Where is our football if it isn’t here at home one may ask? It is in exile, in Europe. It is in the English Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and the Champions League. It is with Ronaldo, Arteta, Dean, the Glazers and Qatari Royalty. It is in London, Paris, Madrid, Abu Dhabi and soon going to Jeddah.Every week, thousands of football fixtures are honoured in Kenya. But they’re just that, fixtures. Football is more than a fixture; it is a match of people. A match of players, officials, fans, community and most of all a fixture and a match of our stories. And our stories are missing.Stories are important. We look at the world in terms of stories and the characters in them. The who, the what, the how, the when and the where. To have a story is to have life. It is to be, to be part of something and part of the whole.To lose a story is to lose life, belonging and the person you are. To kill someone is to end their story. To tell a story is to give life.Kenya’s football story has been lost for a while now if not dead. What has been told for a long time is the bad story primarily built on emphasis on the game’s bad politics not the game on the pitch. It is the bad official, not the great player, who has been the main character in Kenyan football.Our own story tellers, the journalists, pundits and commentators have also lost out big. Kenyan media turned the game on all of us because in business, you follow the money. The money was in the bad story of Kenyan football wrangles and in the high drama of the English Premier League. The beautiful stories of our game were relegated, and with that our players, clubs and story tellers were forgotten.“It’s coming home” na uko Meru? This is not Mafuko Bombers….Mugambi!— iDaywa (@iDaywa) July 8, 2021 Our media space is essentially our journalists’ real estate. This is where they build their dreams through their day to day sweat, blood, stones and tears. This is where they grow, the reason they went to media school. Sadly, our journalists’ primary assignment seemed to have been the bad story.The beautiful stories told are imported from British journalists and media. Unwittingly, we relegated our media and journalists to merely amplifying British journalists and media. Our media space, journalists and commentators have become amplifiers for British media, journalists and commentators. For every football space in Kenyan traditional media, the British journalist gets 50% of it, the British photojournalist 30% of it, the Kenyan journalist the remaining 20% and the Kenyan photojournalist is increasingly getting none at all. Kenya has beautiful football stories but we forgot how to tell them. What people don’t hear, read or see, doesn’t exist. 2022 is a football year. It starts with the Africa Cup of Nations and ends with the Qatar World Cup with our own in between the two.Let me try tell some stories. Have you ever heard of Antony “Muki” Kimani, the Nairobi City Stars Captain? Muki has played football all his life and went semi-professional at World Hope FC in the KPL’s last glory days between 2008 and 2012. A young talented and hopeful player. There was promise on his face and feet, the highest levels were waiting. But then, the struggle began. The good stories died and he almost got swept away in the chaos. He became a journeyman never really getting the opportunity or a home to really grow.Now despite the challenges, the despair and hard times, the salt and pepper bearded Muki has come alive again where it all began; Nairobi City Stars. Captain, leader, star and hero fully on duty. Something heroic, someone heroic. Just the kind of story and person our younger footballers should be hearing from and aspiring to be remains untold. The failure to acknowledge and tell an unfolding great story is to deny that person, their effort, the dream and the lessons he carries for us for the future. We’ll not remember the noise of our enemies but the silence of our friends.Then there is Eugene Asike, Tusker FC Captain. First time I saw Eugene I could tell he had some privilege and I naively wondered why he’d chosen Kenyan football. It’s a hard life. It looked to me as if he had a cheque which he could cash and have a better opportunity in life. Eugene chose football, his love, his dream, his life. And to choose this particularly in Kenya is to choose violence. Over the years I have watched him fight through blood, sweat, shit and tears. He chose and kept true to his journey and he now looks happier, dapper and younger than I ever saw him, at the top of the game. Eugene should be a big Kenyan star.##EDITORS_CHOICE##And there is the story of my home’s football club; the Meru Bombers. There is a lot of heroism here but not triumphant heroism like that of Muki or Eugene yet.Meru Bombers is one of Kenya’s legacy football clubs now playing in the 4th tier regional league. We all know how every day is a desperate struggle in Kenyan football. We struggle for a pitch to play on since our home ground Kinoru Stadium has yet to be handed over for football since President Kenyatta launched it in 2018.Water for match days, transport and accommodation for away games are a constant worry and struggle. Referee fees, pitch marking and security costs are a nightmare to raise. We never even think of player allowances. Our captain, Ibrahim “Blackie” Muiti, a most committed and talented young man has to take on odd construction jobs to survive as do almost all the other players. This sadly is the state of almost every Kenyan club and player all the way to the premier league.Bring Football Back Home is a call and claim to action on all of us. We can and should do something about our football.It looks like we have been blessed with some space and time from bad politics. We are out of the woods but still in the wilderness. We can’t tell if it is the Red Sea or Canaan that’s ahead of us. And it looks to me like the choice on where to go is ours.The FKF Caretaker Committee in place may be Moses if it wishes to or Pharaoh if it allows itself to get captured by the past. It has the singular challenge of beginning a new order not restoring the old one. The old order is the bad story of the seven plagues.Linda Ogutu is a journalist, she knows the power of story. Justice Aaron Ringera is an eminent jurist who loves story and I’ll paraphrase him; “Kenyan football is stuck between the anvil of poor leadership and the relentless hammer of bad stories.” Lessons Kenyan footballers can pick from Willard Katsande This is a call to give Kenya’s football love, life and being. A call for some more time on the footballer than the official. A call for more time on the game than the politics. Sometime for Kenyan football before we go to the EPL.The EPL is endearing to the world because in 1992 some people sat down and chose a new story and beginning for their game. It has been 30 years of wander and they make us lust for it more and more. It has also been 30 years of seeing how a story can build back better.Let those who will be here in 30 years’ time say, “In 2022, Kenyans chose to take matters into their hands and change the story of our game … and today we are Africa’s football giant because those men and women chose a fresh start, a new story, creative transformation ..” Creative transformations are primarily done through storytelling. I am delighted to see new media and a new generation of story tellers rise and step up. There are many blogs and football websites dedicated to the Kenyan game. I’m seeing podcasts, Twitter Spaces and YouTube channels emerging.It’s encouraging to see Royal Media Services embrace the Kenyan game as a source of content. This is a potential big game changer. I am happy to see new Kenyan video streaming services like Citizen Digital, K24+ and Safaricom Baze emerge and start a local content contest. It’s great to see clubs stream their games live on Facebook and build the banter on their social media.Meru Bombers is 40 years old this year and we have a party. We are dreaming and working. We want our own creative transformation. In the short term we’ll leverage the 40th anniversary to spring board in a series of iconic events with an attempt at breaking a Football World Record as the highlight. We are developing a roadmap for the next 40 years for the long term. We have a mountain to climb and we welcome you to journey with us. Meru, the land of the brave and beautiful, is going to bring its football back home.We have the choice through the stories we tell to either buy Cristiano Ronaldo another Bugatti Veyron or pack Kasarani to the rooftop for Muki and Eugene’s testimonials the day they come. Let’s Bring Football Back Home.Nkaari Martin K is the Vice Chairman of Meru Bombers
