Marked for Daniel Partey
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings10 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 37. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match5 Jul 2028
Kariobangi Sharks ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Match10 Jul 2028
42 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Player ratings10 Jul 2028
One scored and one made, which is a different afternoon from scoring twice and an easier one to overlook. Marked 7.69, and involved in 2 of his side's goals.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Portipher 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 Jul 2028
Edwin Mukolwe 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Joshua Nyatini has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kakamega Homeboyz 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.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Oliver Machaka, and the manager let it.
Market10 Jul 2028
A conversation is coming this week. Kakamega Homeboyz will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Nov 2027
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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
Words at Kakamega Homeboyz training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Edwin Mukolwe 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.
Squad1 Nov 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Partey and Kakamega Homeboyz agree another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market20 Sep 2027
Salim Murunga hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kakamega Homeboyz can pretend not to have heard.
Match18 Sep 2027
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Glen Masava
“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.
Loan watch20 Sep 2027
“I did not go to Mathare United to sit and watch. I want to come back to Kakamega Homeboyz and fight for my place.” 2 appearances in 13 matches say the rest.
Market20 Sep 2027
He is 17, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Match18 Sep 2027
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
Squad20 Sep 2027
When it matters, John Omondi plays
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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Successful dribbles: 35. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match18 Sep 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against BA All Stars, and it could have been more.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A brace, and Rueben Owusu Boadu takes the afternoon — 9.67
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Rueben Owusu Boadu provided it, and the 9.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A brace, and Jeffrey Partey takes the afternoon — 9.27
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Jeffrey Partey provided it, and the 9.27 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Ernest Kyereh is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Tempers go at WAFA
Abeiku Atiemo 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
At 25 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
Market20 Sep 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. WAFA know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Jul 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and WAFA have had the benefit of it.
Market5 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad5 Jul 2027
At 21, Ernest Kyereh is already the best thing here
An average of 7.09 in a first team he is several years too young for. WAFA have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Tempers go at WAFA
Ernest Kyereh 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.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at WAFA training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Patrick Partey 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.
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
WAFA release $77.9K for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market28 Jun 2027
The unthinkable, invoiced: Samuel Kyereh sold
FCSB arrived with $560.0K and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Market28 Jun 2027
The bid was some way short and WAFA did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The terraces28 Jun 2027
Supporters turn on the $560.0K sale of Samuel Kyereh
He is going to FCSB, the club has $560.0K it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Squad28 Jun 2027
A season average of 7.11 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. WAFA know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad28 Jun 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at WAFA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Patrick Partey 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Jan 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Jeffrey Partey
24 goals and a season average of 7.80 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad11 Jan 2027
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
No sign of nerves from Patrick Waris at 21 — 9.00
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Patrick Waris did not need any: 9.00, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match9 Jan 2027
The wait goes on for WAFA
6 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.
Market11 Jan 2027
Daniel Partey hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what WAFA can pretend not to have heard.
Squad11 Jan 2027
He is 21, he is averaging 7.17, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
Squad11 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at WAFA this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match9 Jan 2027
8 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about WAFA and Aduana Stars in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.