Position 3, 71 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Eric Owusu was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Shabana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Ezekiah Omuri 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Wayne Mbuya is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Patrick Ayumba and Shabana agree another 3 years.
Squad5 Nov 2035
Words at Shabana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuel Miheso 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 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 Brian Junior Olega is on it.
Ezekiah Omuri 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.
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.
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.
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 Maxwell Mulili is on it.
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Squad15 Oct 2035
Eric Owusu 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.
Position 3 on 71 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.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Brian Junior Olega provided it, and the 9.11 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.10 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings8 Oct 2035
Samuel Miheso, 16, plays like he has been here for years — 7.87
A mark of 7.87 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 16-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Wayne Mbuya and Shabana agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Oct 2035
Ezekiah Omuri 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.
Everybody at Shabana 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.
Position 3, 68 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 18 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
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.
Squad1 Oct 2035
Ezekiah Omuri 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 supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑4, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezekiah Omuri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Felix Opoyo 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shabana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 17 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shabana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Gor Mahia have kept their man, and Shabana go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shabana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Position 3, 46 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Maxwell Mulili 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.
Match7 Jul 2035
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Shabana. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezekiah Omuri was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Brian Junior Olega. 1‑0 against Ulinzi Stars, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
The hardest thing about being 16 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Samuel Miheso did not need any: 8.12, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings25 Jun 2035
Up for the corner, and Biron Otieno delivers — 7.73
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Biron Otieno scored, was marked 7.73, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Brian Junior Olega 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.
At 16 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Umar Eze. 2‑0 against Muranga Seal, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Hamari Kante 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.
19 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Shabana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Two goals and a mark of 8.80 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shabana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Shabana have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Maxwell Mulili 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.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Shabana lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 16-year-old it feels ownership of. Samuel Miheso 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 10 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Martin Ochieng will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Shabana the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It finished 0-4. A cup exit is a disappointment; this was a public dismantling, and the difference between the two is the number of people who will still be talking about it in August.
13 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.
“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.
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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Shabana is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
11 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Maxwell Mulili 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.
Squad16 Apr 2035
Words at Shabana training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezekiah Omuri 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 2‑0 win over Posta Rangers, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Interim Coach on a 2‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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 Maxwell Mulili is on it.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Shabana will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
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.
“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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Martin Ochieng has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Ezekiah Omuri 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutPatrick Nyakeya is still being punished for one mistake
Ezekiah Omuri 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.
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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Biron Otieno signs something — a contract at Shabana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Shabana, another week without a signature from Samuel Miheso.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Elvis Ayumba trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
SquadBiron Otieno is not doing himself any favours
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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 33 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Brian Junior Olega signs something — a contract at Shabana or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutJoseph Karisa asks for a word with the manager
Ezekiah Omuri 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.
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.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
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.
60 points from position 5. The title is somebody else’s business and the drop is somebody else’s problem; what is left is the argument about passports.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Shabana, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The shrug has gone, the language is coming, and he now argues in training like somebody who expects to be here next year. Half a signing's value is this and none of it appears on a fee.
In brief
SquadThe selectors could not leave Ezekiah Omuri out
Ezekiah Omuri had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and KCB were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Player ratings2 Oct 2034
Samuel Miheso, 15, plays like he has been here for years — 7.71
A mark of 7.71 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 15-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
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.
Ezekiah Omuri 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Shabana, another week without a signature from Emmanuel Ajoku.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.48 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 15-year-old it feels ownership of. Samuel Miheso 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.
Marked 8.26 — 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.
At 36, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Abdelhak Touba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.