished the season with an away victory over Cam and Motor, later known as Rio Tinto and Eiffel Flats, but were a point behind Mhangura after winning nine of their 18 games, drawing six and losing three.

St Paul's, the winners of the North Zone league, booked their place in the play-off against winners of the South Zone, to determine the champions of this country in 1966.

Bulawayo Rovers won the South Zone, edging Wankie into second place, and in the first leg of the grand finale in the City of Kings, St Paul's held their hosts to a 2-2 draw.

The second leg, staged at the Glamis Arena in Harare, saw St Paul's winning 3-2 for a 5-4 aggregate that gave them the league championship.