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 doubt that there hadn’t been any room for one more.
Others recalled the enthralling action on the pitch. But one froze the moment for eternity. It showed Austin Oduor receiving the coveted trophy from President Daniel arap Moi. The trophy was the Nelson Mandela Africa Cup Winners Cup, newly crafted to replace the old General Mustapha Cup that had been kept for good by the fabled Al Ahly Sports Club of Egypt after winning it three times.
The captain’s broad smile punctuates a rich beard made rugged by 90 minutes of the most demanding, most decisive football he had ever played, and ever would in his life. The two-foot high trophy dominates the space between the Captain and the President. There is glowing pride and satisfaction in the President’s demeanor as he hands over the trophy.
But the thousands of words told by these images leave out thousands more. That moment was the culmination of a long journey. Frozen here was the arrival. Not told is the story of countless kilometres travelled over a life of 28 years, with persistence and hope, in the pursuit of this prize.
Far away, tucked in the deepest reaches of memory, is the story of this journey’s beginnings. It is the story of the tour driver’s son, born in the Ziwani suburb of Nairobi’s Eastlands, who first played football with balls of plastic paper and rugs and did his school homework amid the fumes of the hurricane lamp, but who, in the end, grew up to travel the world bearing his country’s flag.
The Ziwani that Austin grew up in, in the 1960s, is a far cry from the one his children would see in the 80s and 90s. The roads were neat and maintained with diligent care. Garbage was collected by trucks of the Nairobi City Council, with clockwork regularity. The water taps never ran dry. And every so few years, the houses were given a fresh coat of paint.
In August, the jacaranda trees blossomed with purple flowers, and the hedges were endless columns of green. The green and yellow-coloured city buses ran on time and were operated by smartly dressed crews. One couldn’t help but admire and respect the inspectors who surprised crews when they boarded and asked to look at the timetable.
And when he joined Nairobi South Primary School, he discovered that the charming City Council funded school magazine was titled Green Tree. It seemed appropriate and authentic. The magazine covered all the primary schools ran by the city’s education department. Ziwani was a poor suburb of the city, but it was poverty by the standards of an affluent city. Relatives visiting from up-country marvelled at the beauty and orderliness of the estate. Grinding poverty, congestion and crime would be for successive generations to live with.
True, the houses in Ziwani were small and had no electricity. But outdoors, the street lamps worked and the bulbs were promptly and unfailingly replaced each time they expired. There was plenty of open space, safe from traffic and in abundant size, for the children to play. This is the space Austin’s generation of Eastlands’ children needed to discover themselves.
The best known of these grounds was the one that hosted Umeme Football Club, Ziwani’s gift to Kenyan football. In the 60s and early 70s, it was always lush green and the wall demarcating the grounds with the neighbouring Kariokor Muslim cemetery was spotless.
The graffiti on it, most of it pornographic, would appear only years later. This was a children’s paradise before the lushness gave way to earthenncraters which formed a network of puddles when the rains came, making play difficult.
The game remained a child’snfun obsession throughout his primary school years but it took on a serious career hue shortly after he was enrolled at Highway Secondary. It is here that he would link up with that dribbling and feinting wizard, a right-sided left winger by the name of Nashon Oluoch, who gained fame as “Lule” when he joined Gor Mahia
It was partly the gradual loss of this carpeted haven that probably gave birth to a football tournament called “koth biro”. The name seemed to distil the sentiments of lament and welcome and stoicism at the same time. “Koth biro” is Dholuo for “the rain is coming”.
It is here that the future captain of an African champion kicked his first ball. Austin and his friends played a lot of football before they went to Standard One. They would collect bits of cloth in polythene paper and tie them meticulously with nylon string to make balls. Even now, in retirement, he recalls with nostalgia and gratitude the role the open spaces played in shaping his career and that of his team mates.
Ziwani, like other estates in Nairobi’s Eastlands, had more than the open spaces. It had a social hall where the radio on the wall broadcast the news and the older people played draughts and darts while Austin’s age mates drenched themselves in the sweat of boxing and karate.
The most famous of all of Kenya’s boxers, who made the national team’s so-called Hit Squad of the 80s, may have come from the Muthurwa Social Hall and Nakuru’s Madison Square Garden. But there are many others who started off at Ziwani and the neighbouring Pumwani.
These footballers, boxers and karateka formed an estate sporting brotherhood that fanned a competitive spirit across the city and whose greatest beneficiaries were future national teams. And yet, without providence, no national team would ever have welcomed into its embrace Austin or any of his childhood friends; for these children were moulded into disciplined young men by mentors and coaches who just happened to be there.
The names of Pirate Landino and Otti Father in the case of the budding footballers and Eddie Papa Musi, the amiable South African exile from apartheid’s brutal repression, for the boxers, are part of the lore of Kenya sport about who, for 50 years, so little has been said.
Austin’s father worked for the United Touring Company. His mother was a housewife; she looked after the family of six boys and four girls. Along the way, the family would lose three members, two boys and a girl. Austin’s obsession with football worried his father, who wanted the little boy to apply himself harder at his studies.
But even at Nairobi South Primary and later Highway Secondary School, Austin’s heart only pulsed football and he just falls short of admitting that the studies were in fact a distraction. At night, tired after many hours of play during the day, he would have difficulty staying awake by the hurricane lamp on the table as he shared his homework assignments with his siblings.
Still, he was able to select a career in accountancy which has served him well, long after he kicked his last competitive ball.
The game remained a child’s fun obsession throughout his primary school years but it took on a serious career hue shortly after he was enrolled at Highway Secondary. It is here that he would link up with that dribbling and feinting wizard, a right-sided left winger by the name of Nashon Oluoch, who gained fame as “Lule” when he joined Gor Mahia.
At this time, school football was beginning to exert a notably significant influence on the national game. Seventeen and 18 year-olds began to assume celebrity status with their exploits for super league clubs while still in school or immediately after leaving.
Joe Masiga played for AFC Leopards while still at Nairobi School, Sammy Owino for Gor Mahia while at Nairobi Technical High and Mahmoud Abbas for Mwenge while doing his ‘O’-Levels at Khamis Secondary School.
A galaxy of schoolboy stars turned up for many second-tier clubs across the country. In fact, one of the most formidable football clubs of the 1980s, Motcom FC of Kakamega, was made up almost exclusively of boys from Kakamega High School who went by the name Green Commandoes when playing for the school team.
The culture of nurturing the youth as the basis upon which the national team was founded was abloom. When this was later lost, the drop in standards was calamitous. As early as Form One, Austin made the school team, first warming the bench before becoming a regular in his second year. Meanwhile, he entrenched his position in the junior Umeme team that made a steady supply of players to the big clubs – Gor Mahia, Luo Union and Kenya Breweries.
The dominant personality in his life at this time was Pirate, who was coach, mentor and father figure. He is effusive in his tribute when he remembers Pirate’s influence:
“Pirate was an Umeme Football Club pioneer. We were all lucky to have him as our coach at an early age. He was a good coach who had a soft spot for young players and who knew how to instil discipline. He was an excellent communicator and the youngsters quickly developed a liking and respect for him. Great players like Sammy Owino owe their beginnings to Pirate.”
But despite its steady supply of talented youngsters and Pirate’s redoubtable coaching skills, Umeme never made it to the national super league. It was a perennial contender for promotion but never made the big leap.
Its fate was to be the nursery from which the big guns would come to harvest the ripe pickings. And there was also the chicanery that often accompanies football’s vicious politics. In the 1976 season, Umeme and Maragoli FC were contesting the promotion spot when Maragoli requested a postponement of the decisive match to a future date. Enjoying good connections with key officials of the Kenya Football Federation, their request was granted with no questions asked.
No date for the match was fixed and the league went into off season. Then, out of the blue, Umeme were informed that their match with Maragoli would be in the coming Saturday, just three days away. They were unprepared and there was hardly enough time to get the team into shape. Maragoli won 2-0 and were duly promoted to the National Super League. That was the closest the Ziwani team came to playing in the big stage.
“The promotion was decided by manipulation and trickery,” says Austin, who still seems to get upset about that episode 35 years later.
But Umeme’s failed campaign to play in the Super League was not a fruitless effort for Austin. He had come to the notice of some big boys and for the 1977 season, he, together with Sammy Owino, signed for Luo Stars.
Luo Stars were a product of the shenanigans that have always characterised Kenya football. Wrangling unto death, the venerable Luo Union FC, winners of the 1976 and 1977 East and Central Africa Club Cup, broke up and produced two rival clubs – Luo United and Luo Stars.
Luo Stars was led by Rading Omollo, and Luo United by a former provincial commissioner named Dan Owino. The Kenya Football Federation was at that time headed by the formidable Kenneth Matiba, a sworn enemy of Owino.
For that reason, there was no way Luo United were going to play in the KFF super league. As Luo United remained in the provincial league, Owino spent most of his time scheming and brooding to oust Matiba from the KFF.
Still a schoolboy, Austin was a member of the Luo Stars team that travelled to Kampala to defend Luo Union’s title in January 1978. He didn’t play in any of the matches but found nothing to complain about as he warmed the bench while his friend Sammy Owino donned the number 10 shirt.
Luo Stars fell in the semi-finals. On return to Nairobi, Sammy was snapped up by the mighty Gor Mahia FC, finally making his big break. Austin returned to Luo Stars for the rest of the season. In the meantime, the pot of politics at the top boiled over. On the morning of November 20, 1978, Kenneth Matiba called a news conference and, surrounded by his entire executive committee, announced that he was fed up with the endless wrangling in the game.
He was quitting, he announced. And, for good measure, none of his committee members would defend their seats as well. Owino thus collected the pickings unopposed. In short order, positions changed: Luo Stars, Rading Omollo’s team, was kicked out of the Super League and in came Luo United, Owino’s club.
Austin had the option of joining United but he did not give it a moment’s thought. Instead, he decided to rejoin his beloved Umeme for the 1979 season. He remained there until the end of the season when Mahallon Danga, Gor Mahia’s indefatigable secretary, came calling. Discreet talks took place between Umeme and Gor emissaries before Austin was let in on what was happening.
Finally, for the second and last time, Austin left the humble confines of Ziwani and headed for the club supported by teeming and boisterous masses, where almost every year, a plane ticket to African capitals near and far was guaranteed.
Gor Mahia was the club of big names. Dan Odhiambo, Bobby Ogolla, Mike Ogolla “Machine”, Allan Thigo, George Yoga and Jerry Imbo were some of the legends that Austin had grown up worshipping as Voice of Kenya radio spread their fame to all the corners of Kenya. It is in this awesome company that he found himself now.
Save for goalkeeper, there wasn’t a position in the field that Austin hadn’t played in at Umeme. He had variously been a striker, midfielder and defender. This served him well when he arrived at Gor Mahia. For long periods, he stayed on the bench, only occasionally getting a place when the first choice players were unavailable. It was for this reason that he was nicknamed “makamu”, Swahili for deputy.
In his first season with the team, he won an East and Central Africa Club championship medal when Gor Mahia defeated their compatriots, AFC Leopards in an all-Kenya final played in Malawi. He never took the field, but was always on hand should the need arise. He showed great patience and respect for the stars of the time, particularly Mike Ogolla, from whom he eventually took over. For him, it was an honour to be sitting on the bench awaiting his turn.
That turn came when Gor Mahia faced off with Nigeria’s Bendel Insurance, contesting CAF’s Champion’s Cup. True to their reputation as a good away team, Gor Mahia beat Bendel 2-1 in Benin in a match that remains permanently etched in his memory. He scored one of the goals but what he remembers most about that match was a save made by Dan Odhiambo.
“It is a great pity that there are no video recordings of the matches of the time,” he says. “People would see unbelievable things. A shot from about 30 yards was heading Dan’s way and he dived to make the save. But the ball grazed another player on its way, changing its course. To everybody, it was a goal. But Dan twisted midair and changed direction and just managed to tip the ball over the bar.
“I have never seen a save such as that one. I believe I will never see another like it again. I don’t know how he did it but it is inconceivable that somebody could change direction mid-air. That save was the talk of town in Benin city for a long time.”
Dan was a great goalkeeper who played for the national team for a while before being locked out by Mahmoud Abbas. He was virtually unbeatable in one-on-one situations but had a weakness with long range balls. Some said he was short sighted but Austin simply believes he had problems with concentration because he talked too much on the pitch.
Gor came to grief in a most heartbreaking manner during the second leg played at the Nairobi City Stadium. Needing only a draw of any kind or even a 0-1 loss to go through, they succumbed to three spectacular goals, all from long range, and were bundled out of the tournament with a 4-3 score line.
From his first season with Gor, Austin learnt one lesson the hard way: as far as the fans were concerned, Gor Mahia could never lose a game fairly. Somebody had to be responsible. It had to be the coach, the players or the officials or a combination of all three. It was easily the most politicised club in the country.
After every major defeat, mass suspensions of players followed and special general meetings were called to change the officials. In those days, even technical officials such as coaches and team managers were elected by the club membership. After the Bendel debacle; many of the senior players, among them Allan Thigo and Andrew Obunga, were handed indefinite suspensions. This was a god-send to the 20 year-old Austin. His place in the team was now firmly established.
In what is testament to the speed at which he was maturing, Marshall Mulwa, the national football coach, called up Austin for Harambee Stars duty. Austin made a fateful decision. Newly employed as an accountant with the Ministry of Water, he declined Mulwa’s call.
He says he respectfully told the coach that he needed to settle in his new job and would be available later when this was done. He needed the job for his upkeep, seeing that football could not sustain him financially. Uppermost in his mind, but omitted from his plea to Mulwa, was the high form of Josephat Murila, the Harambee Stars sweeper of that time.
Murila was Austin’s senior in age and experience, and the unquestioned sweeper of the Stars; He was as entrenched as anybody can be. Fans nicknamed him The Controller. Austin feared he would spend long periods of frustrations on the Harambee Stars bench, waiting for Murila to get injured so as to get the starting shirt. He knew this was going to be a long shot. He was only 20 and thought it best to give Mulwa’s call a pass.
The coach seemed to understand, or so Austin thought. But he says he later heard that Mulwa did not take that rejection kindly. “People told me that Mulwa swore he would never give me another chance,” he says. But, as fate would have it, he would be a key member of the Harambee Stars team that won the 1983 East and Central Africa Challenge Cup in Nairobi, under the selfsame Marshall Mulwa. In fact, he scored a vital penalty in a semi-final shoot-out against Malawi.
Austin was now one of the cadres of what could be described as Gor Mahia’s second generation of players. The first, comprising stalwarts such as William “Chege” Ouma, Allan Thigo and Daniel Nicodemus, had faded away and a new generation of ball players that did fancy footwork, even in defence, was now in charge.
One player in this category stood out. Before March 1984, the club fans knew him as Abbas Khamis Magongo. He was a native of Tanzania. He migrated to Mombasa and after a while, acquired a Kenyan passport.
After March 1984, his name became Abbas Khamis Magongo ‘Zamalek’. Zamalek was not his real name. It was always in quotation marks. It was the name of the famous Egyptian football club that was to its great rival, Al Ahly what Gor Mahia was to AFC Leopards in Kenya, Yanga to Simba in Tanzania, Asante Kotoko to Hearts of Oak in Ghana and Orlando Pirates to Kaizer Chiefs in South Africa. Their rivalry is legendary.
Magongo is the personification of Gor Mahia’s most famous but abortive assault on an African title.
Here, Austin takes up the story. “In the 1984 second round of the Africa Cup of Champion Clubs, we found ourselves pitted against Zamalek of Egypt. Before we departed for Egypt, we started hearing rumours that some of our players had been targeted by the referee. He would be quick to his red and yellow cards. The aim was to weaken us for the second leg in Nairobi.
“These were not rumours to be taken lightly in those days. When African teams were playing against Arab teams in North Africa, referees from Senegal and Sudan had a terrible record of bias. And the one picked to officiate at our Zamalek game, Hassan Abdel-Hafiz, was Sudanese. According to these rumours, the players on his hit list were Magongo, Abdalla Shebe, Charles Otieno, Hesbon Omollo and myself.”
Gor Mahia’s coach at the time was an Englishman named Len Julians, whose volcanic temper in the game’s heated moments belied his pious fellowship with the Salvation Army. But he had a way with his players that made them admire his tactical competence and his personality as well. One, Peter Otieno Bassanga, went so far as to name his newborn son after him. Aware of Shebe’s argumentative nature and fearing that a red card was all but certain, Julians decided not to field the skillful striker.
“We assumed control of that game right from the start,” recalls Austin. “We were very comfortable. We missed chances, but it was only a matter of time.” And then, late in the first half, a catastrophe happened. “A few metres outside the penalty box, Magongo tackled one of their players and he rolled three times on the ground. He looked up and saw that he was not inside the box. He rolled three times again and looked up and saw that he was still outside the box. He rolled again and stopped at the line.
“To our great astonishment, the referee awarded a penalty. We disputed it for a while but Julians convinced us to let it go. We did, confident of ourselves. The penalty was taken and converted successfully. The ball was taken back to the centre spot for the restart.
But mysteriously, the referee came to our half and started looking at the backs of each one of us. Finally, he located the shirt number he was looking for. It was Number 16, which Magongo always wore. He flashed out a red card.
“We couldn’t believe it. It was incredulous that he was issuing a red card after the penalty had already been taken? If there was to be one, it should have been before. We furiously disputed it. In the heat of the moment, we pushed him about and at one time he fell on the ground. Now, let me be clear: I completely disagree with those who say we beat him up. We did not. Anyway, he went outside the pitch and after a while he reappeared with a massively bandaged hand. He restarted the game and then blew his whistle three times. When we inquired, he said his injuries were too serious to allow him to continue officiating. He had ended the game.”
The players had allowed themselves to be provoked into breaking perhaps the most sacrosanct of all FIFA’s laws of the game – that the referee’s decision is final and that you shall abide by it, however unbearable his apparent bias or incompetence. And CAF’s sanction was swift and hard; Gor and five of its players, Magongo among them, were slapped with two-year bans from all CAF competitions.
There was an overflow of sympathy for Gor Mahia amongst many Egyptians, especially the multitudes who supported Al Ahly. During the remainder of the team’s stay in Cairo, the players were overwhelmed by the courtesy and politeness with which they were treated. When they went shopping, they were given gifts. In Cairo’s streets, people shook their heads sympathetically and muttered “Harkim….” (Arabic for “referee”) meaning they understood everything.
Gor were out for two years, 1985 and 1986. But whoever doubted their quality got their answer the very first season of the team’s return to continental football. They won the Mandela Cup. Winning the trophy was the signature event of the 1987 season. To the rapturous applause of 60,000 fans packing the stands of the Kasarani Stadium, and a radio audience of millions more in the towns and villages of Kenya, Austin, now captain of Gor Mahia, lifted the precious silverware in those black and white images frozen for all time.
No other captain in Kenya’s history had ever led his team to such a feat and none has emulated him within Kenya’s 50 years of independence. In the sun-bathed afternoon and warm evening of the petal-shaped new stadium, Kenyan football had peaked.
Unfortunately, or even, perhaps, tragically, it is also after this day that Austin and his team mates reached their lowest moment. Success turned into unspeakable disappointment.
The day was December 5, 1987.
The club had generated an unstoppable momentum; the players had psyched themselves to a high they had never done before. They were motivated by memories of their aborted run in 1985 but even more by their heroic failure in 1979. This was the year in which they had reached the final of the same tournament and lost to Canon of Cameroon. They felt sure they could improve on that.
Right from the quarter-finals, a great belief had come upon them that they could do it. By the time they played Tunisia’s Esperance in the final, that conviction was complete. It was so strong that it had carried them all the way to victory. They had felt unstoppable.
What followed, however, was the kind of disappointment that lasts a man a lifetime. History faithfully records that on December 5, 1987, Gor Mahia beat Esperance in that epochal match. By every estimation, it should be a day of pride for players and all lovers of Kenyan football. Yet, for Austin, it hardly is. His greatest day in 1987 is December 10 – a day like any other in the life of Kenya.
For Austin, the events leading up to December 5, the happenings of the day and the immediate aftermath represented all that is right and wrong with people. In his team mates’ single minded dedication to training and commitment to team cohesion, he saw the purest devotion to a cause. In the conduct of the officials who made promises to the players during the year-long campaign and then abandoned them on victory’s day, he saw a chicanery he thought unworthy of public officials.
Jogoo scored twice, Dawo once and defender Austin once. In the semis, Dawo scored twice and George Onyango Fundi once as Gor defeated Benin’s Dragons Oueme 3-2 in the first leg before again settling for 0-0 draw. And with that, Mighty Gor were in the final of the tournament for the second time after eight years.
In a spectacularly brilliant way, the historic victory shone a torch on the darkest corners of the souls of the people who ran the club’s affairs, a state of affairs emblematic of the nation’s game where callous officials rode on the backs of their players to line their pockets.
Gor Mahia won the Cup without losing a single match. Their first opponents were Somalia’s Marine, whom they beat 3-0 in the first leg and 2-0 in the second. In the first leg, Peter Dawo, a big, burly striker with a cannon ball shot and equally frightful header, scored two goals and Abbas Magongo one. In the second, Dawo scored both goals.
Dawo had joined Gor that same year. Jack Johnson, the coach, didn’t like him at first, preferring a speedy, industrious player named Anthony Ndolo to combine with the little forward, Hesbon Omollo and winger Sammy Onyango Jogoo, who shot well with both feet.
But Gor Mahia officials forced Dawo on Johnson. It was official meddling with the bench, properly speaking, but, for once, it worked. And when Dawo scored in Gor’s very first game, he established himself in the team. As fate would have it, he ended up becoming Africa’s top scorer of the tournament with nine goals.
Coach Johnson was a volatile, silver-haired Dane. Austin thought of him as a good team builder. Having worked under Julians and Johnson, Austin made the observation that coaches come in different calibres. Some, like Len Julians, knew how to mould a player while at the same time moulding a team. Others knew just one of these. Johnson inherited all the individual talent that Julians had left behind. And he knew how to make a good team of it.
Next Gor Mahia played Sudan’s El Mereikh. The teams drew 1-1 in Khartoum, Dawo again scoring, and drew 0-0 in Kisumu. Gor went through on the rule that counts away goals as double in case of a tie. In the quarters, Gor thrashed Togo’s Ententte II 4-1 in Nairobi and held out for a pleasurable 0-0 draw in Lome.
Jogoo scored twice, Dawo once and defender Austin once. In the semis, Dawo scored twice and George Onyango Fundi once as Gor defeated Benin’s Dragons Oueme 3-2 in the first leg before again settling for 0-0 draw. And with that, Mighty Gor were in the final of the tournament for the second time after eight years.
Here now Austin recalls the planting of the seeds of their great disappointment: “After defeating Marine, our officials gathered us and told us that if we reached the semifinals, each player would be given a plot in the Kasarani area. At that time, some goodsized plots there were going for KSh12, 000. Shortly after, the administration set up a task force to raise the money needed should we accomplish that objective. The task force was based at the Nyayo National Stadium.
“I cannot tell you just how energised we became as a result of that promise. We all saw economic security beckoning. Playing football was worth all the rigour. After we defeated El Mereikh, the officials informed us that the task force had collected enough money to buy us the plots. We were ecstatic. However, we kept focus on the Cup.”
December 5, 1987 was the day of reckoning.
Esperance, smarting from the disastrous 2-2 draw they had allowed in Tunis, brought to Nairobi every last vicious tactic in the book. Kenya fans had rarely seen more rough play in any international match. The incompetence of a Cameronian referee named Alex Hioba Hioba did not help matters. The match looked as if it would slip out of his control at any time.
Newspaper pictures graphically showed Taoufik Hicheri, the Esperance stopper, trying to gorge out Dawo’s eyes with his fingers. Austin had a running battle with him in Tunis. Now, as the roughhouse progressed, he warned him: “If you try that stuff you did at your place, you’ll see.” Austin was talking to Hicheri when Magongo placed the ball for the corner that resulted in Dawo’s goal.
Dawo crouched to pretend that he was tying his laces and Austin kept remonstrating with Hicheri. Magongo took the corner quickly and Hicheri didn’t see Dawo take off and charge at the ball for the header whose momentum took him all the way to the back of the net. Pictures of the game show Austin standing next to Hicheri as Dawo grasps the net after scoring his goal.
The goal came in the 20th minute of the first half. Late in the second half, Esperance levelled the score and started what was quite obviously the longest 10 minutes in the life of any Gor Mahia fan. But the score held and Hioba finally blew the whistle that started the biggest football party in Kenya’s history.
It was an indescribable moment for Austin. He raised the trophy above his head and the stadium responded with a deafening roar of delirium. The first chants of “Gor biro, yawne yo!” (Dholuo for Gor is coming, clear the way for him) rent the air. They would go on for many days to come. At last, Gor Mahia were continental champions!
After the lap of honour, the team retreated to camp at the Kasarani Stadium hostels. After they had settled down, the first thing Austin expected was to see the officials coming to offer their congratulations and also to announce the way forward.
But, alas! None came.
The players learnt in short order that their officials had driven into posh clubs in the city to celebrate. As captain, it fell upon Austin to give direction. All this time, he either held onto the trophy or kept a very keen eye on whoever he had asked to hold it.
After dinner, he approached the hostel’s management and requested them to give the players two crates of beer and two crates of soda to celebrate. Austin himself didn’t drink – and still doesn’t – but many players did and he had to do something for them. Soon, restlessness, occasioned by lack of official direction, set in. The camp broke up unofficially. Many players set off for town to party. Most went to a night club called Club Naya, located on Waiyaki Way. Its repertoire was predominantly Lingala music, their favourite.
Later that night, Austin retreated to his room for a tired man’s solid sleep. Early the following morning, with the Mandela Cup still in his hands, he took the team bus home to Zimmerman where he lived. It is while there that the first signs of post victory depression hit him.
The year-long campaign was over and here was the Cup, in his familiar humble surroundings and no word of congratulations yet, or an indication that the gifts they had been promised were forthcoming. Is this it? How could so momentous a victory end up just like this? The players have fulfilled their end of the bargain, but where are the officials?
There were no mobile telephones then, so Austin just sat and waited. In the early afternoon, the team bus came to fetch him. Team officials were at the camp, he was told.
Without ceremony, Amos Nandi, the Team Manager, distributed the players’ allowances. These added up to about Kshs 2100/- per player calculated at Kshs 150/- per day for 14 days in camp. It is money that was owed to them and would have been paid anyway whether they’d won or lost. Then the officials left.
There was no word on the plots they had been promised, which were to be given for just reaching the semi-finals.
And now they had actually won the trophy, but the task force members had vanished. The players never heard of them again, not later, not ever. There was no accounting of the money that had been collected in the players’ names. Over the years, many of the task force members would die one after the other, rendering that issue all but closed.
Later that afternoon, a group of fans calling themselves Kofoda came to the camp. They gave the players Kshs 40,000/- to share among themselves. There were 25 players registered with CAF for the tournament. Each collected his share of Kshs 1600/- and the camp broke for good.
As Austin went home to prepare for the coming Christmas holidays, the depression hit him proper. The disappointment – “that lasts a lifetime” – started lodging itself where the great psychological high of victory had been. It was now time for the 26 year-old libero to endure so much emptiness for doing what he loved to do so much – playing football.
Decades after the event, that emptiness still seems to have the power to cloud the atmosphere of conversation and his recollection is marked with interruptions of sad laughter. For Austin, it is in the attitude of the officials of 1987 that an understanding of everything that has ever gone wrong with Kenya football can be made. They were in it for themselves, using the players as cover. It was never about the people they pretended to manage.
Many players have since taken their disappointment to their graves.
But December 10, 1987 gave Austin a consolation that will also last him a lifetime. That is when his daughter, Pauline Oduor, was born. That is the gift he cherishes most from 1987, not the famous trophy. Pauline gave him so much joy to see and his eyes brighten with delight just at the mention of her name.
As for Gor Mahia, probably none amongst the fortunate crowd that witnessed their great victory could tell at the time that they had watched the dying embers of a magical fire. The club’s greatest day was also the lowest.
Its fortunes would plummet to a point of being relegated from the Premier League; it would need official fiat, not its legendary artistic flair, to keep it alive. Since 1987, there hasn’t been a better story to write about Gor Mahia.