Roy Gachuhi is 10 years old – the column, not columnist

Ten years ago this month, this column was born. It was the product of two unsolicited contributions.

The first one, titled “Kenya One was pure magic between the posts” was published on October 3, 2010. It extolled the heroics of Mahmoud Abbas, Harambee Stars goalkeeper of the late 1970s and early 80s.

The second one, “The broken promises of Gor Mahia’s 1987 win” - a lament on the heartbreak of abandonment as recounted by captain Austin Oduor - followed two weeks later.

It was after this story that Dennis Galava, the Saturday Nation Managing Editor of the time, told me that Allan Buluku, the Sports Editor then, wanted to have a word with me.

Galava, for whom I was writing special projects stories, arranged a meeting. Buluku wanted me to run a weekly column and I told him that was not possible because Galava was keeping me busy enough.

He insisted and I half-heartedly agreed, unsure if I could do it. I was still wondering whether I had not agreed to something I couldn’t deliver on when he triumphantly asked me to provide him with my picture, “so that we can brand the page.”

I flatly told him that was not going to happen. I cherished my privacy and I let him know that what I valued most was the ability to walk anonymously in a crowd.

I was accusatory when I told him: “You are trying to make me a celeb and I am not interested.” Better I had not said that because he started calling me “Roy the Celeb.” He has never called me by any other name since.

The long and short of it is that the column started, first as a weekly and years later as a fortnightly. There was a seamless change in stewardship at the two tiers of management; Galava left to be replaced by Tim Wanyonyi and Elias Makori returned to his old corner as Sports Editor. But the technical hands at the subs desk, James Mwamba, Charles Nyende and Japheth Mutinda remained in place. I couldn’t ask for better.

My reluctance to write a weekly column was borne of a deep-seated belief that few people would be interested in historical stories. If Kenya’s median age is 19 years and 75 per cent of the country’s 51 million people are below the age of 36, I figured very few people would have time for what teenagers in the street might uncharitably call in sheng “stori za before” (stories of a long time ago).

In his inimitably wry way, Yusuf Dawood, author of the 40-year-old Surgeon’s Diary column in the Sunday Nation, captured this anxiety well when he said that he started writing in BC.

Before you wonder how he did it Before Christ, by BC he actually meant “before computer.” I also started writing in BC and I was convinced that to get people who were either not born or were too young to read my stories was going to be an exercise in futility.

How wrong I was! I was shocked to discover that save for a handful of voices of people from my generation, the overwhelming majority of readers who keep me engaged belong to the 75 per cent age group above.

For the life of me, I never thought this possible. Seemingly out of the blue, a career fell upon me. Historical stories as stand-alone themes, or current stories given a historical context have been the fare of this column for the last 10 years.

Although with time I have cultivated a spirit of kindness to myself, I have in the past been remorselessly self-critical with my writing often to a point of paralysis.

I suffer an affliction of too much self-doubt. And continuous after thoughts lead me to harshly judge what I wrote in the past. Waking up in the morning, I am sure to start re-writing what I wrote last night.

Only deadlines save me into releasing my stories to the editor – and always at the last minute. However, to be fair to myself, I usually meet my deadlines.

This week, allow me to walk you back this 10 year journey. In no particular order, let me give you excerpts from stories that you, the reader, engaged me most in:

‘Kenya One’ was pure magic between posts - published on Saturday, October 2, 2010

Next Wednesday, the Cranes will be in town to contest a place in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations with Kenya at a time when, as always, the hearts of millions of Kenya fans overflow with love for their national team.

But poor things. All they ever get in return is heartbreak. They know that Abbas’ 55-year-old safe pair of hands will be unavailable when the Cranes and the Stars face off. What, however, endures is the memory.

For one generation of Kenya fans, he and his colleagues remain the walking repository of an intense nostalgia for the era of pure magic on the pitch when even mistakes could only serve to glorify their prowess.

The Rio Chronicles. Lo and behold, the vast River of January. Published on Thursday, August 4, 2016

I live on a street called Rua Dona Marianna. It connects two major thoroughfares, Rua Sao Clemente and Rua Voluntarios. Further down both Rua Sao Clemente and Rua Voluntarios and forming a huge rectangular block is a street with an iconic name: Rua Nelson Mandela.

Cable cars take you up and down and between mountain tops. High up in the cars, you have a commanding view of Guanabara Bay, where the Olympic sailing competition will take place.

You can see most of the landmarks of Rio, the statue of Christ the Redeemer and the mountains jutting out of the sea. The view is staggering. This city is insanely beautiful and every day I wonder about the volcanic dance and fireworks that took place here eons ago to create it.

Guanabara is a vast body of water from which the city takes its name. The first Portuguese explorers, who arrived here in the month of January mistakenly thought that they were seeing the estuary of a mighty river. So they called the place River of January (Rio de Janeiro). The misnomer has stood the test of time.

Classic Opel Ascona 400: Tale of love, drive and conquest. Published on Saturday, November 30, 2019

Responding to an infusion of explosive energy, the Ascona burst into speed and out of my window now was just a blur of green as we accelerated at the highest speed I had ever travelled in a car in all my life. Before and beneath me, a brown sheet formed as she consumed the dusty earth at a rate of 170 kilometres per hour.

I could feel her acoustic energy vibrating inside my chest as her roar screamed for heaven. Because it was humanly impossible to ignore such a tremendous show of speed and sound, people tilling the fields stopped to look. Some waved.

Those on the roadside gazed in awe before being buried in the dust rising in the Ascona’s wake. Suddenly, we were inside a dust storm. The Ascona seemed to lift its nose as we made a 180-degree turn. She was remarkably stable but her engine groaned as if she was straining.

I don’t know how Surinder knew when to release the handbrake because we were buried in the thick dust that we had been leaving in our wake. But in a continuous motion, we emerged from it and the Ascona was now accelerating down the road she had come, reaching 100kph in only six seconds.

Powerful life lessons from Kipchoge’s epic sub 2-hr marathon run. Published on Saturday, December 14, 2019

To run the greatest race of his life, Eliud Kipchoge competed against himself and not others. To bring out the best of yourself, you need collaborators and not competitors.

The 41 pace setters, the nutritionists, the coach, the physiotherapist, the sponsor, the air crew, the domestic staff, the family, friends – indeed Eliud Kipchoge’s entire universe – were single-minded of one thing: to break the record.

In any undertaking in life, we must create a similar environment for ourselves. This means that every project that requires the participation of others, once understood by all concerned, must take on the character of the Ineos 1:59 Challenge.

It has to be all hands on deck and any person not committed to the mission should ship out and make his or her contributions elsewhere.

Legend of Tanzanian marathon runner Akhwari: Winning is not everything. Published on Saturday, March 31, 2018

Mamo Waldo of Ethiopia, ever so comfortable with the Mexico altitude and having no difficulties of any kind, was leading the pack of 57 competitors still in the race.

And 2hr:20min:26sec after start, Wolde crossed the finish line a worthy winner and accepted the thunderous cheers of the massive crowd packing the stands of Estadio Olímpico Universitario, oblivious of the superhuman effort taking place far back in the course that he had run.

More than one hour after Wolde’s victory, darkness was falling over the stadium and the last spectators were going home after a memorable day of athletics. And then an announcement came through the public address system that there was still one runner on his way to the finish.

Many spectators returned to the stands and a television crew raced along the marathon course.

And there was Akhwari, limping heavily on his injured knee, barely able to walk but every now and then still attempting to run.

Some people winced at his every limp as if it was they who were feeling the excruciating pain in his bones and the exhaustion in his lungs. But all of them broke into the loudest cheer they had ever given a competitor. These cheers carried Akhwari over the finish line.

Best, worst national anthems at 2017 Cup of Nations. Published on Saturday, January 21, 2017

Algeria’s president Houari Boumediene had died on December 27 after a long illness. The Algerian team had travelled to the Games during the official mourning period.

Four athletes carried their flag horizontally, holding it at each of its corners as pall bearers would carry a casket. They were appropriately somber-faced. As they went around the stadium, some people said to them: “Pole.” (Sorry).

But when their national anthem was played, I was startled. It was the most aggressive of any I had heard.

It was like listening to an instrumental version of the Haka, the frightening traditional war cry performed by New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team. In later years, I sought the assistance of my friend Google to see if the lyrics were as menacing as the tone suggested.

They were even more frightening: “We swear by the lightning that destroys/By the virtuous and fragrant blood/By the shining, fluttering banners/In the steep and majestic mountains/That we have risen to revolution in life or death and we have resolved that Algeria shall live/So bear witness, bear witness, bear witness!” The first stanza has lines that say “we have taken the drum of gunpowder as our rhythm/And the sound of machine guns as our melody.”

To the best of my knowledge it is the only national anthem that threatens its former colonial master by name and warns it of dire consequences if…

“O France, the time of reproach has passed/And we have closed like a book; O France, the day of reckoning is at hand/So prepare to receive from us our answer!/In our revolution is the end of empty talk;/and we have resolved that Algeria shall live –/So bear witness, bear witness, bear witness!”

Unfortunately, lack of space doesn’t allow me to recap some pieces which by your feedback are deserving of this anniversary. That’s life.

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