the university has a target of at least one current or former uz student representing the country in a medal winning sports team in international competitions annually. sport at uz is centred around the sports pavilion, which was donated by national breweries. sports offered at the university include athletics, basketball, cricket, football, hockey, rugby and tennis. uz has frequently won the zimbabwe universities sports association games. in its early years, men's hockey was the premier sport, with a team in salisbury's "first league" in 1960 the university of zimbabwe football club plays in zimbabwe's division two and is the former home of manchester city striker and zimbabwe national football team captain, benjani mwaruwari. the club was for a time coached by former president canaan banana. when zimbabwe hosted the all-africa games in 1995, uz was the games village. maintenance of sporting facilities is the responsibility of the director: sport, but in recent years accessing funds from the state procurement board has been a challenge. other popular and successful sporting disciplines at uz are basketball, vollyeball, rugby and handball whom are all playing in the harare professional leagues. in october 2015, the sports department organised a handball festival in celebration of the university's 6oth anniversary and this festival has become an annual event ever since and the biggest handball festival in the country.