The 2011 edition of the Andrew Murch Under-16 tournament kicked off in Kasigau this weekend! Over the next three months the best of the area’s young footballing talent will battle it out to lift the cup!

The tournament is supported by friends and family of a young British football lover who tragically passed away. The cup is played in groups then knock out final stages and features 15 teams from all around the area!

The focus this year is on developing a Youngstar team of our most promising boys and taking them on tour to show the rest of Kenya what GAFFER Youngstars can do! To this end training has been stepped up in all the Primary Schools and Alive & Kicking’s famous footballs are being loaned to the schools to support their teams. GAFFER promises its quickest ever turnaround times when fixing balls punctured by the tough pitches therefore maximizing ball time for the young players.

The first games featured Makwasinyi travelling to Bungule for a brilliant game watched by parents and fans from all around. The local boys came good with a 3-0 victory to jump start their campaign. Jora hosted Rukanga in a tough 3-1 victory played out in front of most of Jora village! It was great to see kids as young as 12 years old competing and showing that ball skills and quick feet can outwit brute force on the football pitch! GAFFER is looking forward to developing its most competitive Youngstars ever!

After the success of GAFFER Youngstars it’s now time for the big guys to show off their skills! The sixth inter-village tournament for the men kicked off with sixteen teams battling to lift the Kasigau Champions League trophy!

The competition between teams representing the villages GAFFER Sport works in has been running annually since 2005. The teams are divided into four groups and the top eight teams then go on to the final rounds! The current trophy holders Black Lions will be fighting to make it three titles in a row against stiff competition from all over the region! With teams training daily and games cheered on by supporters this promises to be the toughest KCL yet!

We are now nearly half way into the regular season and by this weekend every team will have played the other teams in their group. Apologies to all hoping to follow the scores thus far on the site but we have been attacked by unpredictable web gremlins here in the bush, we believe they may well have vanished and work will continue as it should very shortly!

Suffice it to say there have already been some upsets and a lot of drama in the league thus far. It is certainly shaping up in a way that hints at a final between teams that have never previously got that far, as always in football though, everything can and probably will change!

GAFFER is also thrilled that Mr Mo will be handling management duties out here now with Mwalolo also joining us as a regional coordinator for the North and Charo doing the same in the south. Life is certainly getting busy for GAFFER and moving along very nicely. James leaves us next week to head back to the UK for a while but will no doubt continue to be a presence in the GAFFER world.

A happy day for GAFFER today. James Ruwa has been back from college and fixing footballs for us inbetween bouts of studying hard! He has now fixed all of the footballs that GAFFER has supplied to the villages and teams and they are winging their way back to their respective owners.

Tomorrow James and Mr Mohamed will be running a seminar to train the referees for the new league and have set up a match between the youth teams from Maungu and Itinyi, this promises to be a great day for all. The big day then comes on Sunday when the new Kasigau Champions League begins in earnest with the first four matches! Look out for an update and some pictures from these fixtures very soon.

Busy times for GAFFER these last few weeks. Mr Mohamed has officially jined the family and will be adding his unique and fantastic form of football comentary to this site very soon. Ben also paid James a visit at GAFFER HQ for a few weeks.

The league kick off is on May 11th and is shaping up nicely. The fixtures are being prepared for the site as we speak. The captains all convened in Maungu this last week and all is set for another great season. Ben and James then set about visiting pitches and players to ensure all is set.

This looks set to be a great championship and with Mr Mohamed on board things can only look good for football in East Africa!

James has been hard at work for GAFFER visitng the schools and villages we work with. The welcome has been amazing and the kids are all still very active and playing lots of football after school! The men's teams are now hard at work also training for the new league. Fixtures lists are going out today and we have lots of exciting times ahead!

Keep checking back here soon for details of how the league and the youth training is continueing. We are also soon to be putting video content on the site featuring matches from the league!

GAFFER would like to officially welcome a few new people to the family. Ryce, Philip, Gibran, Mohammed and Cyprian are all players for various teams across the villages. They have been previously been helping to coach the kids after schools before playing for their own teams and we are delighted that they have agreed to do this more regularly now. This means we are now starting to have a larger team of people out both teaching football and delivering HIV/Aids lessons in schools.

This is great news for GAFFER and great news for the local youth. These guys are all looked up to as good players and the kids will really benefit from their coaching and experience. It also means lots more football and lots more fun for everyone out here!

The Kasigau Champions league 4 is gearing up nicely and we hope to have a fixtures list up here soon for anyone wishing to follow the progress. The anticipation is high and it looks set to be a fantastic contest. The players are all asked as part of their participation in the league to do some community service also. This is great news for the Kasigau area too because it means more football coaching for the youth and also a good chance to get back to the tree planting and other educational things that GAFFER is involved in helping to benefit the local area.