Olila turning into regional sports force

At the beginning of this season, Olila High School (OHS) set what then seemed to be an over ambitious plan to become one of women’s football power clubs.

The Soroti-based club has its roots firmly embedded in the school that goes by the same name and was formed in 1995 by Makerere University Professor Deogratius Olila.

“We did not set out to do sports at first. All we wanted was to plug the gap in the education fortunes of our regions especially in terms of university entries,” Deogratius shares in an interview with SCORE. So far so good on that front but for five years now, the school has been pushing hard to become a sports hub in the north eastern region.

They have been involved in regional and national basketball and athletics competitions too but it is from girls’ cricket and football that the Olila have found their niche.

Olila flirted with relegation when they finished sixth in Victoria Group during their debut season, 2015-16, of the Fufa Women Elite League (FWEL). It was hard to imagine the fortunes would change as quickly as they have done.

Suffice it to note that no club has ever been relegated in the three editions of the FWEL owing to irregular football patterns at regional level.

Becoming competitors
Olila have indeed used the opportunity to redeem themselves in the just concluded season. Since women’s football in Uganda does not come with many incentives – save a job here and there or a bursary for school going players, it is relatively easy for clubs to convince players to join a given project.

“What happened previously was that the club purely depended on girls studying at the school,” says Deogratius.

“So we recruited about five girls from some other clubs and some from other schools. We also kept some that had finished their Advanced Level,” added the Professor of Veterinary Medicine.

Goalkeeper Vanessa Karungi – a student at Mukono High SS – defender Wilmer Nantumbwe and midfielder Cissy Nantongo joined the club alongside their coach John Ongodia from She Corporate. Fazirah Ikwaput came in from Eastern Heroes while Rita Nabbosa is now a student of the school after joining from Western United.

Despite finishing their secondary school education, Norah Alupo and Nantumbwe are working in the Olila library and computer lab respectively as they await to join university, hopefully in August. Such is the way the school has tried to motivate some of their players.

Unfortunately, the relationship between the school owner and Ongodia did not kick on quite well with the latter leaving for men’s side Bukedea Town Council, which has been promoted to the Fufa Big League.

But the foundation had been laid. Olila, under new coach Saddam Pande, created history last weekend as winners of the inaugural Fufa Women Cup – a trophy that atones for near misses in various football events this year.

Two weeks before, they finished second in Victoria Group with 25 points in 12 games to earn a place in the FWEL semi-final playoffs that they lost 2-0 to eventual winners and three time champions Kawempe Muslim.

They ended up losing 3-2 on penalties in the third place playoff to Uganda Martyrs High School, Lubaga but Ikwaput was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the FWEL. She went on to become top scorer in the Cup with five goals, while Nabossa was crowned MVP and Karungi best goalkeeper. Pande was the best coach of the tournament that climaxed with a 3-1 win over Gafford on penalties at Madibira Grounds, Busia.

“It was the first final for most of the girls so winning adds something in terms of motivation and makes us yearn for more,” Pande, who has already set sights on defending the Cup and winning the league next season, said.

Cricket powerhouse
The triumph will also atone for the heartbreak from the Girls’ Schools Cricket Week where they lost to Jinja SS by nine wickets in the semi-finals. In that tournament too, Olila had the best individual performers in Mildred Anyigo as best batter with 66 runs, captain Joyce Mary Apio as best bowler after picking 13 wickets whereas Esther Iloku stood out as the best wicketkeeper with four dismissals.

Olila had no plans to play cricket but were among 15 schools taken up by Felix Musana’s Soroti Cricket Academy. They now play in the Women’s National Twenty20 League too. “Cricket is a Kampala, Jinja affair but we took the risks of investing in Soroti. These three years have not been easy but we are starting to see the fruits of our work,” Musana shared.

Musana and his co-directors of the academy say they “started from scratch and despite having to fund the project, are overwhelmed by the success that has come in such a short time.”
According to the school director, the cricket team now attracts as much attention as the football teams.

“Olila is a model school for our project. They now have some national team players so you can understand the attention that brings,” Musana says. For football, Ikwaput and Nabossa are the only Uganda Crested Cranes, the women’s national team, members from Olila.

Challenges
Though such success comes with challenges, Olila has been able to cope – a thing that the director feels makes them a force that we will have to reckon with for years.

“We run a school sports budget which supports the club too but there are times I have to use my own earnings sometimes.

“We have a school bus which helps us cut transport costs. When we travel to Kampala for games, we reside at Mpererwe School or at Njeru Technical Centre which is comfortable and cheap.
“We therefore appreciate Fufa for that. In cricket, we get a lot of support (in form of equipment) from Uganda Cricket Association (UCA) and we hope Fufa will come in too at some point,” he added.
The sky is certainly the limit for Olila High School.

Success stories over the Years
Fufa Women Cup
Inaugural winners 2017
Airtel Rising Stars
Winners of the North East Region Qualifiers 2016
Fufa Women Elite League
4th placed in 2017