83 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Kariobangi Sharks lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amos Kipkirui will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kariobangi Sharks the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ally Salum Omar 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.
Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Kariobangi Sharks, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Still no offer on the table, and Owami Dlamini’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
He used to be one of the options. He is now one of the men the options are picked around, and the change happened quietly enough that only the dressing room noticed on the day.
The words a physio says slowly. 90 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Habib Sarwari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Gor Mahia made Kariobangi Sharks work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings24 Sep 2029
Wasi Ngala was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.29. 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.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, James Onyango could afford to be generous.
In brief
The dugoutIan Karani has become a man the manager trusts
118 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Kariobangi Sharks lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
Alvin Mangeni 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 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” James Onyango on a 3‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
The dugout27 Aug 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Philani Sithebe's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Mmatlou Sepale’s negotiating for him
The words a physio says slowly. 125 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Muranga Seal waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 91. Kakamega Homeboyz had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
It needed Eric Wanyama to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Kakamega Homeboyz, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mbarak Musa Omari 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. 139 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.
“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 Kariobangi Sharks, and it is not being withdrawn.
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Muranga Seal moved on, Owami Dlamini reports back to Kariobangi Sharks, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ally Salum Omar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Habib Sarwari 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. 153 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 last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Kariobangi Sharks have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Habib Sarwari 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.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 21-year-old it feels ownership of. Humphrey Aroko 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Kariobangi Sharks they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Habib Sarwari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kariobangi Sharks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Posta Rangers have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Victor Okoth. The answer from Kariobangi Sharks has not changed — yet.
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.
The dugout4 Jun 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” James Onyango was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Kariobangi Sharks dressing room was either.
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 Philani Sithebe is on it.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Shabana defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.90 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Habib Sarwari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kariobangi Sharks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
7 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Amos Kipkirui will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Kariobangi Sharks the goodbyes have quietly begun.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Kariobangi Sharks can tell you which week it ends in.
Ally Salum Omar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Habib Sarwari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
0‑2 to AFC Leopards, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout9 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 James Onyango left the room before anybody could ask which.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kariobangi Sharks is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Ally Salum Omar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mohammed Habib Sarwari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.02 — 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.
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.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Kariobangi Sharks will not try tonight.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Position 10 on 47 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Ally Salum Omar 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mohammed Habib Sarwari 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.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Amos Kipkirui and Kariobangi Sharks agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Kariobangi Sharks have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kenya Police have kept their man, and Kariobangi Sharks go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kariobangi Sharks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
“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.
The dugout14 Aug 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.” James Onyango chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kariobangi Sharks can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kariobangi Sharks this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The easiest signature of my career.” David Kalama and Kariobangi Sharks agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Kariobangi Sharks told Ally Salum Omar something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Kariobangi Sharks are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” James Onyango on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Mjengu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Half the programme played, position 10, 21 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
The dugout29 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 James Onyango left the room before anybody could ask which.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Alvin Mangeni signs something — a contract at Kariobangi Sharks or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutOwami Dlamini has become a man the manager trusts