One of United Kingdom’s leading sports tour operators Sports Travel Tours, said they will revamp the Mbare Junior School rugby ground to meet international standards.
Speaking at the school during a ceremony where they donated rugby gear to the academy on Thursday, Edwin Doran, the company’s general manager revealed to NewsDay Sport about this ambitious project which they think will be completed next year.
“The first school that will tour Zimbabwe next year will have the priviledge to put a proper rugby turf here (Mbare school rugby ground). I work for a Sports Travel tours and one of our projects next year is to put rugby turfs in countries we will tour next year,” assured Doran.
Doran’s company organised this year’s Independent Schools Barbarians’ weeklong visit to the country.
The Barbarians, whose tour finished with a clash against Goshawks Thursday afternoon at St John’s College took a morning off to donate three sets of jerseys, rugby boots, balls and clothes to the academy which is known for producing stars like the Germany-based winger Manasah Sita.
Doran, who is also the team manager said: “We want to make sure that all the schools that will tour Zimbabwe and other parts of Africa will bring kits and other equipment to give to the children,” said Doran.
“I don’t want to put a commercial value to what we gave to the children today (Thursday) but I can say the little we gave have put smiles in their faces.” Academy coach Victor Pekani, who received a similar donation from Sita last month said he was happy with the gesture given by the Barbarians.
“I must thank Atherston Squire, the deputy headmaster of St John’s College for co-coordinating this event and he has also been helping the academy with a lot of things.
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“To the Barbarians, I just want to say, may God bless them for what they have done today. They could have gone to better schools like Hellenics or Borrowdale, but they chose to be with us here so we are very grateful,” said the visibly elated Pekani.
Doran spoke high of the amount of talent displayed by the pupils at the academy who gave the Barbarians team a good run for their money during a mini-training session.
“The kids have tremendous skill, there is so much potential here in Zimbabwe and as you can see everyone is happy to be working with these youngsters. Everywhere we go we are greeted with smiling faces, the hospitality is unbelievable,” quipped Doran.
