AFC Leopards fan at Kimathi Street in Nairobi on March 30,2025
The timing was perfect for a section of AFC Leopards fans to serve the club managers, coaches, and players a brutal reminder of unmet expectations.
AFC Leopards started this season’s FKF Premier League with three draws before stringing three consecutive wins. A 2-0 loss away to Mara Sugar and a 0-0 draw at home to Murang’a Seal broke the sequence.
Those frustrating results birthed a banner that welcomed AFC Leopards players to the pitch when they faced Kariobangi Sharks on Sunday at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.
“Winners don’t give excuses”, read the banner but Ingwe failed to translate its message to maximum points, coming from behind to salvage a 1-1 draw.
Victor Milimu, an AFC Leopards fan associated with Ultras 1964 – the fan group that displayed the banner at MISC – lamented that the club has become a “den of excuses”.
“The club’s management keeps explaining failure as 'rebuilding’, and the technical bench is always describing poor results as ‘things not going according to plan’. The management, technical bench, and players are on good salaries and allowances.
They should have no excuse not to perform,” Milimu told Nation Sport what prompted displaying the banner.
Evolution of fan culture
Despite the banner fading into memory without triggering an immediate response from AFC Leopards players, its display marked a new stage in the evolution of fan culture at AFC Leopards.
AFC Leopard fans celebrate on the streets of nairobi after their team's victory over Mathare United in a Kenyan Premier League match at Nyayo National Stadium on November 2, 2025.
Banners bearing messages addressed to the club’s management, technical bench, and players are not common at AFC Leopards matches. However, Milimu – while also hinting at the retirement of Sunday’s banner – promised that will be the norm going forward.
“We plan to have a new banner during the Mashemeji derby on Saturday and every match after that. As vision carriers of the evolving fan culture in Kenyan football, we want to use our space in the terraces to push messages that are consequential but not controversial,” said Milimu.
He also spoke of reviving a tradition that is slowly dying with the assimilation of a new generation of AFC Leopards -- the singing of the club’s anthem.
“The AFC Leopards anthem is only sung by an older generation of fans. The case is the same at Gor Mahia. There has been a disconnect in passing traditions that should be deeply entrenched in the new generation of fans,” Milimu stated.
While Milimu and Ultras 1964 strive to stand out on the terraces for displaying a new banner every weekend, another AFC Leopards fan known as Charles Olunga has been nicknamed “Khwakhola” after the word written in white paint on a ubiquitous blue board he carries to every Ingwe match.
Blue and white are the colours of AFC Leopards, who predominantly draw their support from Western Kenya.
Singing and dancing
“Khwakhola” is a Luhya word meaning “we have arrived”. Olunga started carrying the board to AFC Leopards matches in 2009, when, after singing and dancing with a group of Ingwe fans from Kencom to the Nyayo National Stadium to attend the club’s match, he realised the need for a banner that would announce their arrival in “a big way”.
A section of AFC Leopards fans head to the Nyayo National Stadium for their Football Kenya Federation Premier League match against Gor Mahia on January 29, 2023.
“Initially, I wrote the word on a piece of a cardboard box using charcoal,” Olunga, married with one child, says.
“However, with time, the word became associated with me, and to augment its popularity, I started carrying a hard plywood board painted blue with the word written on it in white,” he adds.
Carrying the board has made Olunga popular among AFC Leopards fans and the club’s officials. “Khwakhola has become my brand, and I now use it to create merchandise which I sell to other fans,” Olunga says.
While representing a new age of the club’s fan base, seasoned fans of AFC Leopards will associate Olunga’s and Ultras 1964’s antics with those of the late Enos Muhando, a fan who stood out for his fervent support of the club in the 1980s and 1990s.
Muhando was nicknamed “Marola” for his habit of celebrating AFC Leopards' goals by rolling multiple times on the ground, regardless of the surface condition.
Muhando was remembered for mostly wearing a white robe and carrying a huge flag emblazoned with AFC Leopards' old logo, a football, and the club’s motto – “Obulala na amani” -- Luhya for “unity is strength”.
AFC Leopards fans during the Mashemeji derby at Nyayo National Stadium on March 30, 2025.
Muhando died in 1997 after a car hit him along Jogoo Road as he was returning home from an AFC Leopards match.
Even as Milimu and Ultra 1964 promise to show up with a new banner during Saturday’s Mashemeji derby, while Olunga looks forward to giving his “Khwakhola” board another day out, both parties will be united in their hope that their beloved club will arrive at the Nyayo National Stadium prepared to win and not to give excuses.
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