Banking the Points For A Decent Start

I was at the City Stadium (Tok Komwanda) last Sunday to see K’ogalo end KCB’s unbeaten run and get their ninth point of the season from four games, courtesy of goals from Donald Mosoti and Rama Salim’s last gasp penalty. Later I went through K’ogalo’s stats, first to find out if this is their best start to the season in recent years and how they have matched up against KCB since the new KPL era began. This is what I found out.

Gor Mahia have been notoriously slow starters of late. If they had managed to bag points against Karuturi, Muhoroni Youth and Tusker at the beginning of last season, they would have definitely won the league. Anyway, I can say that 3 wins out of 4 games for 9 points is our best start to the league in ages. This is how we have matched up in the past for our first 4 games.

2012: After winning our opener against Thika United, we went on to lose the next 3 games against Karuturi (0-1), Muhoroni Youth (0-1) and Tusker (0-2) for a record of 1 win, 3 losses for 3 points

2011: Starting the season with a loss to Rangers (0-3) we beat Ulinzi (1-0), drew with Karuturi (1-1) and beat Western Stima (1-0) to give us 2 wins, a loss and a draw for 7 points

2010: Started the season by drawing the first four games, Western Stima, Ulinzi and Mathare all goalless draws then a 1-1 draw with Sony for 4 points

2009: Started the season with two identical 1-0 losses to Ulinzi and Thika United before winning the next two games, 1-0 versus Chemelil Sugar and 3-2 against our traditional rivals AFC Leopards for 6 points

2008: We started the season with a loss to KCB (1-0), beat Agrochemicals 2-0 and then had two barren draws against Chemelil and Karuturi for 5 points

2007:Started the season whitewashing Homegrown 4-2 before losing the next three games, Mahakama (0-1), Red Berets (0-2) and Ulinzi (0-1) for only 3 points.

Our recent record against KCB is also healthy, last season we did a double over them, plundering 6 goals in the process. In fact one has to go back to May 2010 for the last time we lost against KCB. Here is how we have fared against them in recent seasons.

Watch highlights of K'ogalo robbing the bankers

2012:

08 July won 3-1 (Rama Salim 3)

12 May won 3-2 (Rama Salim 2, George Midenyo 1)

2011

24 Sept drew 2-2 (Collins Okoth, Eric Masika)

03 April won 1-0 (Solomon Nasio)

2010

11 Sept won 2-0 (Musa Mohammed, George “blackberry”Odhiambo)

16 May lost 0-1

2009

08 Nov won 2-1 (Duncan Owiti “Macheda”, 2)

18 April lost 2-1 (George Odhiambo – the goalkeeper, not Blackberry)

2008

13 Sept drew 0-0

01 March lost 0-1

Together with this season results, our record against KCB since 2008 reads as Played 11, Won 6, Lost 3, drew 2

This weekend we look forward to hosting Sony and sending them back to Awendo empty handed