Demystifying the Thika Myth and Reason to be Wary of Tusker

In 2012, Thika United managed to draw with K’Ogalo thus denying them three points that they needed to win the league. Since then whenever Thika has lined up to take on Gor Mahia, there has been general chest thumping that Thika “ni dawa ya Gor”. Recently someone posted on Facebook the number of trophies Gor Mahia has won against Thika’s, which went something like 30 trophies to 0. Of course as expected someone mentioned the fact that Thika’s history is much more recent and so I decided to take a look at the head to head between the two clubs since 2008 and see whether over the years Thika has really been dawa ya Gor. Just to have something to compare it to, I threw in our next opponent, Tusker, who are the next club to actually challenge us closely for titles after the old enemy AFC Leopards. Well, the results of the comparison only served to reveal that it is indeed a big myth that Thika has caused Gor Mahia any trouble over the past few years and if anything, we need to be more wary of the brewers as opposed to Thika. Take a look at this table (takes into account only league games):

	Games Played	Gor Wins	Gor Losses	Draws	Goals Scored	Goals Conceded	Goal Difference	Points
Thika United	15	8	3	4	16	9	7	28
Tusker FC	14	4	3	7	10	11	-1	19

While we have lost only 3 times to each of them in the last 8 seasons, Tusker has been more frustrating holding us to 7 draws compared to Thika’s  4 draws. We have managed to pick 28 points from Thika, that’s 62.2% of points available compared to 19 points (45.2%) from Tusker.  Our win rate over Thika is 53.3% compared to only 28.6% against Tusker while we have only drawn 26.7% against Thika compared to 50% against Tusker.  It therefore beats no logic for Thika to imagine that they have had any dominance over K’Ogalo. And while fans might think it is a foregone conclusion that Gor will get a result against Tusker in Kisumu, it will be good to keep in mind that Gor has not beaten Tusker in 8 competitive games since Sserunkuma’s solitary goal at the City Stadium in October 2012.

Meanwhile Ali Abondo’s goal brought his tally to 11 goals in league matches for Gor Mahia, bringing him ahead of Baldin Ngwa who had 10 goals. He climbs to fifth behind Danny (36), Rama (21), Blackberry (18) and Kevin Ade Omondi (13) as the leading scorers for the club since the new look KPL began in 2008. 

Ali Abondo has now scored 9 league goals for K'Ogalo this season and 12 career league goals for K'ogalo