Shels star Sibanda puts footy troubles into perspective

By Adrian Russell

Friday, August 27, 2010

WHEN the thin red line of Shelbourne players file out of the Dalymount Park tunnel before they face neighbours Bohemians in an FAI Cup tie this evening, it will evoke a time when cash slushed around domestic football.

Bohs’ future was tied up, like a lot of things here during the boom, in property.

The bottom ultimately fell out of their dreams and the club faces seasons of austerity ahead.

Across the Tolka, Shelbourne speculated on shooting for the stars too. The then-chairman Ollie Byrne felt the warm breath of Champions League football on his neck but Europe’s big league ultimately remained tantalisingly outside the club’s grasp.

Sadly, the charismatic Byrne died. The famous club almost imploded. But it lives on, still.

Now Shelbourne enjoys a vital role in the community. Its youth teams are performing well and the senior side plays honest football which will no doubt see them retake a seat at the top table sooner rather than later.

And if the days characterised by long, liquid lunches in silver-service Stephen’s Green eateries, queues for €500,000 house purchases in Navan and day trips to New York’s shopping malls are now alien to the club, so too Oscar Sibanda knows a very different Ireland.

Recent Shels signing Sibanda will sit on the bench tonight, if he doesn’t actually make his senior debut, on the famous piece of football real estate in Phibsboro.

On each occasion that the 22-year-old winger tugs on a Shels jersey he knows that it could be his last outing for the famous Airtricity League First Division side.

The Zimbabwean is facing deportation at any time after a three-year battle to seek asylum.

Sibanda fled Zimbabwe to join his mother and siblings in Ireland. They had left Zimbabwe because their mother was a member of the opposition party and feared persecution at the hands of Robert Mugabe’s regime.

Despite working as hard as his team-mates in red, Sibanda cannot be paid by the club. Like all asylum seekers here, he is only entitled to €19.10 a week.

A number of former players and managers including former Ireland boss Brian Kerr have signed a petition urging the Irish authorities to grant Sibanda asylum. So far their pleas have failed.

While he can visit his mother, two sisters and one brother who all live legally in Drogheda, Sibanda is living his life in time added on.

Ken McCue, founder of Sport Against Racism, insists Sabinda’s cause is pockmarked with injustices.

"He’s living in Hatch Hall hostel now in Earlsfort Terrace and he’s playing away with Shels now. He lived in Mosney for some time but he was removed recently with about 100 others and put in Hatch Hall. The next stop is deportation," says McCue.

"There’s a good chance he’ll be deported in the next few weeks. There’s a whole series of mistakes in the asylum process he went through. The final one is the refugee appeals in which they determined he was from South Africa.

"He speaks in Ndebele, which is the same across the border in parts of South Africa but it’s like the Donegal gaeltacht version of Irish compared to someone from Waterford or something.

"And they made up their mind based on that but if they had looked at his mother’s file, they’d know. We are using the channel of the Minister for Equality – Mary White – to put pressure on the justice ministry but she hasn’t responded at all," he adds.

While in Mosney, Sibanda organised and trained the kids in the asylym seekers’ centre into a football team named after the South African Albert Johanneson who once played for Leeds United.

The side took their place amongst local sides. Now however, they face having to withdraw as Sibanda can’t afford the transport costs to Co Meath from Dublin city centre and so the teams have lost a trainer.

"They had entered into the Drogheda and District League and it was great for the kids. The arts and sport have been proven and internationally recognised that it’s the best way to integrate. And now that a lot of workplaces are gone and people have more time for recreation, sport is even more important. He can’t get down – especially on €19 a week – so the team are struggling."

If he does get on the pitch tonight, Sibanda will hug the touchline and hope to show Dublin’s soccer fans a frightening turn of pace that he first showcased with SARI’s own side.

"He’s a winger, he’s very fast and is a great attacking midfielder really," says McCue who helps organise the organisations football sides.

"He was in our academy and he played some great stuff.

"We call our football African-flavoured, we play on a Saturday morning in Ongar in a place where we’re squatting really, I don’t know how long we’ll be there."

Neither does Sibanda. But Shels fans will hopefully see him play on regardless.

- adrian.russell@examiner.ie

Twitter: @adrianrussell

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, August 27, 2010