For those with long enough memories, he is the first African football player to score a Premier League goal. For fans of Coventry City and Birmingham City, he will be known forever under the nickname Nuddy.
He received the Sobriquet de Bulawayo Bullet – a tribute to both the second city of Zimbabwe, where he was born, and his burning pace – while his teammates called him Zonga in the national side of Zimbabwe.
But for Florence Dlamini, Peter Ndlovu is nothing more than a 'deadbeat -man' who refuses to do it right by his own flesh and blood. In an interview in December with The Chronicle, a Bulawayo-based daily newspaper, Dlamini, the mother of one of the 13 children of NDLOVU, offered a destructive assessment of a man who was still honored by many in his home country.
“Peter Ndlovu is the father of my daughter, a daughter he doesn't care for,” said Dlamini. 'I am confronted with a very difficult path after the death of my mother.
“My mother had cancer and was on the icu until she died, and when I asked for help from this man, he called my child, his blood, a bastard.
'I didn't even ask for help with my mother's medical bills, but only asked him to take the baby since schools were closed. I slept in the hospital and made sure that my mother had someone next to her.
“That's when he shouted at me and called my daughter a bastard, while my mother fought for her life.”
The media fanfare around the slim, £ 110,000 BMW SUV NDLovu took over at the end of last year, a gift from Zimbabwean entrepreneur Wicknell Chivayo, did little to dampen Dlaminis IRE.
Chivayo wrote the vehicle on social media and described the vehicle as a token of appreciation for the excellent contribution from NDLOVU to the football game, and for inspiring generations of Zimbabwean Voetbalfans'.
For Dlamini, however, it was just an example of the striking wealth that she believes is remarkably absent in her own interaction with Ndlovu.
“I don't want to be labeled a bitter mother, but I am sick and tired of this dead -end man,” she said. 'Every week I see a new message on Facebook, Instagram and many other social media platforms about what he has acquired. A new post from a father who cannot see his children; A new post from a man who wants nothing to do with his children. '
What Ndlovu all makes of it is impossible to say. The 52-year-old did not respond to the allegations of Dlamini, nor to a request for comments for this article via the Zimbabwean FA.
However, what can be said with certainty is that we have been here earlier with the most productive goal scorer of the Zimbabwe National Team.
Two years ago, Ndlovu became engaged in a bitter legal dispute with the mother of two of his children and claimed that he could not afford to pay £ 568 in maintenance because his resources were already spread thin, caring for his 11 other offspring.
“I am obliged to contribute and ensure the maintenance needs of all 13 of my children,” Ndlovu told the High Court of Johannesburg.
'I earn a monthly salary that is used for my own costs, needs, needs, needs and obligations and to contribute to the costs of the persons charged and other obligations.
'Two minor children were born between the respondent and me. I was not informed by the respondent about the pregnancies or the subsequent births of our children.
'There is no communication between the respondent and me. We do not share a relationship and there is no contact between us.
'I can't easily afford a deduction of 29,845 edge [£1,265] per month of my salary. '
Sharon Dee, a gospel singer in South Africa who was married to Ndlovu for 11 years before they divorced in 2009, also submitted a procedure against the former player about unpaid maintenance of children.
“Ndlovu never paid and this resulted in the fact that I had to take my children with me to live with his sister in London last year,” Dee told the Sowetan newspaper in 2012. “I just couldn't.”
The previous year, another old VLAM, Lisa Rauteneimer, had submitted judicial articles in Johannesburg after he claimed that NDLOVU had been given a default for support payments for their two children.
Further back, in 2004 a South African magistrate Ndlovu ordered to pay for maintenance to a woman named Alice Thabulo, whom he met while playing for Sheffield United.
In the same year, a Zimababwean woman named Amina Esof also claimed that she was owed maintenance by the striker, who is also understood as a child with Pinky Duda, a South African woman.
Touches the turbulent nature of his personal life shortly before his first retirement in 2009 (two years later he would again briefly encourage his boots for the Zimbabwean side Black Mambas), Ndlovu was optimistic.
“Those things made me stronger,” he said. “I am positive about life and I enjoy my life.”
That joy was certainly clear in his football.
After he started his career at the Bulawayo-based club Highlanders, NDLOVU arrived in England as a light but skilled 18-year-old when Coventry signed him for £ 10,000 in the summer of 1991.
When former player and manager Bobby Gould returned to Highfield Road as a manager a year later, he immediately loved what he saw.
“I didn't know much about him at all when I arrived there for the first time, Gould said. “He was as quiet as a field mouse. But suddenly, when I saw him in training, I thought, “My goodness, what do we have here?” He really came under the radar.
“It is always a bit difficult for African players to be established, but I think it was the way everyone loved him.” said Gould. “It was a real love affair between him and the fans. He was a sweet young man who had come without a broadcast and grace, but just wanted to be successful. After a while he just flourished '
When NDLOVU scored in a victory in Sheffield in September 1992, he became the first in a long and illustrious line of goalcorers from the African Premier League. It is an achievement that has gained increasing meaning with the passage of time.
'I am sure that I was told then:' Do you know that you are the first African to play in the Premier League? “And I probably just said,” OK “and didn't care anymore,” Ndlovu would reflect later.
“The thing for me was that I was just playing football. But if you see it now after all these years, it is very special if you have started something for African players to get behind me. I am just so proud of them all that they made [the Premier League] better.'
NDLOVU made 176 performances for Coventry, his combination of burning pace, agile deception and misleading power that earned him 39 goals for the Sky Blues and the interest of opposing managers.
Among them was George Graham, who persuaded Arsenal to make an £ 4 million bid for his services in 1993. It would have been a new British record for a transfer costs, but Ndlovu was unmoved when Gould informed him of the offer.
“Bobby Gould said,” Peter, Arsenal knocking on the door for you, “but as a child at that moment I answered,” Boss, I'm happy here. ” That was my focus, “Ndlovu later told Fourfourtwo.
“It was very special to be wanted by a large team like Arsenal, but I was all the favorite of the crowd at Coventry and I wanted to give more back to the people who supported me.”
In any case, Ndlovu's first love in English football was Liverpool, which he had supported as a boy. But despite the reported interest from manager Roy Evans, there has never been a step to Merseyside – although Anfield gave him what he was going to consider his best moment in the game.
Thirty years ago this month, Ndlovu became the first visiting player to take a hat trick, because Terry Allcock scored three for Norwich in 1962. The choice of the couple was the third, a weaving run of the central midfield that left the Liverpool defense keyboard before he was an insured finish from the edge of the area.
“I think that's the highlight of my career,” Ndlovu recalled later. 'As a young person I had supported Liverpool, so to score three against them at the head end was incredible, but also a bittersweet moment as a fan.
“Phil Babb, my favorite player, had left Coventry to become a member of Liverpool and he said to me:” One day you have to come to Liverpool because it's your team. ” After that match he asked me: “How can you score three goals against your favorite team?” I replied, “Hey, I'm working for Coventry!” I had to concentrate on where I was working, not who I supported.
“Yet it was a special occasion for me and I will cherish that forever.”
After a relocation of £ 1.6 million to Birmingham City in 1997, NDLOVU would never be seen at Premier League level again. He would appear 106 performances for the outfit of St Andrew and scored 23 goals before a short loan spell in Huddersfield Town was followed by a move to Sheffield United in 2001.
Three years later he left for South Africa, where he represented Mamelodi Sundowns, which he would later save.
But the tragedy struck in December 2012, when Ndlovu was seriously injured in a car accident in Victoria Falls. The crash claimed the life of his older brother Adam and female passenger Nomqhele Tshuli, a 24-year-old woman who was with them.
Ndlovu, who was driving, was later released from guilt and continued to work as an assistant manager of the National Team of Zimbabwe.
“It is now a closed chapter and people have to continue their lives,” said Harrison Nkco, at the time his lawyer.
In the midst of the unrest in his personal matters, it is a Mantra Ndlovu has learned to live since.
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