Blog: I bow my head in shame

A few days ago, a friend of mine invited me to an evening out with his office-mates.

I obliged.

Who turns down free booze anyway, especially when the calendar is reading 23-8-2012?

A few pints down the evening and the discussion had wiggled its way to football, at first revolving around a certain RVP but eventually landing on the Kenyan Premier League.

It stayed there for a maximum of three minutes, primarily because my party had a retarded knowledge of the league and so, much of the discussion was shaped around their illiteracy.

“Oh c’mon, that is a shitty league…Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards have been winning it since like forever…who wants to follow such a shitty league?” noted one of my acquaintances.

He was clad in yellow blazer, pink shirt, light blue pants, no socks and had a polka-dotted scarf around his neck-and had used the word ‘shitty’ twice in one sentence referring to my favourite league.

Still yapping, exposing his ignorance, I felt a lump rise up my throat.

I wanted to tell the man, in a pink shirt, how stupid it was of him to have the full standings of the Japanese Premier League at his fingertips, but fail to recognize that the KPL had fourteen more teams than he knew.

I wanted to tell him that Mathare, Ulinzi, Sofapaka, Tusker have been winning the league in the past couple of years.

I wanted to tell him that Nakuru AllStars, Kakamega Homeboyz, Kariobangi Sharks and Bandari, amongst others, were fighting hard to join the KPL. That Allan Wanga was back in the country, and playing for AFC and Titus Mulama for AllStars.

But most importantly, I wanted to tell him that his yellow blazer, pink shirt, light blue pants and polka-dotted scarf was the gayest [this is not a homophobic remark, it is an English word] I have ever seen a man dress.

Unfortunately, I did not tell him any of these things.

He was paying for my drinks-and shisha.

Fellow countrymen, I sold my national football pride for drinks and shisha.

I still feel cheated; and dirty.