Prince Dube’s emotional Barbourfields return headlines Highlanders vs title-chasing Hardrock

For Prince Dube, Barbourfields stadium has always been home. It is where a skinny boy from the Somvubu Secondary School became a Bulawayo idol.

Where his name was chanted from the Soweto End, where his goals made fans dance in the terraces. Bosso made Prince Dube, and for years, Prince Dube carried Bosso.

On Saturday afternoon, he returns to that same sacred turf. But not in black and white. In what promises to be the most emotional subplot of the weekend, Dube will lead the line for title-chasing Hardrock FC against the club that made him, for the first time in his career as an enemy intent on hurting them.

It is a cruel twist of fate. A revered son of Highlanders who made his name at Bosso before his first move to SuperSport United in 2016, returned for a brief love affair in 2019, then left for Tanzanian giants Azam FC in 2020 and later Young Africans, now finds himself wearing the green and white colours of a team that want to make a statement by beating Bosso.

With six games left, Kelvin Kaindu’s Hardrock sit second on the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League table with 57 points, just one behind defending champions Scottland.

They are a team in frightening form, unbeaten in nine straight games across league and cup, including a statement Chibuku Super Cup quarter-final win over Scottland that announced them as genuine contenders.

BOSSO SON COMES HOME AS FOE IN MUST-WIN TITLE SHOWDOWN

Prince Dube at Rufaro stadium. Picture by Fanzone

In Bulawayo, there will be no margin for error. Any slip-up could be fatal to their title dream. For Highlanders, the motivation is different but just as powerful.

Fresh from a gritty Chibuku Super Cup semi-final berth after edging MWOS on penalties at Barbourfields, Bosso have momentum and pride to play for and a point to prove that they can still live with the league’s best.

They have been there before. In the reverse fixture at Chahwanda Stadium, it was Highlanders who inflicted one of the few scars on Hardrock’s fairytale debut season, stealing a 1-0 win courtesy of Reason Sibanda’s acrobatic stunner off the bench.

That memory adds another layer to an already explosive afternoon. Kelvin Kaindu, Bosso royalty as a coach also, returns to his spiritual home in the opposition dugout. But the emotional epicentre will be on the pitch, Dube, the boy Highlanders built, back at Barbourfields not to be serenaded, but to silence it.

Bosso fans worshipped him, mourned him when he left for SuperSport United in 2016, embraced him when he returned, and tracked his rise at Azam FC and Young Africans in Tanzania. They never imagined his first dance against them would come like this, leading a title charge that could break their hearts.

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