I was at the City Stadium last Saturday to watch Gor Mahia
overcome Ulinzi 2-0, courtesy of goals by the strike partnership of Meddie Kagere
and Michael Olunga. As we watched the game, the guy seated next to me commented
that it’s been a while since he watched Gor make such a strong start to the
league. He commented that K’ogalo always start poorly in the league and grow
stronger and therefore this should be an omen to the chasing pack. I decided to
go back to the stats and see if his claims hold any water. And indeed it did
hold water. Since 2008, this has been K’Ogalo’s
strongest start to the league and at this stage they are 6 points better off
than last season and 5 points better off than the 2013 season, previously their
best start. It is critical to note that both were title winning seasons. The next
question then would be which was their worst start? You don’t need to look far,
in 2012 we had only accumulated 5 points after 9 games though a magnificent run
in the second half of the season saw us finish second, losing the title by a
point on the last day to the brewers.
Also not lost on many is the number of goals that we have
scoring during this season. Are we scoring more goals than we did at the start
of previous seasons? Well so far we have scored 20 goals after 9 matched, nine
goals more than at the same stage last year. Below is graph showing how K’Ogalo
have performed after 9 games since 2008 season.
Year
|
Points
|
Goals
|
Wins
|
Draws
|
Losses
|
2008
|
12
|
5
|
3
|
3
|
2
|
2009
|
7
|
8
|
2
|
1
|
5
|
2010
|
14
|
7
|
3
|
5
|
1
|
2011
|
15
|
10
|
4
|
3
|
2
|
2012
|
5
|
4
|
1
|
4
|
4
|
2013
|
18
|
8
|
5
|
3
|
1
|
2014
|
17
|
11
|
5
|
2
|
2
|
2015
|
23
|
20
|
7
|
2
|
0
|
Having a strong start is instrumental in winning a league as
it makes up for a possible slump as is often wont to happen in any season. It
should be noted that last year between 18th June and 17th
September Gor picked up only 14 points in 10 (30 points) games, including having
two runs of 3 games without picking a win but because of a good first half of
the season, there was a healthy gap to cushion it from rivals.
The current unbeaten streak continues at 11 games, the last
league loss being the 3-2 loss to Sofapaka at Machakos last year. During this
time, we have won 9 games, against Muhoroni Youth (3-1), Ushuru (3-0 and 2-0),
Mathare (4-2), Bandari (2-1), Chemelil (3-1), KCB (3-1), City Stars (3-0) and
Ulinzi (2-0) while drawing only 2 games, against AFC Leopards (1-1) and
Sofapaka (0-0). But has this been our best unbeaten run this year? Of course
not, we have 8 games to match the 20 game unbeaten run under coach Logarusic
between 28th April 2012 and 27th March 2013.
On a side note, Meddie Kagere's double against KCB saw him become the 10th K'Ogalo player to score a brace or more in the league since 2008.
Another super performance from Kagere and Olunga (pix from Official Gor Mahia Website)
In the meanwhile, let the green army savour the moment!
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