Harrison needs all the support for Gor Mahia to bounce back

It is Christmas Day for Police, taking into consideration the many chances we have wasted. I think we missed probably eight or nine opportunities to score. We gave the goal and it is shocking.”

Those were the words of Gor Mahia coach Mark Harrison after our match against Kenya Police FC last Saturday at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani. I entirely agree with the coach.

Going into the match, the ever ebullient K’Ogalo supporters aka the Green Army were confident, saying that “Sirkal” was going to “arrest” the policemen.

At the end of the day, the presumed massacre never took place and our former player Clifton Miheso came back to torment us with a strike that canceled our earlier lead. Going to social media, the expected celebratory chants turned into muted dirges.

As usual, there were the armchair experts who castigated the coach for his new style of rotating the squad with each game.

“Gambling with the line up has cost us the expected victory,” one fan lamented adding that Harrison should have a permanent first squad.

I beg to differ. Since the Briton took over, nearly every player on Gor Mahia payroll has had a chance to prove his mettle. We have seen some players who have been with us in name only getting to don the green uniform which is the dream of many a player not only in Kenya but the region as a whole.

The results are there for all of us to see in that we have had a very long unbeaten run. I want to tell the naysayers that winning, drawing and losing are all part of the game. What we need to do is to support the coach and his decisions, after all there can only be one coach at a time.

As I have said here before, the dismal performance we saw last season should remain just that - a nightmare we must forget.

I believe this is our season and we will get all the silverware that is available. My advice to Harrison: Do your part mate. The stands are for those who pay to come watch you perform. You are the one in the trenches and we have faith and trust in you.”

Now, finally, to the elephant in the room of Kenyan football and that is the Football Kenya Federation and its beleaguered boss Nick Mwendwa.

I watched in amazement as a group of youthful senators oozing praises on Mwendwa, insinuating in the process that the planned auditing of the federation’s books of accounts had a ring of vendetta around it.

While at it, they also threw in the scare that the audit might see Kenya being banned by Fifa. I was left wondering whether the honourable senators had taken time to read the Sports Act and the powers conferred on the minister in charge of sports in as far as conducting the affairs of a sports federation goes.

Far be it removed from me to make any allegations against duly elected and nominated members of the august assembly of Senate but at the end of the day, their statement came out like it was a public relation campaign for Mwendwa and his team.

If the senators would have taken the time to read the signs of the times, they would have realised that the majority of football fans in the country are all for an audit of FKF books of accounts.

What they want is very simple - that the government looks into the books and find out if there was any Chinese accounting taking place and appropriate action be taken.

While still at it, a Fifa ban is not that as bad as the scaremongers want to make us believe. I am glad that by the next day the senators had seen the light and aligned themselves with the people who elected them - the voters.

I dedicate this column to a diehard Gor Mahia supporter Denis Were whom we laid to rest last Friday.

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