LIKE FOOTBAL; KENYAN RUGBY CAN ATTRACT FANS BACK TO PLAYING GROUNDS

SOCCER IS A GAME PLAYED BY GENTLEMEN AND WATCHED BY HOOLIGANS…RUGBY IS A GAME PLAYED BY HOOLIGANS AND WATCHED BY GENTLEMEN!”

-Kenyan Prime Minister; Raila Odinga.

I recall hearing the above saying. I don’t know what he meant by that and though I’ve thought about it long enough, I’ve not been able to unravel the full mystery of those words.

Now, today, this very moment, I remember reading a piece on the Daily Nation by Clay Muganda-“Like Football, Cricket Can Attract Fans Back to Playing Grounds” (Monday November 12 Th; 2012). And I wish by his personal permission to borrow some insights from him.

After 232 matches, the league chase was finely balanced on a needle point going into the final day of the season. Even though chaos erupted after the football match between Gor Mahia and Thika United at Nairobi’s City Stadium; there is no denying the fact that there was much excitement across the country on Saturday for the climatic end.

Scenes that were witnessed in different football grounds around the world in different football grounds around the country were unimaginable a few years ago, when people lost both the faith in local football and the verve to go to stadia during matches.

For a moment there, local football had more or less died a natural death; suffocated by the unending wrangles and poor management by selected officials of both the clubs and the federation.

But gradually, people started streaming into the playing grounds, and corporate bodies saw the need to put their names on jerseys and local football resurrected.

As it rose from the dead; it awakened the pan-African TV channel Super sport which saw the business end of the local league and brought in its equipment so that the rest of Africa could join in the party.

With the entry of shirt sponsors and the broadcasters, local football has become fun and those who used to avoid the grounds for fear of violence are now treating local encounters as social events.

The same statements were echoed by Mr. Peter Abuoga- an administrator for the Kenya Harlequins Rugby club. The reverse is true about rugby. I sat with Mr Abuoga and heard his heart-wish to see rugby return to its glorious years.

The grounds rarely fill up even though charges are affordable. A match pitting Kenya Harlequins at the RFUEA grounds is levied at 300 bob-with a free lunch pack attachment. RFUEA can comfortably host over 2,000 fans and that is proof that as long as there is no hype, even promises of free entry or free lunch packs will not draw crowds.

It is not that rugby is a hated sport- on the contrary Safaricom Sevens is a good proof that Kenyans indeed love rugby but any rugby enthusiasts will tell you that back of any country is not in their sevens rugby but in their fifteens because that is where literally “ real men are separated from the buys.”

It is not that rugby is difficult to understand- a complicated sport of flankers, scrum halves, tries or set pieces- but it is either because people rarely know when the matches are played, or whether they are played at all.

A lot has been said about ways through which crowds can be “enticed “back to rugby grounds. And with this, I take time to put a call to Mr Arigi of the Ministry Of Rugby website on the need to revive back the website and the famous Elliptic awards. What about the planned fans’ retreats? We need to see more of that! But top of the agenda, still remains proper publicity, not only from the media side but also from rugby enthusiast out there via social media sites and blogs. But this alone cannot work unless there is some “value added services” in the grounds.

Granted rugby, like cricket is a gentleman’s game with drinks and lunch breaks, but even the gentlemen and their beautiful ladies can do with a little bit of extra fun on the sidelines, socializing and entertainment on the by-stands.

I long to see the sideshows that the football season had this year make a comeback to rugby- helmets with graffiti to urge the boys on to greater heights of performance; the braggadocio display of jerseys like the “K’ogalo Green Army”; the dancing and attractive sweeties like those of Sofapaka; the loud and sexy K’orgilo Divas or the pretty Ingwelets.

But above all; it will be a great joy to see the new phenomenon; the genesis of the “travelling fan” and the owning of our community rugby clubs by fans; where fans will come out with zeal and passion. Where fans will weep tears of pain after a loss and tears of joy after an overwhelming win; then we will culminate again over drinks and celebrate the win and the loss.

Let us return the “golden years” of this golden game of ours called rugby!