Sammy Omollo: Fire-fighter of local football, coaching his son amid grief

“Now coaching is giving me a good way to relate with my son. It is a joy coaching him and watching him improve. He is at APS Bomet on merit and not because of my name. I know he will make a great player in future,” Omollo says.

Yet, bonding with son as he orchestrates the most inspiring turnaround story of the 2025/26 FKF Premier League – pulling APS Bomet from the relegation zone to a hard-hitting mid-table team – would not have happened had his father not dragged him from Parklands’ cricket ovals to playing for Maji FC.

Read: Gor Mahia shift focus to Africa

Omollo, born in Nairobi a day before the start of the 1970 Fifa World Cup, grew up in Parklands playing cricket with the world famous Park Road Boys – the Odoyos, the Odumbes, the Sujis, and the Tikolos.

“I was as good as them, if not better,” Omollo said in a past interview.

He was a top-order batsman but his father would have none of it. There was no way he could have his eldest son swinging bats when his team lacked a central defender.

His father’s desire to keep bring him closer to football and keep him as far away from cricket as possible, saw him joining the football-mad Githumu High School in Murang’a after doing his KCPE at City Primary.

“We were so good that people used to confuse us with Kisumu High School. They never thought our name was mispronounced because they could not believe that a school from Murang’a could be that good at football,” says Omollo, who went on to have an illustrious football career with Harambee Stars and top clubs in Kenya (Gor Mahia and Kenya Breweries) and India (East Bengal and Mohun Bagan).

His father pushing him towards a career in football eventually set Omollo on the path of meeting three men who would inspire him to become a coach – former Harambee Stars coaches the late James Siang’a, Mohammed Kheri, and the Montenegrin Vojoslav “Vojo” Gardašević.

“Siang’a gave me a platform to coach and love coaching,” says Omollo, who started his coaching career as a player-coach at Gor Mahia in 2008.

“Siang’a was tactical and knew how to handle players. I never saw him shout at a player,” Omollo adds.

Gardašević, who guided Harambee Stars to that famous 3-2 aggregate win over Algeria in the 1998 Fifa World Cup preliminary round qualifiers, helped Omollo appreciate the value of physical fitness.

“Before encountering Gardašević, I did very little running as a player but that changed when he coached me at the national team. Gardašević insisted on discipline and hard work and he made us run so much,” Omollo said.

“His training methods made me so fit that it helped seal a move to India,” he adds.

His tribute to Kheri starts with a laugh.

“Kheri was a typical Swahili, as any that you could come across in Mombasa. Kheri could talk and tell you things that had you believing in yourself so much. He took us from useless to superstars by just using words. He was an extraordinary motivator,” Omollo says.

Loss of his wife

Still, with all the knowledge and wisdom that the three men passed to him, none compares to the advice and support Omollo received from his late wife Vera, who passed on in December last year.

“Losing her was the most the most difficult moment,” Omollo says with sadness.

“She also played football. She was supportive, understood me very well, and used to give me some coaching advice. Most importantly, she helped me knit a very strong family. She kept us glued,” Omollo adds.

“We had three children together, Denzel and his two elder sisters. She loved Denzel so much, and that is why I am happy to have him with me at APS Bomet. That keeps us close, and with football keeping us busy, we get to overcome the grief together.”

“I also received so much support from friends and family. I lost my wife when I was in the process of leaving Posta Rangers for APS Bomet and the two clubs came through for me in a big way. APS Bomet even came for the burial and their presence and support made me promise them that I will help them stay in the FKF Premier League.”

While at Posta Rangers, Omollo fashioned the Mailmen into genuine title contenders, keeping the team hovering within the top three positions.

However, his late-December move to relegation-threatened APS Bomet reinforced his reputation as Kenyan football’s ultimate survival specialist—a coach known for rescuing struggling teams. Having previously pulled Kenya Police, Posta Rangers, and Shabana away from the drop zone, he is cementing that legacy once again.

Now on a five-match winning streak without conceding a single goal, APS Bomet’s resurgence is a master-class in the coaching tenets passed down to him by Gardašević, Kheri, and Siang’a. After inheriting a team rock-bottom of the 18-team league table, Omollo has guided APS Bomet to a 10th finish with 44 points.

Read: Akonnor: Gor Mahia fans are ‘positively crazy’

“I love challenges and that is how I test myself,” Omollo says on his reputation in Kenyan football.

“I am happy with the trajectory that APS Bomet is on. When I came here, I found a team needing belief. The support from our management, particularly our CEO Madam Rose Chemutai, has been unwavering throughout. Now, we have won five matches in a row without conceding a goal, something that is hard to achieve in Kenyan football,” says Omollo, adding; “Every department is working hard and even though we have tough matches against Bandari, AFC Leopards, and Tusker, I know that we have we it takes to go the extra mile and finish on a high.”

The hyping of Omollo’s reputation as the fire-fighter of Kenyan football has made a distant memory of his league title victory with Tusker FC in 2011. The year before that, Omollo had suffered relegation with Mahakama FC.

“Generations of Kenyan football fans know me differently and I find all of that exciting. There are those who watched me play. Others have followed me throughout my coaching career. Others caught up with my coaching career a bit late and others only know me as a football pundit on radio,” Omollo says on perceptions people have on him.

His stint as a football pundit gave rise to a nickname – Oti Mabiatu (Oti the hard tackler) – that stirs lively discussions online about his playing days by younger fans.

“The nickname makes me happy because it means people have not forgotten me.” 

However, Omollo is quick to clarify that he was not a rough player as the nickname makes people believe.

“I was tough and never rough. I never made career-ending or life-threatening tackles. Playing football those days needed you to be tough because we marked strikers who were big and strong,” Omollo says.

One such big and strong striker, Guinea’s Titi Camara, had Omollo receiving a warning letter from Fifa through the Kenya Football Federation (KFF) for foul play in Harambee Stars’ 4-0 loss to Guinea in December 1992. Camara scored twice in that match.

“Camara was too much handle. He lacked nothing. He had the pace, skill, strength, physique, and intelligence. The only way was to go hard on him and that did not really help much because he would get back on his feet and continue playing as if nothing had happened. He never complained or talked,” Omollo recalls his encounters with Camara.

An encounter with Zambia’s Mwape Miti in a match Harambee Stars lost 1-0 against the Chipolopolo in 1999, also has Omollo occasionally on the receiving end of jokes that he takes in his stride.

“It was just one of those days and Miti got the better of me. I was not an easy player to beat and Miti was also an exceptional talent,” Omollo says of jokes about the former Zambian forward dribbling past him.

When not coaching, Omollo enjoys meeting for a kick-about with other veterans of Kenyan football. 

“I enjoy those matches. They have less pressure and we bond over conversations that give us peace of mind and improve our mental health,” Omollo says.

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