About Football Juju
By Dickson Jere
You see, Matero people supported Lusaka Tigers FC as club of choice. We then had PJ Contractors FC. The third team that used Matero stadium as home ground was NPF – the predecessor of Napsa Stars. It was called Profund Warriors FC those days. So we grew up supporting these three teams with an allowance of Green Buffaloes FC as they used Independence Stadium which is also right in Matero too.
Profund Warriors was a big team. Never used to lose games at Matero Stadium. It had international players such as Derby Makinka, Francis Majaka, Malambo and all. But most people believed that Profund success was due to the powerful juju of Coach Boniface Simutowe. Most teams would refuse to drive into Matero Stadium but instead parked their bus outside and players had to climb and jump over the wall fence. If your bus ever entered the Matero Stadium gate, then your players legs would be “locked”. They failed to play football. They suddenly fatigued!
And when the game is on, Coach Simutowe would ask all the players on the bench to warm up throughout the game. Legend has it that the players who were warming up were infact invisibly playing in the game. Profund Warriors would have more players than the opponents. To undo the juju, the opposition team would also ask the players to warm up too!
By the way, we had no proper player transfers those days. In the night, a team would send a truck and pick the player, his family and goods to the next team. No notice! Most players joined Profound Warriors because it had nice houses in Emmasdale.
Whatever happened to psychological warfare in football!
Those days – Tunisia would have fallen easily!