Frank On The Hoops

When 3-pointers Sink No More, The BYC Lose Its Magnetic Power

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995. The Blantyre Youth Centre is packed and in an electric mood.  10 seconds of the game remaining.  Henry Gomani sinks a long three pointer that ties the game at 79 and sends Poly Bob Cats and their ever-vocal supporters into frenzy. 

Zitto Phillips and his Falcons call time out and retreat to the bench.  They have to re-strategize and ensure the added time works to their favour.  Who is going to carry the day?  At this point, I really don’t know.  And so are the hundreds that have filled the BYC court.  As the serenading music fills the summer air, we patiently wait for added time to decide the tie.

“The games were simply exciting and full of tension,” recalls Mayeso Chirwa. 

“Basketball was fun to watch.” And to play too, I guess.

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011. Blantyre Youth Centre.  On the terraces are a handful supporters.  The game is about to tip off, but the expectation, excitement and tension that should characterize a basketball game involving two regional giants is conspicuously missing. 

“Who do you think will win?” I ask a fan sitting next to me.

 

“You’re telling me you don’t know?” He shrugs off my question with a laugh that makes me feel a stranger in Jerusalem. 

“Everyone knows the result.   We are here to pass time…just that!” chips in a friend.

Bricks and Magang’a gets into action and with time it’s all clear this is a one-sided boring game.  The competition is not there.  I soon find myself watching the game ‘just to pass time’. 

 

“If you want to watch some competitive basketball, wait until Bricks lines up against Mimbulu.”

 

Such is the situation.   The steam on the arena is gone.  The courts that once vibrated with ecstatic fans are quiet.  Numbers of patrons have dropped, significantly!

“I feel the game is not as competitive today as it was during our time.” Chirwa as he sees the current situation.  

“In fact, we’ve slipped back to five, ten years ago.” That’s the reading from Daud Suleiman, one of Malawi’s respected players.  

“It’s boring and monotonous.  I can go weeks without training but when I am back on the court nobody is there to stop me.  Who would want to watch such games which one team wins even before the game is played?”

Although the extent to which the game has slipped could be a subjective rating, at least many, players, administrators and supporters, agree the situation is far from what it was. 

“This is not nostalgia,” says Suleiman.  “The game has hardly seen any improvements or investments in the past years.   None.”

Suleiman attributes the current trend to a number of factors, which include poor quality of players, lack of investment in infrastructure and poor administration. 

“We have no junior league.  Most of the players you see now missed out on the opportunity to play in this league.  As such, they lack basics and cannot compete effectively.   The old players continue to dominate...the same old names, Daud, Weluzani Chingota, Victor Jere, Chimwemwe Mulagha…”

Chirwa agrees nowadays there are few competitive and exciting players. 

“We had more height, big sizes and overall talent in the yester years. 

“Motivation also played a big role.  We had plenty sponsored competitions.”

That is no longer the case anymore.  Regional leagues run without sponsorship.  The companies that used to pour their finances in basketball have since abandoned the sport.  As one player put it to me, ‘they play out of the love of the game’.  Suleiman believes poor administration is largely to blame. 

“We have administrators who have no passion to manage basketball.   They are in BASMAL (Basketball Association of Malawi) purely for self enrichment.  They got into BASMAL to use it as a stepping stone into something bigger.

“What is it that they have done? Nobody knows.  Let them point to me only one thing that they have done.”

According to Suleiman, administrators have failed miserably especially with regard to investing in infrastructure.  Most of the courts that have produced some of the country’s greats are dilapidated.

“If, for instance, you’re in Blantyre and you want to play, you’ve nowhere but the Blantyre Youth Centre.  Courts at Dharap, BSS, Zingwangwa and several other places are in a sorry state leaving the BYC the only court around.

“Once we get courts like those functioning again, we will be able to excite a lot of youngsters to play ball.  But to get there, we need administrators who are ready to turn things around.  We don’t need rhetoric.”

Back to the Bricks Vs Magang’a game at the Blantyre Youth Centre.  Its third quarter and the Bricks are up by 21 points.  Each addition minute is simply stretching the lead and the other team is simply looking forward to the final whistle. 

“This is normally the trend nowadays.  It’s all about Bricks (in the South).”  And all about Mimbulu in the Centre.

What a resigned conclusion from the fan sitting next to me.   The game ends and the Bricks cannot even celebrate and I am left thinking whether in deed I should be coming to watch the games Suleiman describes as monotonous and boring!

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013...the power base has shifted. Lox360 seems to have displaced the Bricks; and in Lilongwe, Mimbulu, although still in the ruling, is constantly being reminded not to slacken by such teams as Trojans and Disciples.

 

There are new administrators in SOZOBAL and CEZOBAL and piecemeal attempts are being taken to shake things up.  Sad though, the quality of the play generally remains below par.

   

Reminiscing about my past, the days I frequented the BYC court alongside such names as DJ Davis Mussa, I wrote this piece for a Charles Nyirenda local magazine that not sure it ever came out.  Sad enough my good friend, Mayeso Chirwa (MHSRIP) never lived to read this piece and drop in his always-structured feedback.