The men and women who made us laugh, cry and cheer on the pitch, road, track and ring

PHOTO | FILE Joginder Singh in an interview with journalists at Jamhuri Park during the East African Safari Rally on March 26, 1967.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By ROY GACHUHI gachuhiroy@gmail.com
Posted  Friday, May 31  2013 at  23:27

IN SUMMARY

• The challenge is always that these parameters sometimes get into each other’s way and can cancel out each other. All said and done, it can sometimes be easy, like selecting Robert Wangila, the only Kenyan and African to win an Olympic boxing gold medal and it can also be impossibly difficult, like trying to wade into the minefield of who the greatest footballers are.

Joginder Singh lost his gearbox, drove in reverse for four and a half kilometres against on-coming Safari Rally traffic, found himself behind 115 cars but against all the odds, he fixed it and overtook them all, save for two, after he just run out of time and road.

Henry Rono, possessed of a mysterious talent, smashed four athletics world records in a space of less than three months and—together with Stephen Muchoki, world amateur boxing champion in 1978 — became Kenya’s greatest Olympian who never was because of world politics.

Mahmoud Abbas stopped penalties when opponents needed them most and became the embodiment of the eternal rivalry between Kenya and Uganda when his two saves ended the Cranes’ 15-year unbeaten record at home in the regional Senior Challenge Challenge Cup.

Avtar Singh reigned in the Guiness Book of Records for years as the world’s most capped hockey player with 167 internationals for the Kenya national team.

And as a tennis-court ball boy at the Nairobi Gymkhana, Thomas Odoyo watched cricket from the corner of his eyes, liked it, took it up, and went on to become one of Kenya’s greatest all-rounders.

From seemingly hopeless positions, he was able to steal victories for Gymkhana and Kenya and came to be known as a match-winner.

Kenya is 50 and the sublime moment of saying “I witnessed” is here. This moment unleashes feelings of nostalgia and inspires hero worship. Fortunately, after conforming to all the discipline, sports writers are forgiven and allowed the indulgence.

After all, who cannot be moved by seeing what is thought to be humanly impossible and after that retreating to write about superman?

Tough task

But with the beautiful memory comes the hard work. The editor’s demand here is for a list of Kenya’s Greatest Sportsmen and Women of the Last 50 Years and reasons for their selection.

This requires consideration of a bewildering array of parameters, from longevity in the national team, Olympic and world championship performance, to contribution to society and making the greatest impact, however short the time one performed on the national stage.

The challenge is always that these parameters sometimes get into each other’s way and can cancel out each other. All said and done, it can sometimes be easy, like selecting Robert Wangila, the only Kenyan and African to win an Olympic boxing gold medal and it can also be impossibly difficult, like trying to wade into the minefield of who the greatest footballers are. One sport features individuals and the other a team.

Remember what Pele said: “A ball passed well to a striker is every bit as important as the goal itself.”

That should warn us against Alfred Sambu’s folly. Sambu once thought the best way to motivate his AFC Leopards team was by rewarding the leading goal scorer with Sh10,000. Deservedly, he got a player rebellion.

But the task is inescapable and, true enough, there are players and there are players. We have waded into that territory and we have finished the task with tremendous respect for those we have left out. And we are ready for the robust feedback which we know is coming. This applies to other team sports like hockey, volleyball, basketball and cricket as well.

When asked to travel around the world and take pictures of prospective medallists against the monuments and landmarks of their country’s for TIME Magazine in the lead up to the 1984 Olympics, Neil Leifer, the world famous sports photographer, remarked: “Not only was this the best assignment I’ve ever had; it was also the best I’ve ever heard about.”

For me, to be asked by the Saturday Nation to select our greatest sportsmen and women of all the years of our independence is to almost enter sacred territory. I have seen how these people have become the focal point of our unity when politics emphasises our differences. I have seen them give us a collective identity when we retreated into race, tribe and religion.

I have seen them give hope to poor children in dusty playfields who over 50 years have grown up wanting to be like them. It has therefore been a great pleasure and privilege to participate in this assignment honouring our best. It is subjective even as it was guided by one word: objectivity.That is the nature of sport – the one I like is the one you don’t. Give us your feedback. Criticise us, vehemently if that’s how you feel
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