Tuesday 9 September 2008

At the ball game


All set for kick off



Last Saturday I had the opportunity to witness the brave warriors of Namibia get a lesson or two about football by the Harambee stars. Kudos to the boys for getting one step closer to World cup qualification. Let's hope they can pull something off when they meet Guinea away.


This being my first live national team football match I went with a lot of anticipation. Reports were that the match was sold out and the traffic on Thika road pointed to the fact. An interesting thing I noted was that there were a lot of the middle class rugby crowd headed there from the cars which were draped with the national flag and associated paraphernalia. A good thing to note that the game has such wide appeal hopefully at this rate we'll see better things for Kenyan football. However one of my pals pointed out that a lot of the support was because the team is doing well and I would tend to agree that we are fair weather supporters.

A section of the crowd at gate 13

After braving the traffic we made our way into the stadium a few minutes before kick-off. The crowd was not as large as I had anticipated and it was easy to get space. The thin crowd made it hard to pull off the Mexican wave as it kind of got lost at the gaps. The atmosphere was ok though I noticed that we are yet to learn the art of cheering in this country as there were quite a number of silent moments. That all changed when a goal came from the penalty spot and the stadium erupted into wild celebrations. Had to watch my head as people threw bottles from the upper terraces.

The team's performance was good enough to grind out a win though not without some tense moments in the second half. One area that really needs improvement is set pieces. We had so many free kick but we never so much as threatened the opposition from them. Also worth noting is our lack of attacking options; the absence of star forward Dennis Oliech was clearly evident. We need to get that talent pipeline moving because I know the next Oliech is out there just waiting to be discovered.

Once the final whistle was blown we quickly made our way to the exit. However our exit was not without incident. At around the point we joined Thika road one of the wheels of the car we were in ran over a lady's foot. What even made it more startling was the way she was screaming and writhing on the ground. The shock made me freeze for a minute before we bundled her and her friends into the car and rushed her to hospital. The ride was quite an experience with her wails and groans of pain especially since she had sprained that same foot before. You can imagine the kind of pain she was in! Fortunately for her there was no major damage and she received treatment at the hospital.

Fortunately for us there was no other drama that day as we went back home!

6 comments:

  1. Ati run over a foot? Am trying to imagine just how close she was to the car and HOW DO YOU RUN OVER A FOOT?
    Pole for the drama though. the rest of the post just floated infront of my eyes. Football does nothing for me.

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  2. A foot! She should thank her God. Alot worse could have happenend. Kinda reminds me of the incident we had. Atleast you enjoyed the game though.

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  3. Not a good weekend car wise for you too.
    Good for the Boys still a long way to get to the WC

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  4. Kudos to the boys. At least I know the won. Other than that I'm so clueless it hurts.

    Now the foot. Yeah how do you run over a foot? She must have been not close to the road but inside the road. Anyway pole about the drama.

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  5. @kafai- she was on the road

    @Nzembi yeah not as bad as your experience

    @Kirima- I hope the boys can grind out a result away

    @Shiko- there was such a large crowd walking out of the stadium she had to be on the road

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