No cause for alarm after Mombasa loss to Bandari

"We know the strength of our opponents and we are also aware that fatigue has taken toll on them following a congested season and we will seek to take advantage of the situation.:

"We are going for nothing short of a win today and have prepared well for the match. It will therefore be either a win for us or a loss for Gor Mahia.”

When I read these threats in this newspapers from Bandari coach Bernard Mwalala on the morning before Gor Mahia met his team later in the day, I dismissed them as mere sabre-rattling which we have become accustomed to when facing our opponents.

This is how the script usually flowed: Gor gets drawn against a team whether in the SportPesa Premier League, or regional and continental competitions.
Our opponents go full throttle firing from both sides of the mouth.

We take to the pitch and give them a thorough hiding.

Then we as members of the supporting battalion aka the Green Army sit back and watch as the opposing coach and his charges eat the proverbial humble pie.

Good thing with this pie is that it can never leave you constipated. Nor with a running stomach.

At the end of the day, it happens that coach Mwalala was not howling in the wind. Bandari did what many teams in Kenya and the continent had failed to do - they beat the Mighty Gor Mahia ending a spectacular unbeaten run that began last October.

Those who watched the match will agree with me that the 2-1 score was against the run of the play.

As usual, Gor were the better side dictating the pace and tempo of the match at will. On the other hand, Bandari employed all manner of dirty tricks in the book.

It looked like time wasting tactic was invented at Bandari.

So much so that an infuriated referee handed fullback Fred Nkata a second yellow card for all his valiant efforts at time wasting.

What we as fans must understand is that every team we meet wants Gor’s scalp.

Losing is part of the game and we should not froth at the mouth firing all manner of reasons — some bordering on the absurd — over bad performance.
We all have a bad day in the office occasionally and our players are no exception.

I was amused reading a theory that the reason Gor to Bandari was because the boys had been taken to high end establishment for haute and lodgings.

What bull!

I was impressed by the captain Haron Shakava’s attitude after the loss: “That was a painful result because we did not deserve to lose.”

“That was a one-off result. We were dominating as usual and then they scored.

“Thereafter, we were on top of things but then they suddenly scored again completely against the run of play.

“I expect us to recover from that blip because we know what we want. We want to retain the league.”