Erick Lorch

Striker - Shabana
20 Nov 2029
Tuesday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 3 Transfers Relations Events 31 Awards Matches History

Marked for Erick Lorch

170 Edition

The Shabana Post

29 Oct 2029
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Market29 Oct 2029

Austine Odongo 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 Shabana can pretend not to have heard.

Market29 Oct 2029

Only the photograph left for Danson Kiprono

Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Danson Kiprono will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shabana the goodbyes have quietly begun.

Squad29 Oct 2029

Tempers go at Shabana

Emile Dortley 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.

Squad29 Oct 2029

Words at Shabana training over how hard people work

Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. George Onyango 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.

Squad29 Oct 2029

Dalphine Omuri has become a man the manager trusts

Nobody at Shabana 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.

Market29 Oct 2029

The Bryan Michira talk will not go away

Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Shabana know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.

In brief

Back issues
163 Edition

The Shabana Post

10 Sep 2029
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match8 Sep 2029

The wait goes on for Shabana

14 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.

Match8 Sep 2029

Whatever happens, Shabana do not lose

10 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.

Market10 Sep 2029

Erick Lorch puts it in writing

“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 The request is on a desk at Shabana, and it is not being withdrawn.

Squad10 Sep 2029

George Onyango 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 Shabana this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Boardroom10 Sep 2029

The numbers do not look good at Shabana

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.

Squad10 Sep 2029

Cliff Nyakeya 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 Sep 2029

The manager makes an example of Cliff Nyakeya

“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.

Squad10 Sep 2029

5 new faces, and Shabana 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.

Player ratings10 Sep 2029

Austine Odongo runs at them all day

Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.

In brief

161 Edition

The Shabana Post

27 Aug 2029
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match25 Aug 2029

The wait goes on for Shabana

12 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.

Market27 Aug 2029

Kamron Norqulov 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 Shabana can pretend not to have heard.

Market27 Aug 2029

Justine Nyangwara has one foot out of the door

Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Shabana they have already started talking about him in the past tense.

Match25 Aug 2029

Still nobody has beaten Shabana

The unbeaten run reaches 8. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.

Squad27 Aug 2029

A move Fabrice Ganago would have made for nothing

There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Fabrice Ganago is living that version at Shabana, and it tends to show in the first month.

Squad27 Aug 2029

George Onyango 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.

Squad27 Aug 2029

The manager makes an example of James Mazembe

“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.

Squad27 Aug 2029

Home is on Kamron Norqulov's mind

“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; Shabana are dealing with a man who wants a different country.

Market27 Aug 2029

Shabana sign Fabrice Ganago, one for the future

Fabrice Ganago is 19, and Shabana have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.

In brief