The run now stands at 25, and the questions being asked around Ulinzi Stars are no longer polite ones.
The terraces29 May 2028
Supporters organise against the Ulinzi Stars board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
7 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Ulinzi Stars can tell you which week it ends in.
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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 36 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for Ulinzi Stars is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
19 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 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.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout24 Apr 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 0‑1 Joseph Juma left the room before anybody could ask which.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ulinzi Stars can pretend not to have heard.
Leonlevitt Osiago 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 Boniface Andayi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Brian Chonjo Otieno and Ulinzi Stars agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
A mark of 7.91, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout3 Apr 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 Joseph Juma left the room before anybody could ask which.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
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 Ulinzi Stars this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Add another name to the list: Sofapaka have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mark Bikokwa. The answer from Ulinzi Stars has not changed — yet.
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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ulinzi Stars can pretend not to have heard.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Ulinzi Stars have done the hard part with AFC Leopards, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Thabiso Msele 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. Bandari have kept their man, and Ulinzi Stars go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Jan 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.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Shannel Makwata'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.
6 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Felix Otieno
The dugoutPaul Odhiambo has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Bonaventure Muchika 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.
Everybody at Ulinzi Stars saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 34 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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 Festus Okiring is on it.
42 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Ulinzi Stars can pretend not to have heard.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Erick Lorch and Ulinzi Stars agree another 3 years.
Squad6 Dec 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.
He is 19, and nobody at Ulinzi Stars signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.