The club joins the nation in remembering and celebrating the life of Dr Joshua Mqabuko Nyongolo Nkomo, a Nationalist par excellence.
Dr Nkomo died on this day in 1999.
He is a significant figure in the history of our club as his vision helped in transforming the club’s identity and narrative from a regional to a national football and cultural treasure.
Having been renamed Matabeleland Highlanders from its original name Lions Club, it is Dr Joshua Nkomo who proposed that the club drops the ‘Matabeleland’, and remain Highlanders, hence the birth of the common moniker. iThimu Yezwe lonke, loosely translated to ‘The team of the whole nation’.
It was in March 1975, that the late nationalist invited former Bulawayo Town Clerk Mike Ndubiwa and Jimmy Ncube, who is the current club patron, and instructed them to drop the name Matabeleland so that the team could simply be known as Highlanders.
Since then, the club’s identity and narrative transcends geographical, ethnic and racial borders as it has become a symbol of national pride.
The legacy of this great nationalist leaves on!