Meru Bombers Football Club

Former Harambee Stars Goalkeeper Mathews Ottamax writes. NB: It's a long read. SHABANA, WELCOME BACK...THIS IS A VICTORY FOR OUR STANDS AND AILING FOOTBALL! My Shabana experience and story...*LONG POST ALERT*! It is Sunday 16th November 1997, and Afc Leopards is facing Shabana Fc at the Nyayo National Stadium, it is the last game of the season, and it is the last game for Shabana in Kenyan Premier League, their fate had been sealed by a one-way direct flight ticket to relegation back to "Nyasi ya Kisii" until Sunday 18th June 2023. 25 years later, and all I can say is congratulations and welcome back! After this match, the two sets of fans shed tears. For Shabana fans, it is evident that the tears were meant to kiss top-tier football au revoir. For Leopards' fans and the team, they were tears of grief, the unexpected had happened. What happened? The battle for that year's premier league was fiercely fought to the very last day between Utalii Fc, Gor Mahia, Mumias Sugar and AFC Leopards. Among these teams, it was Leopards who had a bigger chance of winning the league title as we were perched at the top of the table and we only needed one point to clinch the title against a modest and lowly-motivated Shabana Fc who were rooted at the bottom of the table or is it "under the table?" English need to change this term! Instead, Afc Leopards finished a sad 4th! Shabana under Danish coach Flemming Jacobsen(May You Rest in Peace Sir) paraded schoolboys mostly from Kisii High and Kakamega High School among them Simeon Mulama, Rodgers Muhanji and Austin Makacha, who later joined Afc Leopards including the coach Jacobsen and subsequently won the league in 1998. The last one to date Star-studded Afc Leopards of 1997, Matthews Ottamax in goal, Francis Oduor, James Kayimba, Hassan Sessay, Omar Banza, Tom Juma, Paul Ochieng Kunde, Deo Odhiambo, David Ochieng Morale, Philip Ouma, Francis Baraza, John Lichuku(RIP) name them, the list is endless! Full of confidence, well-motivated, monied, and with many thousands of fans in the stands rallying behind us we thought of Shabana as nothing but puree...shock on us! Sleek and fluid were the Shabana lads, they ran rings around us, helter-skelter we chased the ball desperately like headless cockerels forgetting at 0-0 we were comfortable with it no matter what happens in the other fixtures. We were lost in the Shabana labyrinth and it was just a matter of time before they found the back of the net...and they did find a goal! Pressure from the fans was mounted on us. Coach Abu Koroma and his entire technical bench were clueless, The Kisii Glamour Boys as they were popularly known rode even higher in this confusion that was Leopards, for 90 minutes they dominated us, if it was a game of boxing a White Towel could have been thrown in to stop the contest but since it was football we had to wait for the final whistle. And that's why I came to believe that at some stages in a competition, we need psychologists more than coaches on the bench. Finally, it came, crest-fallen and dejected were the players, furious were the fans baying for the blood of the players and technical staff. Rumour mill had it that Gor Mahia had won the league title something that made Afc Leopards fans even more bitter with us considering Kogalo are our traditional arch-rivals. Those were the days when you had to sit around the radio or tv sets to wait for the 7 pm or 9 pm Swahili or English news bulletin end game Michezo or Sports News respectively, unlike the nowadays digitalized Small World where everything is at your fingertips. Later in the official news bulletins, it came out that Utalii had won the 1997 Kenyan Premier League title. That evening Shabana subjected me to both emotional and physical pain. By emotional pain my heart was broken, this was going to be my first career top-flight local football title having won nothing at my previous clubs five years in Re-Union and one year at Gor Mahia.