4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Ulinzi Stars now.
Squad26 Jun 2028
Words at Ulinzi Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boniface Andayi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bonaventure Muchika was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Nobody at Ulinzi Stars will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
12 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Thabo Nkabinde and Ulinzi Stars agree another 4 years.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Words at Ulinzi Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boniface Andayi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bonaventure Muchika was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Successful dribbles: 16. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad21 Feb 2028
6 new faces, and Ulinzi Stars are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ulinzi Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ulinzi Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Ulinzi Stars can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ulinzi Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Add another name to the list: Muranga Seal have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Denis Owino. The answer from Ulinzi Stars has not changed — yet.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Words at Ulinzi Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khotso Malope is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 44 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad27 Sep 2027
Words at Ulinzi Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Boniface Andayi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Enosh Ochieng signs something — a contract at Ulinzi Stars or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
127 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Ulinzi Stars lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ulinzi Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Ulinzi Stars they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boniface Andayi was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad13 Sep 2027
Words at Ulinzi Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Khotso Malope is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ulinzi Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Ulinzi Stars have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Herman Mwambegu is living that version at Ulinzi Stars, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Ulinzi Stars training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nadeo Argawinata is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
100% of the income goes out in wages at Ulinzi Stars
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Ulinzi Stars know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 42 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Ulinzi Stars will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.