City Stadium is an accident waiting to happen

Watching Harambee Stars play in the past few months has been devastating to those who love and know football. Kimanzi is a good coach but he is out of touch with reality on the ground. I will not go into the announcements by FKF after the loss to Togo; it is inconsequential and more of activity with no productivity.

As people waited for the results from Togo, I took time to watch Kariobangi Sharks play visiting Coast United at City Stadium that morning. I have been to City Stadium on several occasions but this day I saw more than I needed to see. The oldest stadium was screaming at me; I won’t be surprised if Harambee Stars lose to Togo, is all I could say and they did lose.

This is the oldest stadium in Kenya built in 1930s by colonialists. You will never write Kenya’a football history without mentioning the great City Stadium. The stadium was originally known as African Stadium, then Donholm Road Stadium and later Jogoo Road Stadium at independence in 1963 and finally Nairobi City Stadium.

It has been home to Gor Mahia whose fans proudly refer to it as tok K’omwanda. This just goes to tell you the place it holds in our football history. Very few people today can give you the true story behind Omwanda in relation to 15,000 capacity City Stadium. From what I have heard he was a business man in the neighboring Kaloleni Estate.

When you step into the VIP area of the stadium you are met with a stench that reminds you how Kenyan football smells. I bump into the match officials; I greet them and move on into the path of a player running past the officials into a changing room. I walk in and turn to look up for a vantage point to sit on the concrete. My eyes end up at the rusty old colonial steel structures holding the roof.

I walk up to the right, look down at the dirty concrete then at my pair of trouser and I decide to sit anyway. I gaze at the green artificial turf which is the only perfect piece in the whole stadium. I look across and see some toilets behind the terraces side better known as Russia. The last time the toilets worked may be Omwanda was alive.

Looking up I see the eye sore that the flood lights masts are and my heart feels for Harambee Stars in Togo. How do we expect them to perform when our facilities are this dilapidated? Kariobangi Sharks are warming on one side then Coast United step into the other side and I get distracted from my assesment. It is a cold morning so I decide to go and catch a mug of coffee sorry if you thought of Java, just go and try it out for yourself.

I bump into Kariobangi Sharks players as they run back to pick something from the changing room. If I was a Coast United fan out to make news I would just pour my hot coffee on them and run away very easily.

That is City Stadium in brief, the stadium Gor fans adore and cherish. I have not mentioned the car park on one of those afternoons when it rains in Nairobi. If it rains the VIP stand leaks so badly that you can’t enjoy the comfort of the hard concrete.  The perimeter fence around the pitch is also a mockery to the type of fans who come to City Stadium.

FIFA gave us the artificial turf when they wanted the whole of Africa to feel the effects of 2010 World Cup. When the turf was laid and the athletics track done away with, Nairobi City Council also decided to lie down and sleep. The playing surface and the former track is a stark contrast that screams to your ears.

Back to Basics

We are out of South Africa AFCON 2013 show and the 2014 World Cup is a long shot if the two qualifier matches we have played are anything to go by. We cannot dream big if we cannot master the basics. City Stadium is screaming, if we cannot do something about this facility then let us forget about our football ever growing.

The ‘Elephants’ of Ivory Coast trained in this facility in 2010, I would like to hear their take on what they saw. It is so unfortunate but now I will not suffer heartache if Harambee Stars lose if City Stadium will still be how it is.

Sports Stadia Management Board has banned Gor Mahia from its two facilities’ Nyayo and Kasarani for security reasons. This has left Gor with only City Stadium as their only option in Nairobi. If Gor Mahia fans are a security risk to opposing teams, their fans and match officials at Nyayo Stadium then sending them to City Stadium is a big risk on the safety of these people.

If you cannot contain K’ogallo fans at Nyayo, then there is nothing you can do at City Stadium. This is an accident waiting to happen. It is sad but an accident is the only language we understand because we cannot hear lung bursting screams.

 It is a shame that except the artificial turf everything else is the same way we got the stadium at independence. We have added no value to it five decades later, no wonder we cannot beat Togo.

Kariobangi Sharks went on to beat Coast United 2-1 in a very entertaining match. They have been tipped as the FC Barcelona of Kenya and they did not disappoint. My only problem was that such good talent will get swallowed and killed in the mire that is Kenyan football. I can’t wait to see Sharks in KPL but meanwhile, I will plug my ears to these head splitting screams.

Chemistry test for Kimanzi

I wrote this article a while back, I have decided to post it as it was, so don't mind if I have not mentioned the recent results of Harambee Stars, though I am not shocked...

It takes courage for a coach to admit that qualifying for the next World Cup is a long shot. Francis  Kimanzi knows that to take a team to Brazil in 2014 we need to have started at least by 2006. Zambia took six years to form the team that won the African Cup of Nations in Gabon. Unless we have a new untested formula, I will go with Kimanzi’s word.

Time is relative and neutral, what you do within the time is what makes the difference. You can do many things with players in six years but the main team dynamic you will build is chemistry. Zambian palyers know each other’s weakness and strength. They may not have been the best team in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon but their ability to gel, blend and flow made the difference.

This is what Kimanzi will have to make sure Harambee Stars achieve to make an impact in next year’s AFCON. Saying we have talent is an understatement- we are a country endowed with enough gifted football players. Structures or rather lack of the same has failed us in the past and it is time FKF walked their talk.

With all due respect, Denis Oliech and Mariga (Macdonald) will not be of much help in the long term. Kimanzi should start building a team around Victor Mugabe and the likes of Agwanda and Musa Mohammed. It will take courage to leave out the two experienced players in one of the qualifiers but it is tough and radical decisions that will give us results.

I keep referring to FC Barcelona when writing about football- we all agree they are in a class of their own. It is chemistry that makes all the difference at Camp Nou. Italy and Spain have also tried to build this in their national teams. Italy won the 2006 World Cup with a majority of players from the Serie A. Spain won the 2010 edition with all but three players (in English PL) based in Spain. Fabregas, Torres and Reina all started on the bench in the final against Netherlands.

The chemistry between Xavi and Iniesta is out of this world, they look programmed. It is the product of hard work and playing together for almost fifteen years. It takes more than just a good team to beat their combination with Messi in the mix. They have a policy that fifty percent of the first team will be home grown. Thirty five percent will be the best from Europe (mainly Spain) and the rest the cream of the world. This goes to just cement the clubs point of strength- chemistry.

When the national team picks most players from the domestic league,it means that most players have played against each other regularly. Though they will not be in the same team they will know each other’s strengths and weakness easily. This could be Kimanzi’s good starting point; he doesn’t need to call a legion of foreign based players. He can bring a few, only the ones he knows are crucial to his game plan.

Uganda is building their Under 23 side under their Scottish senior team coach. They have stuck with him for a while now and I can put my money on the Cranes making next year’s continental meeting. The youngsters get a chance to play in friendly matches which will make transition rather seamless. Unlike us who assemble the Olympic team for qualifiers or when some agents pay us good appearance fees. We then give a coach one day to prepare a team, and then we still expect good results. When the players perform, like they did in West Africa recently it is to market themselves to scouts.

Football Kenya Federation can set aside resources for Kimanzi to assemble local players for training and friendly matches at least twice a month. This should be organized on the days when most players are not training with their teams. Until we set up an elaborate youth structure, we have to find a way of getting the best players even out of the top flight league.

The Zambian team that won this year’s AFCON was disastrous in 2006 under Kalusha Bwalya as coach. The coach left to join the Federation but the team was left intact to play in Angola two years later. It is good if we identify a good youth team and gave Kimanzi time to build a team, even if he steps aside, the next coach should be briefed on the long term plan.

When average local based players can play as a unit, we are better off than a star studded team that is malfunctioning.  In building chemistry I don’t recommend the out of touch local trainers.  Not the kind of team builders who will take players through drills on a random day in some remote place.

Africans have a way of building social bonds and it is time we exploited these methods. The idea is to create pre-thought forums where these players can interact with each other. A good start is for them to visit and mentor secondary school players or the UNICEF sponsored centres of excellence.

It is time FKF put in the hard work of thought in our national team or else the Tusker sponsorship will leave us with a hangover. Interests abound but the mother of all these interests is our football. If it blossoms, even the woman who sells peanuts in the stadium will blossom as players and everybody else blossoms. It takes work and time, two factors of production that you will never substitute, not with anything I know of.