Prime
Documenting football’s seminal moments step in right direction
ROBERT MADOI
What you need to know:
Thankfully, we now appear to be doing a much better job of documenting the defining moments of our football history. Farouk Miya's scuffed shot, at the second time of asking, that ended Uganda's nearly four-decade-long Afcon drought should not be too hard to excavate.
The Christmas wreaths were hanging from the windows of Grand Imperial Hotel in downtown Kampala when I met Mike Mutebi for what would turn out to be a long, wide-ranging interview. It was Christmas Eve of 2004. Mutebi, who chose a quiet place within touching distance of the hotel’s swimming pool, was strikingly relaxed.
It had been a whirlwind year that left yours truly with a lot to unpack. Since we had avoided the noisy time when the late breakfast crowd merges with the early lunch crowd, we were always bound to find an attentive audience in each other.
While he had lost the Cranes coaching reins to Muhammad Abbas at the backend of the year, Mutebi began 2004 with a bright smile and even brighter blazers in Uganda's dugout. But before I could ask him about his decision (labelled controversial in many quarters) to name David Obua as Cranes captain, a middle-aged gentleman approached our corner table.
He was, I reckoned, a little tentative. Mutebi would later tell me that the gentleman in question was none other than Issa Ssekatawa.
The first Ugandan footballer to endorse a brand, Ssekatawa had such a gargantuan appetite for goals during his heyday. He scored goals in excess of 150, a staggering return by Ugandan standards.
On that cloudless Christmas Eve afternoon of 2004, Mutebi was relentless in his praise of Ssekatawa's clinical display that helped Uganda stun Algeria 4-1 at Nakivubo Stadium. Watching Algeria dither over a way out of the mess that day, on May 28, 1983, it was scarcely believable—at least in Mutebi's assessment—that hardly a year ago the Desert Foxes had edged past the mighty West Germany 1-0. That, mark you, was at the 1982 Fifa World Cup.
Mutebi particularly remembered with a sentimental fondness Ssekatawa's deftly executed free kick that was sandwiched by Paul Hasule's opening goal and Philip Omondi's brace.
It is not every day that Mutebi describes a goal as being a thing of beauty. Yet here he was, 21 years after Ssekatawa's free kick caressed the onion bag, confirming that the goal did more than maintain a tiny glint of grailness.
The goal had all its sparkle intact, alright, but it only lives in the minds of fans that squeezed into Nakivubo on that sweltering day.
Immortalised in print and endlessly recalled since it has been, but visuals of Ssekatawa's goal itself are conspicuously absent. Lamentably, it is not an outlier. There are many goals scored by Cranes greats that went on to become a monument of their era, but whose most durable magic lingers only in the collective memory of those fortunate to watch them.
Omondi's goal during Uganda's 2-1 semifinal win over Nigeria at the 1978 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) provides a good example of what this column is articulating.
The aforesaid goal has long been lionised as a creation that smells of roses. Abedi Pele, the Ghanaian great who was a ball boy at that 1978 Afcon tournament, purred with awe when he was talking about why the goal stands as a beautiful reminder of the inexhaustible talents of African footballers. Pele made the remarks in 2006 during a visit to Uganda.
To be clear, the absence of visuals did not only course through the 1970s to the 1990s. The deficits also persisted well after the turn of the second millennium.
There are goals that came off the boot of a Hassan Mubiru here (he had a thing for wonderfully volleyed strikes!) and an Andrew 'Fimbo' Mukasa there that unfortunately were not captured on camera. As moving images, that is. If they were, it was only ephemeral for the repository no longer has them.
Thankfully, we now appear to be doing a much better job of documenting the defining moments of our football history. Farouk Miya's scuffed shot, at the second time of asking, that ended Uganda's nearly four-decade-long Afcon drought should not be too hard to excavate.
Ditto beauties like Denis Omedi's Rabona goal against KCCA FC and Jackson Nunda's Omondi-esque finish against Onduparaka FC. The latter evoked an unusually animated celebration from Mutebi. Responsible authorities should continue in the same vein.
History will remember them fondly for doing what now feels like a mundane, if thankless, job.
