Marked for Brian Opondo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Dec 2026
Ibrahim Wanzala and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Peter Thiong'o is on it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager makes Simon Masaka a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Kakamega Homeboyz. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match18 Nov 2026
0‑2 against AFC Leopards, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match18 Nov 2026
11 matches without defeat, and then AFC Leopards. Nobody at the ground pretended it would go on forever; nobody expected it to stop here either.
Squad23 Nov 2026
Denis Iguma 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.
Match18 Nov 2026
8 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Denis Iguma, and the manager let it.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Samuel Ayumba to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
The form table has caught Brian Opondo
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Brian Opondo left out for the big one
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Brian Opondo will call it something else in private.
Market23 Nov 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Josephat Lopaga signs something — a contract at Kakamega Homeboyz or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match17 Oct 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Kakamega Homeboyz have 11 straight wins of it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
A one-man rearguard from Brian Opondo
There were 9 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.39 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Match17 Oct 2026
Tusker made Kakamega Homeboyz work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Thami Mkhize falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Match17 Oct 2026
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Denis Iguma was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad19 Oct 2026
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 37 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match3 Oct 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Kakamega Homeboyz have 10 straight wins of it.
Match3 Oct 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kakamega Homeboyz scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.99, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Thami Mkhize and Kakamega Homeboyz agree another 1 years.
Match3 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Kakamega Homeboyz. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Time is catching up with Thami Mkhize
Everybody at Kakamega Homeboyz saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 38 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Match3 Oct 2026
A 3‑2 win over Ulinzi Stars, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thami Mkhize was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Denis Iguma in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kakamega Homeboyz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Sep 2026
8 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad21 Sep 2026
6 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Match19 Sep 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Derrick Otanga. 2‑1 against Muranga Seal, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Denis Iguma and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Match19 Sep 2026
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Moses Mudavadi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.06. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 2‑1, already talking about the next one.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The first one is the one every signing is asked about until it arrives. It has arrived, and he can stop being asked.
Squad21 Sep 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Kakamega Homeboyz man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Boniface Omondi was the best thing in any of them.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Muranga Seal, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match29 Aug 2026
5 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market31 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Kakamega Homeboyz, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Glen Masava did the work nobody counts — 7.02
11 combined actions and 7.02. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
7.70, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Kakamega Homeboyz had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market10 Aug 2026
The bid was some way short and Kakamega Homeboyz did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Berekum Chelsea have kept their man, and Kakamega Homeboyz go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Denis Iguma 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.
Match8 Aug 2026
Shabana left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Caleb Amuka has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Caleb Kagere is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Samuel Kamau has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑2, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.
Looking ahead10 Aug 2026
KCB top the table and they are coming into view. Nothing to lose, which is what every manager says before losing.