This article was published in the Daily Nation, February 23, 2013.
Joseph Disi could have scored Nakuru RFC’s first competitive try after Nakuru’s decades long hiatus in 1986. He didn’t. Instead, Disi ran past Impala Club’s in-goal line before he could ground the ball. Such was the enthusiasm at Nakuru, rough around the edges but full of promise.
In 1985, Larry Okinyo and Ham Onsando recruited a handful of rugby enthusiasts at Elliot’s Bakery where Onsando worked as a supervisor. The no-minutes meeting, convened by Onsando tasked all in attendance to turn up for the next meeting with a new member, while Okinyo was given the hardest task; find a rugby ball and a playing ground. Twelve players were expected from the six attendees: Onsando, Okinyo, Linus Odinga, Mbaga Wandera, Vimi Mutsumi and Bob Oile.
Luck is what you make of it, as the saying goes, and in the parking of the Pivot Hotel, Okinyo saw a car with a Mwamba RFC sticker on the rear windshield. On further investigation, he found that the car’s owner was none other than Mitu Kainga, having one for the road. Okinyo, a former Mwamba player himself, shared his rugby dilemma with Kainga.
Okinyo finds a rugby ball
“I don’t know why or how, but I had a size 5 ‘Wallaby’ rugby ball in my boot” , said Kainga in an interview. “ I gave it to Larry with my blessings.”
Kainga had just been transferred to Nakuru by his employer.
With the first task out of the way, Okinyo went to Menengai High School, where he knew the games master by one name, Kamau. Okinyo left with permission to use the school grounds.
At the next meeting, the only new recruit was Joseph Disi, but with a ball and a playing field, there was light at the end of the tunnel.
Training started at Menengai High in early 1986. The numbers grew when players like Ken Nyangaga, Alfred Toko, Philip Mumusi and Mitu Kainga joined in. At the end of January, Kainga and a few lads went to Nakuru Athletic Club where they met Peter Prinsloo, a previous chairman of the club, the home of the former engine room of East African rugby, Nakuru RFC. Waist high grass had grown over Nakuru’s glory days, when Nakuru was the team to beat. The Lofty Cup, named after ‘Lofty’ Reynolds, Nakuru’s towering second row, was later named the Kenya Cup in 1970. Once a dominant force, the club had shut down when European settlers left the country after Kenya gained independence. In a drawn-out battle with changing times, Nakuru merged with its old foe Kitale, to form Kituru RFC, before retreating again, and calling in all the troops to Naivasha to play as West Kenya Oribis under the motto, “Have boots will travel.”
To oil the wheels of a pending partnership with Nakuru Athletic Club, Coutts Otollo, a founding Mean Machine member, paid membership at NAC for six players. Raphael Korir, the Nakuru Mayor, lent the services of the council mower to lower the grass, and a fledgling Nakuru moved into their new home.
Later that year Mwamba and Kenya Breweries RFC travelled to Nakuru for a weekend of rugby, playing each other on a round-robin basis, Nakuru lost 12-0 to Mwamba and 38-0 to Kenya Breweries.
A short while later Nakuru travelled to Nairobi to play Impala, losing 7-0, when Disi overran the in-goal. Nakuru’s first try was scored the next day, when Mark Lumula and Elijah ‘Poacher’ Mulwa scored a try each when Nakuru lost 40-8 to Kenya Harlequin. At that time a try counted for four points.
Later, Nakuru hosted a friendly tournament, inviting teams from Nairobi. After a barnstorming post tournament party Nakuru players were kicked out of Nakuru Athletic. But not for long. Nakuru were soon ‘back home.’
Dennis Awori, chairman of the Kenya Rugby Football Union, gifted Nakuru the old Kenya XV playing strip. Kenya traditionally played in green, but Nakuru quickly made the colours their own.