30 years on, the eternal rivalry between Stars and Cranes repeats itself

It is happening again. The 86 year journey of the Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup has once again brought Harambee Stars and Uganda Cranes together in another final and it is time to remember.

To Leonard Mambo Mbotela, the pre-eminent voice of radio broadcasting in Kenya across the decades since Independence, there were matches and there were matches.

But none stands up to the 1982 final between the Stars and the Cranes in November 1982. To Marshall Mulwa, coach of the victorious Stars, that was one of the greatest games in his coaching career.

To Mahmoud Abass, the Kenya captain then, that was the final that no other could top. And to me, a sports reporter with the Nation Media Group then, it remains the stuff of legend.

One generation later, the memory of the moves, the cries, the words, the gestures and the benevolent weather in a violent city, remains clear. It cannot be forgotten. It stays in the warmest embrace of nostalgia.

1982 begun in the group matches in Jinja. That is where this story must begin with what Mahmoud Abbas told me. “It was my mistake,” he admitted candidly to the error that cost Harambee Stars a penalty.

Fifa had recently enacted a rule meant to clamp down on goalkeepers who wasted time when their teams were leading.

This rule followed the 1982 World Cup which Italy won in part because Dino Zoff, their goalkeeper and captain, specialized in running out the clock during the dying minutes of their victorious matches.

“The score was 2-1 for us against Zimbabwe. I picked up the ball and bounced it twice on the ground instead of once. The referee, Said Ali from Zanzibar, leniently let it pass. But when I did it again, he immediately awarded an in-direct free kick against us. It was about six yards from the goal line. Joel Shambo’s shot was definitely goal bound but JJ (Masiga) openly and deliberately stopped it with his hands.” Penalty!

“I told JJ, ‘Thanks, and don’t worry. I’ll deal with it.’ Dave Mwanza stepped forward to take the penalty for Zimbabwe. I stood a foot or so in front of him as he carefully placed the ball on the spot. As he lifted his head, I looked into his eyes. I saw him look to his right and there and then, I knew in what direction he would shoot. His eyes said what his mind had decided. I took my place on the goal line. The shot came and I flung myself to my left.” Saved!

Final score: Kenya....2. Zimbabwe....1.

That save sent Harambee Stars into the final with the Cranes. As a young off-duty sports reporter for the Nation Media Group, I jumped into a special Kenya Airways flight that was ferrying Kenya fans to Uganda for what everybody knew was going to be a memorable duel. For 15 years, the Cranes had not lost a Challenge Cup final at home. That was the record the Stars were hell-bent on breaking.

When the two nations came into being, the gods must have decreed that Harambee Stars versus Uganda Cranes will never be ordinary matches. Each one of them, generation after generation, is a grudge match. There is no such thing as a friendly between the two siblings states which always hope to one day federate into a single country.

But 1982 left an indelible impression on the memory of whoever has been privileged to witness this eternal rivalry. Context is important here. Uganda was in the grip of a low intensity civil war.

In 1979, finally tired of Idi Amin’s murderous regime which the rest of Africa seemed impotent to do anything about, President Nyerere had sent the Tanzanian Army into Uganda to get rid of the tyrant.

Dreadful political period

The Tanzanians had arrived at the head of a motley collection of Ugandan exile groups whose only point of agreement was their opposition to Amin.

Once in power, they turned on each other. Even by its own standards, the country was going through a dreadful political period known as Obote II, denoting the second coming of its independence president.

He had been rigged back into power. There had been rumours he might attend the match but, in the end, he stayed away.

When we arrived in Entebbe aboard a flight specially set aside by Kenya Airways to ferry fans to cheer Harambee Stars, we found a desperately unhappy country. The buildings at Entebbe terminal still bore pock marks, graphic evidence of the artillery shells that had finally driven Amin away.

Every staff member at the airport seemed tense and preoccupied with something. Trying to chat them up did not work. It was like trying to crack jokes with somebody who has a critically ill patient in hospital and is worried about the outcome of the medical efforts to save that life.

In contrast, the Kenya fans were behaving as if they had come to a wedding party. There was too much laughter. Many sang “Mwana wa mbeli bayaye…” the AFC Leopards national anthem.

We got into chartered buses that would take us to Kampala. Standing at the front and back of each bus was a soldier armed with an AK47 rifle. The soldiers were meant to protect us in the likely event of an ambush along the highway. Not once did I see their fingers leave the trigger.

Everybody in the bus was in a convivial mood but I soon became preoccupied with those soldiers, planted there for our safety, and who spotted faraway looks in their eyes, completely oblivious to the party swirling around them.

We got into Nakivubo just in time for kick-off. But we were soon jarred by explosions outside the stadium. I saw smoke rising from a distance behind the stadium walls. Soldiers ran helter-skelter.

Yet this was not enough to stop the game and the cheering. The entire Kenya Airways crew was also in the stadium. They sat on the grass a few metres from the touchline.

The extraordinary beauty of their cabin crew, who were cheering Harambee Stars hoarse, ensured I was watching two great spectacles – themselves and the match.

It was an experience of the most exhilarating duality of opposite values that perhaps only football can produce - subjectivity and objectivity in equal measure.

On the one hand, a desperate desire that Kenya wins and on the other, a cold sense of journalistic fairness.

Neutralised attack

This was a match like I had never seen before. The atmosphere was picture-perfect for a meeting of the region’s two great rivals. Harambee Stars had a redoubtable defence that seemed to anticipate and neutralise every attack conjured by their opponents.

Uganda’s Cranes did not just have a forward line; it was the whole team that attacked. I will never forget the foraging runs of their right full-back, John Latigo in pursuit of goals. He covered every last blade of grass on his side of the pitch.

Godfrey Kateraga, once a stand-out winger of Kenya Breweries in Nairobi, had Kenyan hearts in their mouths time and again with his pin point crosses from the left wing to Harambee Stars penalty area.

Rallied on by their multitudes of supporters, the Cranes came at Harambee Stars in waves, one after the other. It was an epic duel pitting defence and attack.

The faith the Kenyans had in themselves against any forward line was aptly captured in a remark my friend and colleague, Hos Maina, overheard Josephat Murila, Kenya’s outstanding sweeper, make during the successful campaign in Dar es Salaam the previous year. According to Hos, Murila told the forwards: “You guys, just score one goal and leave the rest to us.”

In Nakivubo, the forwards did just that, with the powerfully-built midfielder, Wilberforce Mulamba dribbling all the way from the center to rifle in a spectacular goal.

Uganda responded immediately with massive pressure. Matters came to a head when the Malawian referee, Billie Pambala, mysteriously awarded the Ugandans a goal which only he seemed to have seen cross the line. Even the Ugandans had not started celebrating when he awarded them the goal. The Kenyans hotly disputed it and started walking out.

It took almost an eternity for the combined efforts Kenya’s Culture and Social Services Minister Paul Ngei and coach Marshall Mulwa to persuade the players to play on. At one time I feared the referee might abandon the match, which he would be obliged to do after 10 minutes of stoppage.

Mercifully, we did not get to that. On a visit to Marshall Mulwa in Dubai last year, I asked the coach to recall that game.

He laughed.

“The coolest player in the team was Josephat Murila,” he told me. “He kept on pleading with his team mates ‘let’s play on! Let’s play on! We’re going to defeat them!’

It was a herculean task. Mahmoud Abbas was extremely agitated and he was carrying everybody else with him. I knew better than to shout at the players in those circumstances; I just pleaded and pleaded with them, with a lot of help from Murila and the ministers. In the end, it worked.”

Doomsday prospect

The Ugandans had a powerful motivation to win the game within regulation time: Mahmoud Abbas. Over time, he had built himself a formidable reputation for saving penalties.

The Cranes knew that if the game came to this, they would be walking in the shadow of death. And to compound this doomsday prospect, Kenya’s own penalty takers, Wilberforce Mulamba, Nahashon Mahila, Jacaranda Ouma, Ambrose Ayoyi and Jared Ingutia, were high quality marksmen. So the Ugandans attacked. Every passing minute brought more urgency – and desperation – to their endeavour.

If you were not Kenyan, you could have been on their side. Such was the brilliance of their team play. But their efforts came to nothing. The score at full time and extra time was 1-1. The match went into penalties. Death beckoned.

Mahmoud Abbas stood in regal and arrogant splendor between Kenya’s posts and the worst fears of the Cranes and their country came to pass. He stopped two penalties, had a third perfectly covered on its flight over the cross bar and Kenya won the Challenge Cup for a record fourth time. Uganda’s 15-year record of never losing a final at home lay shattered.

The match ended at around 6.30 p.m. We boarded the buses as before and headed for Entebbe. During the trip, people sung at the top of their voices. But the faraway look in the eyes of the soldiers clutching their AK-47s kept haunting me.

When we arrived at Entebbe and people started disembarking from the bus, I walked hesitantly to the soldier nearest to me, at the back of the bus.

I looked at him in the eye. First he looked down, and then he looked back at me. I held out my hand, saying: “I want to thank you for protecting us.” He seemed totally at a loss about how to react. After a few very long seconds, he left hold of his gun and shook my proffered hand. Then he quickly got his finger back to the trigger. He nodded slightly, barely visibly, saying nothing. He looked very sad.

I felt as if the sadness in his eyes was accusatory; I was a happy person in his unhappy country. I walked down the steps of the bus and left him. In the plane, the pilot, Captain Gatheca, effusively congratulated Harambee Stars.

Then he announced that all the drinks were on him. Beer and whisky flowed. I was seated between Marshall Mulwa and Bobby Ogolla. After a little while, I made for the toilet. On my way back, I ran into one of those astonishingly beautiful hostesses. I introduced myself as a Nation reporter.

“What do you think of Harambee Stars?” I asked her. It is all she needed to burst into a rhapsody. “Oh, he saved us!” she cooed. “He really, really saved us! He’s such a great man!”

“Who saved us?” I asked, surprised.

“The injured man!” she snapped. “He is so great! Despite his injuries he kept on playing. He didn’t allow them to pass us. He is the one who saved us!”

The injured man, of course, was Bobby Ogolla. He had suffered a cut on his brow above his left eye that needed four stitches. He played with a bandage strapped around his head.

The bandage kept peeling off and Bobby repeatedly needed to go to the touchline for medical attention. He was astoundingly courageous and it is no wonder he captured the imagination of the beautiful young girl.

Buried in paperwork

I returned to my seat and conveyed the hostesses’ admiration to Bobby. He pointed at his empty glass of whisky. We urgently requisitioned for more. And another one. And another one. Marshall took note of what was happening.

“You have not eaten,” He told Bobby. “Enough now.” Bobby grinned to me and started praising the proficiency of the coach. He is a very good guy, Bobby told me. Then he requisitioned another tote, “the last one,” he claimed unconvincingly.

A true hero of the match and the tournament, Kenya’s fabled Six Million Dollar Man was unwinding after the long campaign. It was so easy to understand him. As we drank as if there was no tomorrow, Marshall was buried in paperwork. He ate and drank nothing. I didn’t ask him then but maybe he was already preparing for the following year’s campaign. In which case the opening match, as fate would have it, would be against the self-same Cranes.

Harambee Stars won again, and proceeded to win and keep the Challenge Cup for good. And give us the memories that last a life-time.

Roy Gachuhi, a former Nation Media Group sports reporter, is a writer with The Content House