When it rains, it pours! Players from National Super League team Northern Wanderers are pulling themselves together to be ready for the league’s kick-off on Sunday.
An embarrassment of talent from Northern Kenya, they have been forced to relocate to Nairobi as their entire regions – that traverses six counties – doesn’t have a single stadium fit to host a football match.
They join five other new entrants in the league — Vihiga United, Mt Kenya United, Muranga Sports Excellence Academy FC, Vihiga Bullets and APS Bomet FC.
But ahead of their opening match against Nairobi Stima at the Camp Toyoyo ground in Nairobi tomorrow, Wanderers are having to clear multiple hurdles.
Crammed in a seven-bedroom house in Nairobi’s Buru buru estate, some of the players were arrested midweek, suspected to be dangerous aliens.
Crammed in a seven-bedroom house in Nairobi’s Buru buru estate, some of the players were arrested midweek, suspected to be dangerous aliens.
They were accused of ignoring census enumerators but, in defence, they argued that they were out on training when the officials arrived on multiple occasions.
Team manager Noordin Badel says they are struggling to cope. “All these challenges are taking a toll on us, especially psychologically, but we have a good team consisting of the best players from Garissa, Mandera, Wajir, Moyale and Isiolo,” Badel told Nation Sport.
“Our plan is to finish at least in the top half of the table in our debut season. I am optimistic we will achieve our target.
“It is a shame that not even a single county in North Eastern has a stadium that can host league matches.
“Marsabit, Isiolo, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and Tana River counties have many football fans that would have really enjoyed watching this team play in the NSL but we have been forced to relocate to Nairobi.
“All those counties have departments of sports and we wonder what they do yet we don’t even have just one descent facility that can host a game!
“We are forced to hire Camp Toyoyo daily and it is not cheap for a team with no sponsor,” Badel lamented. The team has been forced to share a seven-bedroom house with neighbours, who have no idea they are footballers, fearing they could be a security risk. “We have been forced to accommodate the team in a seven-bedroomed house in Buru buru and it hasn’t been an easy ride for us so far.
“Leaders from North Eastern promised a lot initially and we were even supposed to have a fundraising dinner but none of that has happened yet. We have been harassed by police in the house before suspecting us to be terrorists and these and other challenges are really demoralizing the players.”
So dire is the situation that when Nation Sports visited the team in training on Thursday afternoon, only a handful of players were present.
And the session did not kick off as scheduled because Noordin was busy trying to secure the release of most of the players who had been arrested at their Buruburu residence. The census enumerators had come in with police just as the players were preparing to leave for training, and in the ensuing melee, the players were arrested.
Suleiman Mohammed Abdi, an offensive midfielder, is, however, convinced the team will do well in the NSL. And Badel maintains theirs is to prove to Kenyans that there’s football talent in North Eastern
“We have very talented boys and girls in Northern Kenya but most of them never make it to the top level due to the fact that the part of Kenya is isolated and that is why we combined local teams to form one strong team to play in the National Super League,” he says.
“This is a good platform to expose their talents and I’m sure some of them will be scouted by good clubs once we start competing. We have had a few friendly matches and all our opponents have been surprised by our ability.
“I am convinced that we will do well in the NSL and open the eyes of everyone in Kenya to realize that we are passionate and talented in sports despite coming from an arid region.”