Villa Vice President in Charge of Fans Mobilization, Eng. Ben Immanuel Misagga, turned the perfect prophet of doom after he predicted a ‘sporting burial’ for Jinja based army side, Gaddafi FC.
As we reported on this website ahead of Villa’s crunch tie with the Soldier Boys on Wednesday, Misagga, while rallying his fans to attend the match, called upon them to go and ‘bury’ the Jinja side.
“Let’s join our club in Jinja as we look for the grave of Gaddafi to give him a decent sporting burial in the deserts of Njeru,” Misagga posted in a message on one of the club’s social media pages. A few hours to the match, he added: “This is the day the Lord has made to give a decent sporting burial to Gaddafi FC, let’s go in big numbers. Villa is back… Tulumbe. No fun without fans!”
Prophecy fulfilled
Events which unfolded before, during and after the match suggest that Gaddafi was indeed left buried, thanks to Misagga’s lethal prediction. This is because reports show that following Villa’s onslaught, the club was left in total disarray, with the fans, players and officials all left wallowing in total confusion.
We have established that Gaddafi’s ‘grave’ first became visible when the club’s fans staged a protest against the Shs20,000 which Villa set as entrance fee to the Njeru Technical Centre Playground.
“Villa is not the first team to host games here. How can they now charge us a whole Shs20,000 yet other clubs have been making us play as low as shs5000?” asked some of the visibly charged fans.
The angry fans pitched camp outside the playground for minutes on into the game, and would later turn violent when police arrived to try and prevent them from causing unnecessary commotion. The anger also boiled after some Villa fans taunted them that queen karma was simply smiling back at them since in the reverse fixture Gaddafi fans paid as low as Shs2000 yet Villa’s visiting fans paid Shs10,000.
“They resorted to vandalizing some cars of Villa fans in revenge against the fees. In fact so many fans complained that their tires had been deflated on top of other acts of vandalism and malicious damage to property,” a source said. It has also emerged that after the game, Villa fans reported to the Gaddafi FC President that the rowdy fans had deflated the tyres of their Coaster. In response, an apologetic president offered Shs100,000 for the repair of the damaged tyres.
Players Punished, Coach Resigns
As the Gaddafi fans went berserk over entrance fees, the Misagga spell seems to have raided the pitch also. All indications were that the game was an evenly contested affair, with no team having really dominated play. However, in the 66th minute Villa’s Benson Muhinda found the back of the net with the only shot villa fired to the Gaddafi goal.
However, the Soldier Boys totally failed to reply, hence giving the Jogoos a much-needed sweet win.
As we reported earlier, Villa went to Njeru needing nothing but a win to stretch their gap to safety by at least 5 points. This is considering that going into the game, they were only two points away from relegation having raked just 19 points from 20 games. The permutations also dictated that Villa had to pray that Vipers beat Busoga United if they were to move from their 12th position. And as luck would have it, the Venoms beat Busoga 2:0, answering all Villa’s prayers.
The loss, however, was a big curse to the Gaddafi players and technical team as it incensed the club chairman greatly. We have exclusively learnt that the club chairman punished the losing team by withdrawing the team van and thus making both the players and coaches walk 5 kilometers from Njeru back to their home in Jinja town.
“The club officials’ action incensed the coach who then tendered in his resignation after a stormy meeting on Thursday morning,” a source revealed to our inspectors on condition of anonymity.
NEXT IS EXPRESS SIEGE
The events that happened at Njeru prove that indeed Gaddafi received a perfect sporting burial. Wednesday’s win was the first in nine games for Villa and should be enough to start off a desired run of consistent wins for a club fighting to remain in the Uganda premier league.
This wish, however, will be put to test by Villa’s traditional rivals Express FC who are the Jogoos’ next opponents.
It now remains to be seen if the fans mobilization tactics Misagga occasioned on the Soldier Boys will still work on the Red Eagles. However, while celebrating the life-reviving win at Njeru, an ecstatic Misagga alluded to the same, saying: “We are leaving no stone unturned to keep our walk. We shall walk with fans in and out. Our next game is Express game. Let’s move as one we shall conquer and consolidate our club. Thanks fans and Boss, Owek. Mandela. We’re one, NO FUN WITHOUT FANS!”
