Highlanders Executive Chairman Kenneth Mhlophe is happy with the team’s 2019 performance and the good cooperation from the sponsors NetOne, partners Nyaradzo, and various stakeholders and fans who stood with the club through both, bad and good times.
Bosso endured a poor start to 2019, going for eight league matches without registering a win, also being involved in the relegation dogfight for the better of the season.
However, Bosso who had already won the Independence Cup in April, beating rivals Dynamos 2-0 at National Sports Stadium had a fairly good run towards the end of the season, a run that catapulted the Bulawayo giants to the Chibuku Super Cup glory and sixth position in the log table.
The club’s fortunes seem to have changed after the club brought in Hendrikus Pieter De Jongh to take charge of the technical bench.
De Jongh who was in charge of Bosso’s 11 league and four Chibuku Super Cup matches went on to register four league wins, six draws and a defeat.
Under his tutelage, Highlanders won the Chibuku Super Cup without conceding a goal or testing a defeat.
In his statement, Mhlophe said the club was in line with it’s three-year short term restrategising project, which started in 2018, and should see the team competing for honours in 2020.
“As we say goodbye to the 2019 soccer season, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our main sponsors NetOne, partners Nyaradzo, various stakeholders, friends of the club, and the fans for standing with Highlanders in good and bad times. I would also like to thank the players and the technical team for serving this great institution with commitment and dedication,”
“It has been a season of mixed fortunes where we found ourselves in unfamiliar positions for the better part of the season, but as George Custer would aptly put it; “It’s not how many times you get knocked down that count, it’s how many times you get up.” I am proud of the team for managing to get up and fight – a good fight that leaves us as 2019 Independence Cup and Chibuku Super Cup winners,”
“Although we finished 6th on the log, the achievements leave us in line with our three-year plan pronounced at the beginning of the 2018 season. We had given ourselves 2018 as the year of restrategising, putting together a side dominated by the products of our developmental side, something we achieved with then Technical Manager and club legend Madinda Ndlovu,”
“We had projected that in the second year of the project, we will aim to at least reach a final of a major cup, an expectation we surpassed by winning the Independence Cup and the Chibuku Super Cup,”
“As we are preparing for the final year of this great project, I would like to invite our valued stakeholders to continue travelling this journey with us. It is our hope that as per our planning, 2020 will be even bigger. Whilst the three-year plan is/was something worth pursuing, it remains a necessary short-term project, thus, the club’s future and vision should not be restricted to it,”
“We envision this great club beyond that, and we will work tirelessly to help it grow bigger as a football brand,” read the Mhlophe’s statement.