Dear Gor Mahia I am a Gor Mahia fan. I have been a fan for close to two decades. Apart from Baricho Fc and Manchester United, there is no other club that has my attention as well my curiosity. As I write to you, therefore, I am writing to my family. I have seen the club go through phases; the ups and the downs. I have seen the club make history by winning championships, and I have seen the club on the brink of relegation. As a skinny kid with a funny name, in a then forgotten corner of the world called Baricho, I knew Gor Mahia was something great. It is an enigma. The first time I heard the name, I did not think of it in tribal lines; I thought, ‘hmm, what a name!” to date, the same feeling exists. I do not see Gor Mahia in any other form, sense or angle other than being the greatest club in the face of Kenya. Gor Mahia is the embodiment of soccer in Kenya. If you think Gor Mahia is a small matter, then you have to go back to your primary school class six English text book. I have not forgotten Mr. Nderitu, the English teacher having us read this particular story. It was an article written on Gor Mahia’s 1986 Nelson Mandela cup victory over Esperance from Tunisia. Alongside the story was a photo of Abbas Khamas Magongo raising his hands in jubilation! That is the history and pride of Gor Mahia. Whenever I would link up with my friends in the village to play football, you know, those locally assembled footballs, I would end up with bruised toes. We would try to kick the ball to go high up, the way we imagined Peter Dawo would do, but well, maybe we were confident the polythene-based football was just the same as the leather football! Wajinga sisi! But that was still fun, and it could only have been possible because of trying to imitate Peter Dawo, for he was the pride of Gor Mahia Any serious Gor Mahia fan remembers the 1995 season when our club hired Gardesevic Vojo, from Serbia. History, today, reminds us all that no other club in Kenya has been able to win the league with over 100 points other than Gor Mahia in that season. That is the history and pride of Gor Mahia. When AFC Leopards managed to get some ‘small’ sponsors in the 90’s, helping Ingwe buy some quality player, Gor Mahia remained strong, focused and passionate about playing “ngozi ya ng’ombe iliyoambwa na kutengenezwa mpira,” as commentator Jack Oyoo Silvester would talk of football. On this occasion, AFC was an untouchable. Never have I seen a star studded team in Kenya in my short life, as AFC was. Recall James Kayimba, Omar Banza, Kitari Ngaira, William Inganga, Kevin Ateku, Hassan Sessey, Peter Kakonge, Wilberforce Mulamba, Tony Lwanga, Peter Mwololo among others. But guess what, Gor Mahia did not give up, we kept on fighting even with the meager resources. For that is the pride and history of our club. In as much as Gor Mahia is a club of history, pride and all that Giniwasekao stuff, we are also a club of controversy and it is the latter that we must address. Yes some of those who support our club are more passionate than others, but that passion should never be demonstrated in the form of violence. If we do that, we take away, from our club, the very invincibility which other teams know us for in the field. When we burn vehicles and destroy property, in the face of others, we become a very small, timu ndogo sana! But that is not Gor Mahia. We are a grand team and grand teams believe in grandiosity, and grandiosity for soccer’s sake should always be in expressed in terms of supporting the team in a way that the 11 players on the pitch will feel that passion and translate it in the field by destroying the opponents with plenty of goals! As we say in Baricho, “bao cikaingeba bau ta mugagaca.” (Let the goals be as many as ants) You see, fellow fans, on Thursday, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. had retreated to room 306 of the Lorraine Motel, worrying about a sanitation strike in Memphis and working on his sermon for Sunday. Its title: Why America May Go to Hell. As you may know, Dr. King never got to deliver the sermon as he was assassinated that night. Part of the speech, which he has sent to his friend Ralph Abernathy, read; “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’ Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?’ And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’ And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life. Fellow Gor Mahia fans; we must retain the pride, history and dignity of Gor Mahia. There are those in society who are naked, hungry and thirsty; these are the people who bear the wrath of our actions. We may not necessarily get the curse as per the spiritual context of Dr. King’s message, but this may also come in the form of cut sponsorship, and other fans losing patience with the team.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 02:36:33 +0000
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