Warriors skipper Marvelous Nakamba has put his plans to facilitate trials for young Zimbabwean football players from Njube Spurs Academy in Europe into motion.
This follows the team’s victory and lifting of the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) Bulawayo Province Boys’ Under-17 League championship.
The two, first beneficiaries and now Europe bound are; Thabile Zulu and Michael Tembo whose performances was top notch throughout the season.
Apparently, Nakamba, is on record pointing out his committment to football development from grassroots levels, and has been sponsoring the academy since 2017.
He is eager to have a contribution in as far as moulding the future crop of Warriors is concerned.
In March 2020, Nakamba created the Marvelous Nakamba Foundation – an organisation funded by Nakamba which aimed to help improve the lives of young people in Zimbabwe.
On 22 March 2020, Nakamba paid the tuition and examination fees of 1000 pupils from underprivileged backgrounds in Bulawayo.
His goal was to reach 100,000 pupils by December 2021 and then 1 million pupils by 2024. On 5 May 2021, Nakamba met Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, after the Marvelous Nakamba foundation had been involved in several projects around Zimbabwe, including working to revamp Hwange Hospital, feed programmes for children at rural schools, the provision of personal protective equipment for schools during the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe.
Through the Nakamba Foundation, he has also organised development tournaments that have unearthed talents like Prosper Padera, who rose from MAJESA to Europe and went on to earn both junior and senior Warriors call-ups.
Nakamba was born in Hwange in north-western Zimbabwe. He married his long-term girlfriend Chipo Primrose Makurumure in 2020 during a short visit to Bulawayo. His father Anthony was also a footballer, playing as a goalkeeper for Hwange Colliery F.C. and his mother Charity worked as a maid for a family in South Africa.
As a child his family experienced poverty, living together in a one-bedroom home in Bulawayo with his younger brother Junior.
His mother worked overtime to buy Marvelous his first pair of Puma football boots.