The late former Warriors and Chicken Inn striker Tendai Ndoro may have had a turbulent life, entangled in a contentious divorce from his South African wife, Thando Maseko, and a health condition that ultimately caused his death last week.
Ndoro succumbed to diabetes complications aged 40.
His lifeless body was discovered at his apartment in Sandton, Johannesburg last Monday, sending shock waves to the football fraternity locally, South Africa and the Middle East where he played his game.
Ndoro was buried at West Park Cemetery in Bulawayo on Sunday.
During the funeral service at the Bulawayo Amphitheater, former Warriors manager, Wellington Mpandare, said the late striker was very miserly with his money and could have been robbed of his earnings.
The ex-Warriors manager said Ndoro was neglected in his hour of need during his emotional address.
“What excites me is the number of people, who are here who are speaking glowingly of Tendai yet in times of need there are very few people who came to help him,” Mpandare said.
“Why are we like that Zimbabweans? Why?
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“We are evil.
“It’s because we judged him.
“We painted him with a bad brush and we neglected him.”
Mpandare narrated an occasion when Ndoro visited the Warriors team in camp in 2022 when he was not part of the squad.
“It had been quite some time since I met him. I saw an emaciated Tendaii,” he said.
“He asked me for a place to sleep and food. I gave him a room at the hotel.
“He ate a lot of food that day.
“I asked him why and he said it had been three days, and had been sleeping in a bus.
“It was very painful for me. Tendai was robbed, someone cheated Tendai.”
Mpandare got the mourners in stitches when he narrated how Ndoro was stingy contrary to the court of public opinion that he was wasteful.
“Tendai was so stingy. He would ask for airtime even when he had his own money,” he said.
“He was not the kind of person to just waste his financial resources.
“I remember at one time when he was coming from Saudi Arabia.
“He said to me, ‘Mdhara I have a lot of money.’
“He asked for advice to set up a business, but immediately after that, he asked me to buy him airtime.”
He added: “That was Tendai for you, he was that kind of person who would not just spend his money.
“At one time, we gave them their allowances after a game and he asked for airfare to fly back home, which I gave him but instead he opted to travel by bus.”
His ex-wife, Maseko, was accused of grabbing the former Orlando Pirates’ striker’s assets and draining him dry, leaving him in financial doldrums, but Ndoro later defended her in an interview after their divorce.
The story was that all Ndoro’s properties had been registered in Maseko’s name, which the player vehemently denied.
Speaker after speaker praised Ndoro as a good person with a giving heart at the time all was rosy for him.
His former coach at his last club in South Africa, Highlands Park, after returning from Saudi Arabia, Owen da Gama, was quoted in the media praising Ndoro as a legend.
“You know, he filled a role at Highlands Park that we needed, and was a very, very kind guy,” Gama said.
“He was always giving, helping the players with money, he bought stuff for them and never expected any return.
“He was a giver, naturally. So he was a very, very kind guy, that’s how I remember him, but what a footballer, what a striker…”
Ndoro grew up in the dusty streets of Bulawayo’s Nketa suburb and played junior football before joining Chicken Inn in 2011, where he was coached by the late Adam Ndlovu.
He helped Chicken Inn win the NetOne EasyCall Cup in 2012 and the following year he joined Mpumalanga Black Aces in South Africa before Orlando Pirates.
Ndoro also briefly played for Ajax Cape Town before he made his move to the Middle East where played for two clubs in Saudi Arabia and Oman before wrapping up his career at Highlands Park in South Africa.
