{"id":263,"date":"2011-12-20T15:29:33","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T15:29:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/?p=263"},"modified":"2013-01-24T01:09:01","modified_gmt":"2013-01-24T01:09:01","slug":"the-green-army-always-marches-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/news\/the-green-army-always-marches-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"The green army always marches forward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/gormahia.net\/images\/lap.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"486\" height=\"365\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Flash back to 1992. Musa Otieno was the most promising player in Kenya. He was still a form 2 student at Ofafa Jericho secondary school. But his talents had caught the eyes of football pundits when they saw him play for Gor Mahia during the 1992 transfer season. He had a calmness and sure-footedeness that belied his youth. Many immediately said he would become the best defender Kenya had ever produced. Only a few weeks later &#8220;Otero&#8221; as he was popularly known had left for AFC after Cyrus Jirongo the then AFC chairman flashed YK 92 money in front of him. Gor Mahia recovered and won the league in 1993. They also reached the quarterfinals of the CAF confederations cup that year. The central defensive pairing of Sammy Omollo and Paul Ochieng stood firm and is possibly one of the best ever to play in Kenya.<\/p>\n<p>Flash further back to 1983. Charles Otieno was the heart and soul of the Gor Mahia team that won the league in 1983. He had been dubbed as &#8220;the engine of the team by then coach Len Julians. Otieno left to join Kenya Breweries (now known as Tusker), after they offered him a lucrative job. Fans were in despair. But Gor Mahia never skipped a beat in 1984. In came Abbas Magongo from Mombasa via Pamba of Shinyanga. In came George Onyango &#8220;Fundi&#8221; from Cargo via Lake Warriors. Together with John Okello Zangi they formed a superb midfield trio that took Kogalo to even greater heights in 1984 when they won the league by a larger margin.<\/p>\n<p>Flash further back to 1974. Gor Mahia lost 9 players including the legendary William Ouma &#8220;Chege&#8221; and goalkeeper James Sianga to Luo Union. This is perhaps the largest player loss in the history of the club. But Gor Mahia went back to the grassroots recruiting players Jerry Imbo, Maurice Ochieng &#8220;Sonyi&#8221;, Mike Ogolla &#8220;Machine&#8221; among others. In 1976 they won the league unbeaten.<\/p>\n<p>The moral of the story is that the club always has the ability to march on. The onus however is on the club management to make sure that players are well taken care of. Players will always leave for greener pastures. It is therefore incumbent upon the club to ensure that deserving players are well compensated. When players do leave, its up to the club to rebuild and move forward.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fb-background-color\">\n\t\t\t  <div \n\t\t\t  \tclass = \"fb-comments\" \n\t\t\t  \tdata-href = \"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/news\/the-green-army-always-marches-forward\/\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-numposts = \"10\"\n\t\t\t  \tdata-lazy = \"true\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-colorscheme = \"light\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-order-by = \"social\"\n\t\t\t\tdata-mobile=true>\n\t\t\t  <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t  <style>\n\t\t    .fb-background-color {\n\t\t\t\tbackground:  !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t.fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe {\n\t\t\t    width: 100% !important;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t  <\/style>\n\t\t  ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Flash back to 1992. Musa Otieno was the most promising player in Kenya. He was still a form 2 student<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[66,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gormahia.net\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}