Vipers: Club with trophies ignored by fans in Wakiso and Kampala [to arrogant football managers]

We gazed up in the air, in disbelief, as we watched on TV and in Njeru as Vipers SC humiliated over-confident Busoga-based Bul Football Club the other day.

I knew! After edging on-form Express FC on Semis, Bul would go back not to stay focused again but to slumber thinking that Vipers would be overwhelmed by aimless attacks on September 26, during Uganda Cup Finals.

Bul were hammered by Vipers 8-1. The match was [surprisingly] boring. I see no convincing reasons why thinkers, sectional a bit, are praising Vipers’ imported Brazilian coach Oliviera and his assistant. It was common football displayed.

This team Vipers has everything a modern football team should have. Vipers has a stadium that will, in a few years, glitter.

Vipers is a hugely organized team with capacity to humiliate, even, indomitable teams across the region.

Vipers’ Lawrence Mulindwa will do anything for the people he leads to succeed. Why is this football team Vipers isolated to this extent?

Location of St. Mary’s Stadium

This was worsened by coronavirus outbreak.  I would, sometime back, refuse to attend games at Vipers.  A journey to Kitende is only made by dedicated sportsmen. These people are very common at Express and Villa.

A young team like Vipers needed to be a stone’s throw from the city centre.

Idle people could be somehow lured to St. Mary’s stadium then.  More than eighty per cent of Vipers players know football. Nobody wants to see them play. Absurd. The facility is far.

We hope Lawrence Mulindwa listened to advice. I talked to many inside Kitende facility.

Majority of St Mary’s Boarding SS – Kitende students say they follow football clubs in Europe more than their director’s Football Club, Vipers.

The Stadium Factor

When you are a new football fan and you choose to go to Kitende to watch a match between the home team and big Ugandan teams like Express, what you will witness there will force you leave football forever, and return to following music or politics.

It is very difficult, even for able people like me, to enter St. Mary’s stadium. I know. It is the only somehow presentable stadium that Uganda at the moment has.

It was recently rumoured that Villa fans were banned from accessing Vipers’ stadium before Covid-19 outbreak.  Laughable! Express fans are also allegedly mistreated at that Facility.

Now Mulindwa and CEO Simon Peter Njuba should know that two years ago, a very big chance was there for very many fans from Villa and Express to cross to Vipers. Your larger-than-life brains were not used. Behave, Vipers managers.

More stadiums will be erected soon in this country. Disappointed Villa and Express fans should be attracted.

The Lawrence Mulindwa Factor

We should all recall that Lawrence Mulindwa was forced to quit managing Football at national level after being overwhelmed by half-truths written by popular journalists then.

He vowed never to deal with wise journalists again. It is journalists that make clubs Mr. Lawrence Mulindwa. You should know. Stop ill-treating journalists at your Kitende Stadium.

Express got more than famous in the 1990s. Lines from writers at Soccer World magazine worked like donkeys so that that could happen.

You need newspapers Sir, Lawrence Mulindwa. Vipers will get whole-hearted followers then. Sportsmen are friendly to all.

They forgive and forget dear Sir, the Vipers Sports Club proprietor, Lawrence Mulindwa.

Changing the name Bunamwaya to Vipers

It was blundering when Mulindwa listened and took the advice of people who told him that the name Vipers would do better than Bunamwaya. And what is Vipers?

Clubs like Express and Villa would be defunct now had their founders never worked hard in the beginning.

I should inform you that if I had authority today, I would rename Villa and Express. Bunamwaya would work.

You needed to be patient Mr. Mulindwa. Vipers sounds modern but it will not impress a Manchester fan who is a proud fan of his club because it is from Manchester.

Now all people in Bunamwaya are Express and Villa fans. Why? Their club was taken away from them.

Leadership

He is a [knowledgeable] spendthrift. He loves his assets, but he [Mulindwa] needs people that he trusts that he must surround himself with so that that club begins attracting fans.

Simon Peter Njuba, Vipers CEO, is a good man-manager but, even now, we ask ourselves why he switches off his known telephone numbers hours before match days. Poor leadership leads to poor decision-making. Some assets should be left to breathe Mr. Lawrence Mulindwa.

Ignoring football legends

A sports scientist is given attention at Vipers Sports Club and ushered into huge Kitende parking before a football legend, who made a name by playing football for almost three decades.

Football learnt in lecture rooms is different from that football that George Ssimwogerere and other known legends played.

Vipers should value legends. It is good that the entire country knows that the Burundian goalkeeper at Kitende became what he is today because legend Ibrahim Mugisha was the goalkeeping coach there.

Squandering money on imported gaffers is unnecessary Lawrence Mulindwa.  Experts with enthusiasm to market unfollowed but ambitious football clubs should be employed at Kitende so that Vipers can commence establishing a feared fan base.

I am a professional writer. I am advised to open eyes of crowds, following me. I am cautioned when over talking becomes a habit. sekkabagenda@gmail.com