Tales of fans turning against players are plentiful in football

Last week I broached the sad topic of the callous death of former Colombian footballer Andres Escobar who was killed immediately after the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

Apparently, some drug lords held him responsible for the country’s elimination from the tournament which allegedly made them lose millions of dollars in gambling bets.

This was after Escobar scored an own goal in the game against the host country. According to available records, Escobar was accosted by a group of armed men in the parking lot of a popular night club in the second city of Medellin. One of them pumped six bullets into the player while shouting "Gol!”  in an imitation of South American football commentators.

This was at a time when gangland ruled Colombia and the country was a no-go zone for foreigners. Things have since changed and now the streets of Medellin are far much safer than our own Nairobi.

DRIVEN BERSERK

Although Kenyan football has never seen extreme cases of deaths of players, peculiar reaction by the fans to perceived betrayal by players and club officials has been witnessed in the past. While some of these incidents have been violent, others have bordered on the comical.

One particular incident back in 1986 is still vivid in my mind. That was the day when Gor Mahia fans almost ran berserk when the team faced our perennial under performing cousins AFC Leopards in a second leg league tie at City Stadium.

Picking the ball from the centre half, lethal winger Sammy Onyango ‘Jogoo’ (deceased), embarked on a dazzling run on the left flank towards Leopards’ goalmouth on the Burma Market side of the stadium. Blessed with a diabolical left foot kick, before we knew it, Onyango had sent a screamer that left Ingwe goalkeeper Mahmoud Abbas sprawled on the ground to spark off wild celebration among the K’Ogalo fans on the terraces.

A few minutes later, Onyango struck again from the same spot sending the Gor Mahia fans straight into seventh heaven. Surely, with Gor Mahia leading 2-0, Leopards were dead and buried!

Not quite so; to make a long narrative short, in a very strange twist to the tale, Leopards not only levelled the scores but went on to win the match 3-2. Gor Mahia fans were scandalized! It took police escort to shepherd Gor Mahia players out of the stadium.

A more comical incident also involved AFC Leopards when MacDonald Mariga’s dad Noah Wanyama was the coach.

After a series of poor results, a group of fans one day hatched a plot to storm the pitch and teach the coach a lesson. But Wanyama, well-learned in the ways of the world, pulled a fast one on the conniving hoodlums by unleashing a sword to send his assailants scampering for safety to the four directions of the wind.