Listen To the teeming multitudes of his adoring Kenyan fans, Mahmoud Abbas was Kenya One. But to Tanzanians, he was golikipa mchawi – the goalkeeping wizard. This term, coined by their colourful football commentators, carried a fine blend of awe, respect and detestation. There was something to the character of Abbas that made this perfectly […]
Listen Goalkeepers James Siang’a – Goalkeeper of the independence era. Turned out for the future Harambee Stars for 13 years, in itself testimony to his brilliance and immovability. Also coached the national team. He has coached in other countries in the region, an uncommon Kenyan export product. Dan Odhiambo – Best Gor Mahia goalkeeper ever. […]
Listen The grainy black and white pictures that appeared in the morning papers of Sunday, December 6, 1987, did only partial justice to the loftiest moment Kenya football ever savoured. Some depicted the sea of humanity that packed the stands of the 60,000 capacity Moi International Sports Complex, Kasarani to the highest terrace, leaving little […]
Listen One relaxed mid-morning at the office, my secretary asked me a question completely unrelated to the task at hand: “Did you at one time write about Shama Shama, the former footballer?” It had been years since I left the Sports Desk. I was not even writing the regular column in the Saturday Nation that […]
Listen Long before professional image consultants came into vogue, Daniel Nicodemus had mastered the art. He was always who he wanted you to believe that he was. To Haq Malik, the Kenya national football team manager at independence, the athleticism, strength and clear-eyed sense of purpose in this young man seemed to personify the bright […]
Listen In 1969, without knowing that they were giving a cunning political animal ideas, bureaucrats at the Ministry of Cooperatives and Social Services announced that in the near future, football teams with tribal names would be excluded from FA of Kenya-run tournaments. Specifically, the teams targeted – and they were told as much – were […]
Listen Bernd Holzenbein may have scored the fastest international goal on Kenyan soil with his 15thsecond strike after kick-off when Eintracht Frankfurt beat Kenya4-1 at the Nairobi City Stadium on June 16, 1971, but it is his provider, Jürgen Grabowski, who was all the rage in the country before, during and many years after that […]
Listen Ben Ashihundu’s labours to organise the 1971 Kenya national football league, resembled the career of Sisyphus the King of Ephyra in Greek mythology, who was cursed to push a rock up a hill with the goal of placing it at the summit. But each time he drove it up some distance uphill, something […]
Listen In an idle moment at the Sports Desk, while working for the Standard Newspapers in 1977, a senior colleague, Hezekiah Wepukhulu, said to me: “There is a story I would like you to do. It is about the worst defeat Kenya has ever suffered in football. We were beaten 13-2 by Ghana.” When […]
Listen Elijah Lidonde was Kenya’s best striker of the late1940s and across the ‘50s. A huge, broad-shouldered man with a powerful right foot, he was a permanent feature for Nakuru and the Kenya national team whose successes and failures in the Gossage Cuphe was part of, for about 10 years. His fame fired the imagination […]