136 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tusker lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Ian Simiyu Jr. 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 Tusker 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tusker know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Tusker. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Tusker pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
It needed Thomas Omole to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Kakamega Homeboyz, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Martin Chemelil after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tusker know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Ian Simiyu Jr. 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Thomas Omole has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Thomas Omole. 2‑0 against Nairobi United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
A performance of 8.16 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
The dugout17 Sep 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Martin Chemelil kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ben Saul has just signed for Tusker, and for once the answer mattered.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Victor Mbaoma. 1‑0 against Ulinzi Stars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
5 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.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Tusker have done the hard part with Remo Stars, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Thomas Omole was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jesse Rupia will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tusker the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ian Simiyu Jr. 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.
Tusker asked and Canon Yaounde said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad23 Jul 2029
Thomas Omole 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 0‑0, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tusker lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and APS Bomet waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Tusker is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Tusker asked and Hearts of Oak said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The words a physio says slowly. 23 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.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Tusker people have started saying his name in the past tense.
5 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tusker they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Edwin Mukolwe 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Orlando Pirates have kept their man, and Tusker go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The phone has started ringing about Moses Nyakeya again, and this time the name on the line is APS Bomet. Tusker are listening politely and promising nothing.
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tusker lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Moses Nyakeya will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tusker the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Edwin Mukolwe 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.
Tusker asked and Hearts of Oak said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Words at Tusker training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Omole 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.
A loan enquiry to Fauve Azur Elite: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tusker lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Ian Simiyu Jr. 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Remo Stars have kept their man, and Tusker go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings4 Jun 2029
Victor Mbaoma was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.37. 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.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Victor Mbaoma
Transfer targetsA loan move for Paul Ochuoga is in the works
The 88th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Ronny Otieno decided nobody was going anywhere. Nairobi United had no time left to answer.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tusker is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
6 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Nairobi United were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Three points for Tusker, 1‑0 the final word against Nairobi United in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad21 May 2029
Thomas Omole 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.
Player ratings21 May 2029
Victor Mbaoma was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.01. 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe view from the dugout
The dugoutVictor Mbaoma has become a man the manager trusts
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.
Edwin Mukolwe 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.
Marked 8.22 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad7 May 2029
Words at Tusker training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Omole 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 board was up, the win was priced in, and then Mathare United scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
In brief
Player ratingsCliff Oruko beats them one at a time
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Moses Nyakeya will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tusker the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ian Simiyu Jr. 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
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 Dennis Oalo is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Victor Mbaoma signs something — a contract at Tusker or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tusker lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Tusker scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
4 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It finished 1‑0, and it was Thomas Omole’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Tusker.
Squad9 Apr 2029
Thomas Omole 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Tusker can pretend not to have heard.
3 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tusker they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Edwin Mukolwe 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.
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.
39 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tusker lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.04 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tusker is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Thomas Omole has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings26 Mar 2029
Cliff Oruko was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.50. 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.
Squad26 Mar 2029
Words at Tusker training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thomas Omole 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.
125 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tusker lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Tusker will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
“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 Tusker, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tusker this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdulqodri Habeeb was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Tusker know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
28 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Successful dribbles: 26. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Tusker they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Edwin Mukolwe 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.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Tusker can tell you which week it ends in.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Thomas Omole 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.
Squad18 Sep 2028
6 new faces, and Tusker 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Edwin Mukolwe: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
The first defeat in 9 matches. The manager will say it had to come; the dressing room will say it did not have to come against AFC Leopards; the supporters will say both, in that order, all week.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Edwin Simiyu will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Tusker the goodbyes have quietly begun.
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Tusker lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Tusker will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tusker is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Collins Odhiambo 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.
Half the programme played, position 5, 30 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
In brief
SquadDefences have started doubling up on Victor Mbaoma
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Joseph Okoth
79 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tusker lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Tusker is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ian Simiyu Jr. 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.
Words at Tusker training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. John Otieno 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout15 May 2028
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Martin Chemelil chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
117 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Tusker lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Collins Odhiambo 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
John Otieno 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.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.