Still around: Amos Mkosana

Despite not featuring in any of the Flames matches after several national team call-ups between 1994 and 1998, Amos Mkosana had been a lethal striker at club level where he played for the now defunct Super League outfit Hardware Stars.

Then, the Manase Township resident was a nuisance to defenders who could not understand how he managed to slip through in impossible angles and score countless goals.

“Up to now, most of the defenders still believe my unique skills were enhanced by juju. They believed I used charms to be invisible when approaching the goal,” he said.

But Mkosana dismissed the juju claims, saying it was his focus and determination that turned him into an explosive goal poacher.

The businessperson, who joined Hardware Stars in 1994 and witnessed the team’s change of names to Uniprint, ACT Stars and Michiru Castles until he quit soccer in 2002, had been one of the team’s dominant figures that earned him frequent national team call-ups alongside Chimwemwe Gadi, Peter Sapesa and Wisdom Mhango.

His disappointing moment came in one of the Super League seasons in the late 1990s when he came close to clinching his first Golden Boot Award, but missed it by a whisker to Wanderers’ Bob Mpinganjira.

“With three games to go before winding up our fixtures, we were tied on 15 goals with Bob Mpinganjira and Esau Kanyenda, but, in the end, Mpinganjira topped the scorers list with 18 goals where as I came second with 16 goals. It was agonising to see that opportunity going up in smoke,” he said.