Bridesmaids St Julian wear the crown, Mukono vibrates

District executives at Mukono longstanding but habitually middleweight footballing area, have been sending congratulatory messages since at least Sunday. Some were delivered in person, others were unsolicited and unexpected notes from peers and acquaintances and, to occasional surprise, foes.

Football, after all, is fiercely brutal. Rivals do not easily offer one another encouragement or congratulations. But as the USSSA Boys Football Championship ended on Sunday in Masaka City, plenty wanted to laud St Julian’s achievement of being crowned national champions for the first time. And, that meant the trophy was not going to either Wakiso or Kampala districts since 2018.

A drought

For Mukono District, the title drought stretches more than 20 years since Naggalama Islamic won the Coca-Cola Cup in 2002. All St Julian needed was to convincingly beat Amus College Bukedea 3-0 in Sunday’s final and end the tournament unbeaten.

The triumph has been a long time coming, in one sense; the school was founded in 1999 initially in Gayaza and expanded to Mukono just recently. But in another sense, it has arrived more swiftly than anyone anticipated.

Last year, the team didn’t make even the regional qualifiers despite having one of the best squads. Having partnered with the Rays of Grace Academy, head coach Felix Ssekabuuza would accept that his team might win the championship this year. As it is, they claimed the title so early that they struggled with proper celebrations.

Players arrived at Seeta campus by 11am but were served fried rice at lunch, their only meal of the day before they joined the procession to Mukono District headquarters. The grand celebrations will now be held when the students report to school next term.

Trophy parade

With the students on holiday, the trophy parade saw some fans in Seeta and Mukono saluting the players with some unaware of the school’s triumph while most Jinja Road users were simply disturbed by the unusual traffic congestion.

“We are very proud of you. Our dream as a district has been to win the national trophy and we thank God who has answered our prayers,” Stephen Kitooke, the Mukono District Schools Sports Association (MDSSA) chairperson said.

School founder Geoffrey 'Jeff' Sserunjogi commonly known as Grandpa says their mission is to equip young people with valuable life skills.

"As a school, this is a great accomplishment. We aim at helping our children reach the highest levels of excellence and this triumph is a testament to that," Sserunjogi said.

St Julian Schools have become almost synonymous with academic excellence. That reputation is so deeply scoured into the school’s soul that St Julian is one of the most highly sought-after schools in Wakiso District.

After becoming frustrated with sports, the team that played in Fort Portal from the Gayaza Campus were like orphans and barely made an impact.

Breaking Kitende dominance

The triumph by the Seeta branch carries a significance that will extend some way beyond the school boundaries.

The ritual dominance in recent years of St Mary’s Kitende, the country’s richest school in sports, had become a source of considerable concern to fans as the annual chase to win the trophy seemed stale and predictable. But in a sporting gesture, St Mary’s SS Kitende offered St Julian a guard of honour.

As the many messages that have poured into St Julian attest, there is no little relief within school football changing of the guard, even if it proves temporary.

“This is good for school football. The trophy needs to be contested by many schools. At first, I doubted whether any school apart from Kitende would win the trophy but I am excited it’s one from my area,” the deputy Resident District Commissioner of Mukono, Mike Segawa, an alumnus of the Nation Media Group, said.

“We have recently been receiving trophies from district and zonal competitions but this is the king of trophies. We now want our team to go continental and other bigger leagues,” he added.

Head coach Ssekabuuza is confident about building on this success. He expects to be around next year as he is part of the bigger project of Rays of Grace Academy owned by Roberts Kiwanuka.

Like most school football fans, St Julian fans can take just a little pleasure because it means St. Mary’s Kitende will get to experience what it means to finish empty handed.