MILLICENT HUNGWE
ZVISHAVANE -Fire House Academy is on a mission to train young soccer players in the small mining town of Zvishavane preparing them for the elite soccer leagues.
The academy has been training youngsters since 2021 although they have not regularised their operations with the soccer mother body Zifa.
The founder of the Academy, Itai Moyo, said he created the academy to keep the boys occupied hence reducing the cases of drug abuse and child marriages.
Tonderai Moyo who is a coach at the academy said the academy consists of under 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17 teams. He added that the under 17 teams will be dissolved in the future because development stage ends at Under 16.
“We came with this idea of an Academy because children were doing nothing however we saw that through sport you can make a living, now our club has registered more than 150 players.
“The Academy wishes to have facilities that cater for other sporting activities such as cricket, tennis, netball and hockey.
“Our major challenge is the ground facility, we have a small space for practice and we always go and play using Kandodo pitch therefore parents fail to watch the talents of their children,” said the Founder of Fire House.
The Zvishavane Town Council have no recreational places for sports however Kandodo have football pitch from Shabanie Mine premises Mid-week Watch have learnt.
“In the event of a donor the club needs a developed ground with relevant facilities such as showers, relaxing places, adequate balls etc,” said Benias Hanya the Administration Manager of the club.
The committee highlighted that if they are put on the spotlight it will help them grow as a team and be able to have matches outside of Zvishavane hence giving the team exposure.
