Larger than life players nostalgic Leopards fans revere as ‘ours forever’

Josephat Murila, the greatest AFC Leopards defender of his generation, contrasted the winning ways of Kenya’s faltering football giants thus: “AFC Leopards is fans-driven while Gor Mahia is team-driven.

If you make an analysis of the teams’ greatest regional and continental victories of our time, you will find that Gor Mahia won many of their key matches away while we won our key matches at home.”

We are here talking about Ingwe’s golden age which started with three back-to-back East and Central Africa Club Cup titles in 1982, 1983 and 1984 and peaked with the most memorable penalty shoot-out triumph in AFC Leopards history, the 5-4 defeat of Ghana’s venerable Asante Kotoko in an African Cup Winners Cup quarter final at Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi on 21 September 1985.

Leopards had lost 0-2 in the southern Ghanaian city of Kumasi, Kotoko’s stronghold, but reversed the score line in Nairobi to necessitate the shoot-out. Their five accurate marksmen were Mickey Weche, Ben Musuku, Wilberforce Mulamba, Patrick Shilasi and Henry Omondi.

Early this month, as the date of what should have been a momentous 50th birthday passed without the faintest blip on the national radar, Ingwe lost 0-2 to South Africa’s SuperSport United in a second round Confederation Cup match.

Their 2-2 draw at home in the return leg had echoes of that now seemingly irretrievable past when west and north African giants, much less southern African minnows, did not frighten their fans.

SuperSport, 20 years old, is a well-known team in South Africa but which would only elicit a quizzical expression on the faces of old watchers of the African scene north of the River Limpopo. It should have been dispatched by the players of Murila’s generation.

Yet it proved a height too high to scale for the current crop and Ingwe faithful, like their K’Ogalo counterparts, must ponder the meaning of the term stagnation.

Form can never replace substance and the razzmatazz in social media mimicking the content of the websites of English Premiership and Spanish La Liga clubs will always account for nothing when we remember the days when we were kings of the region and contenders for African glory.

Nostalgia is sweet and an evening spent remembering the moves, the goals and the misses and the saves, is time well spent. But we have a future to face and children to raise and this future, their future, is being criminally wasted.

Mediocre

Acceptance of the mediocre has become our normal and something just must give. It can’t go on like this.

Josephat Murila talked to me about character. He said: “Our teams in the past had players of character. A player of character is he who has great influence on the way other players play, both his team mates and the opponents.

He stands out and laymen and professional coaches agree about his unique qualities.
“Across the years, AFC Leopards was blessed with players of great character and I can give you examples – Mahmoud Abbas, Mickey Weche, Jonathan Niva, Wilberforce Mulamba, Noah Wanyama and Daniel Anyanzwa and Joe Kadenge.

We also played against many players of character two of whom were Peter Tino of Tanzania and Godfrey Chitalu of Zambia. Give just two seconds to those players and you’ve had it. In later days, I’ve seen Chitalu’s power and speed replicated in Didier Drogba of Cote d’Ivoire”

For Murila, listening to the opinion of Mahmoud Abbas before a game was a wise thing to do. He had good insights into opponents and obviously knew his teammates well. He made useful recommendations. His place as the best AFC Leopards goalkeeper is assured, in part because of his tactical brilliance and in no small measure by his strong personality.

Mulamba’s was a hidden character. He was a self-effacing man but he always quickly imposed himself on a game and could produce bursts of genius out of the blue and score some extraordinary goals.

Even on the days when he was in poor form, he had a strong presence on the pitch, reinforced by his superb athletic build.

It is not surprising that Joe Kadenge’s stature has endured decades since he last kicked a ball. He was not a coward and made it is his signature style to run at defenders. Players who hang long on the ball tend to have a higher than normal rate of incurring injuries because of the contacts with defenders.

But for a man with a predilection to toying around with his markers, Joe Kadenge did not sustain any more the number of injuries than the most cautious players.

Like Kadenge, the strength of Jonathan Niva’s personality went beyond the pitch. He got people and players to talk about him constantly whether in admiration or as critics. It is he who was in the middle of the show and other people reacted to his actions of omission or commission. For as long as AFC Leopards exists, Niva’s name will last.

It is interesting to listen to Murila’s view about Daniel Anyanzwa. He succeeded him as sweeper and debate is eternal as to who was a greater player – the tall, slow moving but astute reader of every forwards’ moves in the mould of The Kaizer (Emperor) Franz Beckenbauer of the 60s and 70s or the fast, clean tackling former Njoro High School forward who would do nine years for Harambee Stars in 70s and 80s.

Not least interested are the children of these greats. Gamaliel Hassan Alukwe Anyanzwa wrote to me some time ago and said: “In your article, you mentioned about Murila “Controller” taking over from the legendary Daniel Anyanzwa. I am interested in the comparison between these two great players. I do have an obvious bias though since Dan was my father.”

I asked Murila: “If you were Harambee Stars coach and had to choose between Josephat Murila and Daniel Anyanzwa, who would you go for?”
“Daniel Anyanzwa,” he said and proceeded to expound. “He was a wonder, very calm, relaxed all the time.

He had a hard tackle but he was not a rough player. Anyanzwa could carry the whole team alone; you beat Niva, you beat Moses Wabwayi but you’ll find Anyanzwa covering them and you won’t pass. That is what he used to do. He was a fast thinker, and a very good one at that.

“My approach to the game and his were different. He was a hard player while I was fast. I used my athletic power to get into the AFC system. In high school and at Abeingo,

“I used to play up front. I was also an athlete in school. High speed was my strong position. I admired Anyanzwa and would certainly select him over myself on the basis of his physical power and ability to dispossess even the fastest forwards.”

This is not unexpected of Murila, the legendary Controller. He marshalled his defence with composure and fast reaction and made a redoubtable duo with the late Shadrack Oyando at stopper. With Abbas behind them and flanked by Patrick Shilasi or Mickey Weche and Pius Masinza, the Ingwe defence was strong and mobile. It is the defence we missed when SuperSport came calling.

He was the quintessential team player, always at hand in support and quite often the coolest head on the pitch. In all the years I covered him, I don’t remember a card of any colour coming his way from the referee.

Enough AFC faithful who know place him a cut above Anyanzwa but whatever the case may be, it just shows how rich a talented playing force AFC Leopards have packed over these decades.

This is the source of the angst among the multitudes of their followers who cannot be consoled by the massive acreage of editorial space given to the club in the newspapers these days. Results and results alone are what matters.

The massive success achieved first by McDonald Mariga and currently by Victor Mugubi in Europe is part of the Ingwe heritage. The father of the two boys, Noah Wanyama, known to fans and sports writers of his day as Landi Mawe, was Murila’s team mate at AFC Leopards. Wanyama played for Harambee Stars at both Number 10 and Number 11.

This is how Murila remembers him: “I am grateful to Wanyama for the encouragement he gave me when I joined AFC. He was big hearted. He used to play in midfield in an attacking role. Later he switched to the left wing. He had the power to go back and forth and I have to say we lack that kind of player in Kenya today.”

Ugandan coach

Murila’s generation worked under a small, strong willed Ugandan coach named Robert Kiberu. He imposed a severe discipline and was fanatical about physical fitness.

Those who remember the Leopards team of that era recall its great endurance; one quite a few occasions its wins were achieved in the last quarter of the match when opponents strength was wilting.

Kiberu was at the same time a father figure to the players of Ingwe. He could easily tell when one was not concentrating on training because he was preoccupied with personal issues.

Uncannily, one of his players told me, he surprised a few of the boys by calmly telling them that that minor ailment they were suffering from there below could and should be fixed as a matter of urgency because it was an impediment to the well being of man and team.

Gerry Saurer was a professional hotelier and amateur football coach. He motivated his players with gifts. ‘Take this walkman,’ he would tell a player in conspiratorial tones after pulling him aside.

‘I bought it only for you. Don’t tell anyone else. I just want you to know that you are a very special player and want nothing but that the best from you.’

He would do the same with a wrist watch to another player and a free room at the 680 Hotel where he was General Manager. Every player thus thought he was special.

Only later would they discover that they all had gifts and inducements of one kind or the other which they were not supposed to mention to their team mates. He was a hugely popular coach. Chris Makhoha was a scientist.

He taught mathematics and physics at Kakamega High School, the nursery school of AFC Leopards famed as the Green Commandoes. His coaching tactics were based on scientific principles and under him, Leopards played like Germany.

After their great continental exploits of the 1980s, Ingwe steadily became a looted treasure and in 2006, the club was relegated to the provincial league. It took the supernatural faith and persistence of a handful of officials to get it back to the Premier League. And then that set of officials was booted out when fortunes changed for the better.

There is no evidence today that Ingwe will join the ranks of the old African sides which routinely contest Caf’s various trophies any time soon. It is a sports club without abode.

One imagines that when officials must fill an official form that requires entry of the permanent address, someone writes down a mobile phone number. Or an e-mail address. Or Twitter. Or Facebook.

What a crying shame. A club worth its name should have a roof over its head. For being unable to harness the tremendous human resources of Ingwe’s teeming multitudes, its officers through the last 50 years deserve a zero, one big enough to cover the circumference of the full moon.

But the players deserve our unreserved gratitude. They have made us happy. They are national treasures. They are ours – forever.

Ingwe one of a kind in Kenya

Kenyan Premier League champions: 13 - 1966, 1967, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1998.
FKF Cup: 9 - 1967, 1968, 1984, 1985, 1991, 1994, 2001, 2009, 2013.
Cecafa Club Championship: 5 - 1979, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1997.
African Champions League: Semi-final - 1968.
Caf Cup (now Confederation Cup): Quarterfinal - 1994, 1997.
Club legends:
Moses Wabwayi, Joe Kadenge, Elijah Lidonde, Joseph Were, David Asibwa, Ezekiah Ang’ana, Chris Chitechi, Vincent Mwenje, Jonathan Niva, Edward Wamalwa, Noah Wanyama, Aggrey Lukoye, Tony Lidonde, Josephat Murila, Mahmoud Abbas, JJ Masiga, Adbul Baraza, Haggai Mirikau, Wilberforce Mulamba, Mickey Weche, Pius Masinza, Mike Amwayi, Peter Lichungu, Peter “Zimbo” Owade, Patrick “Omar Bongo” Shilasi, Kefa Tasso, Livingston Madegwa, Anthony Mukabwa, John Arieno “Papa”, John Busolo, Patrick Shim, Wycliffe Anyangu, Francis Kadenge.