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A piece of dross that will never go away in the otherwise fine gold that is Gor Mahia’s history is the fact that in 1979, K’Ogalo lost 0-2 to Cameroonian giants Canon Yaounde in the first leg of the African Cup Winners’ Cup and a further humiliating 0-6 in the return leg.
Many years later I would be a regular Gor Mahia supporter on the Russian side terraces and learning under the feet of the legendary Apingo Nyawawa and Dick Danger who informed us the younger generation that the 1979 war was lost thanks to players’ sabotage.
Forty years later such claims would take centre stage after Gor Mahia lost 2-0 at home to Moroccan side RS Berkane last Saturday. None other than coach Hassan Otkay admitted that a strike by the playing unit cost him the match.
There is an urgent need for change at how things are run at Gor Mahia, everybody seems to agreed. However, this popular catch-cry has turned into a popular song. Played in day in day out, and sometimes coming across as an LP album stuck in play. Quite irritating to the ears, I may add.
Today Gor Mahia holds a crucial Special General Meeting.
Talk of turning the club into a limited liability company is the new song of seduction on the Kogalo streets. However, those pursuing this Don Juan-esque line will end up with hearts shattered to smithereens because at the end of the day it will generate more heat than fire. As has always been the case. And the support base, aka the “Green Army” seems comfortable in this rocking chair.
Bad thing with a rocking chair is that it will sap all your energy and there will be motion but as the Americans would put it, “you ain’t goin’ nowhere”. For real.
Many in the club’s management seem happy with the status quo where we have the number of officials almost equalling the number of supporters. Okay, not exactly but you get my drift. Tell me a professional club in this age and time still being run like a funeral committee to lay to rest an important village elder and I will show you a bunch of air heads.
Claims of officials engaging in Chinese accounting to cover for pilferage of funds, others printing fake match tickets to line their cursed pockets are all in a day’s work at Gor Mahia and anyone trying to bring any meaningful change is subjected to vitriol and even physical violence by a bunch of ne’er do wells, guttersnipes and underbreds whose bred-in-the-bone thuggery knows no gender nor age.
With all the vested interests at Gor Mahia and with the usual game of musical chairs going on, I am highly sceptical of the club moving anywhere.
The sad part is that the clubs we consider our contemporaries in these our neck of the woods like TP Mazembe, AS Vita, Simba, Esperance and Zamalek et al are building world class club houses, buying world class players and winning world class cups.
I hope chairman Ambrose Rachier will this time be bold enough to effect the proposed changes. Bon courage monsieur!
