Sister affair for Uganda in goal

Hard Workers. Teenage goalkeeper Ayomirowth and Giramia going through their drills at Lugogo. PHOTOS/MAKHTUM MUZIRANSA

What you need to know:

  • After working with five goalkeepers during the preparation period, coach Moses Nsereko and his goalkeeping counterpart Musoke Dulf, zeroed in on cousins Sylvia Giramia and Susan Ayomirowth as their keepers to trust against the three nations and beyond.

If the pre tournament noise is anything to go by, then Uganda’s Hockey She Cranes need a goalkeeper that can stand on their head at the January 17-23 women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Accra – Ghana.
South Africa are considered favourites. Zimbabwe and Namibia, who complete Uganda’s pool, are said to be fit as fiddles and can run forever.
After working with five goalkeepers during the preparation period, coach Moses Nsereko and his goalkeeping counterpart Musoke Dulf, zeroed in on cousins Sylvia Giramia and Susan Ayomirowth as their keepers to trust against the three nations and beyond.

Good competition
“I am happy because I see the competitiveness in them,” Nsereko said of the Wananchi Sports Club goalkeepers who take over the mantle from Esther Chelimo and Shakirah Nambooze, who kept in Kenya at the FIH (International Hockey Federation) Bi-Nation Series last March.
The two have been brought up under the roof of their aunt Mary Nayenga and most people know them as sisters. However, they do not share parents as their mothers Gladys Owada and Janet Akumu are sisters while their fathers have since passed on.

“She (Susan) is my sister and I call her (Nayenga) mum. That is all that matters,” Giramia, who was the first to join the sport as a senior one student at City High School, says. At the time Giramia had also joined Wananchi.
“I got tired of being on the bench and decided to try my luck in goal as we had only one keeper,” Giramia recalls. 
Within months, Giramia had toppled another budding talent, at the time, in Chelimo as Wananchi’s goalkeeper and was also on the bus to play for them at the Africa Cup of Club Championships in Nairobi in 2016. Two years later, she represented Uganda in the Africa U-19 hockey 5s tournament in Nairobi.
They do seem like fast learners. As Covid-19 bit in 2021, , 23, kept away from hockey for personal reasons.
Fortunately, Ayomirowth, who was also struggling to continue with football, had been quietly “falling in love with what she (Giramia) was playing” and agreed to cover up for her absent sister.

Main sport
“In the beginning, I actually feared balls and to get on pitch. But now I can comfortably say, hockey is my main sport,” Ayomirowth, 17, says.After a club season where Wananchi conceded less than five goals to win three trophies, the sisters are now giving Nsereko a selection headache. 
“I am fitter and faster but she (Giramia) is technically better and more experienced. 

“But I will take my chance if it comes,” Ayomirowth says. Giramia, on the other hand “will see what the coach decides. Even then, we need to encourage each other to do better.”
In Accra both players will be hoping to push themselves “beyond our limits” and that will be music to Nsereko’s ears as he can do with an elastic goalkeeper or two.

AYOMIROWTH PROFILE  
Name: Susan Ayomirowth
Age: 17
School: City High
Debut Year: 2021
Club: Wananchi
Position: Goalkeeper
Motto: The sky is the limit

GIRAMIA AT A GLANCE  
Name: Sylvia Giramia
Age: 23
School: City High
Debut Year: 2015
Club: Wananchi
Position: Goalkeeper
Caps: 2 (5-aside)
Goal: To perform beyond our limits