Championing Kenya's hope after violence

By David Goldblatt BBC World Service Assignment

Football has provided some of Kenya's poorest a glimmer of hope

This just a year after their area was caught up in some of the worst violence in recent history.

Robin Rohane and his family were in the wrong ethnic group and in the wrong place as violence flared after disputed elections.

"We knocked down the wall and ran for it," said the 12-year old.

Six months later, Robin's family have returned to Mathare, rebuilt their shack and started again from scratch.

And Robin has a second reason to celebrate - he is a member of the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), whose adult team Mathare United has won the national league.

Terror

Founded in 1987, MYSA offers young people organised football coaching and leagues in return for clearing up rubbish.

Mathare is one of the largest slums in Kenya

The vast majority of households are headed by single women, unemployment is very high and crime is rife.

In the wake of Kenya's disputed 2007 national elections, Mathare was one of the main urban sites of ethnic conflict between Luo, Kikuyu and other groups.

Armed and organised by politicians and business people, gangs of youths terrorised the neighbourhood and many were forced to flee.

Boys to men

The scheme has proved so popular that MYSA now has 20,000 children playing in their leagues, including 5,000 girls.

They have more than 100 full-time staff and alongside football, they provide libraries, educational support, dance, drama and musical programmes.

Many [former teammates] are dead, shot by the police, involved with drugs and crime Anthony Kimani Mathare United captain

The first children to grow up in MYSA ran out of junior leagues, so they decided to create an adult's team.

MYSA's combination of organisation, its ethos of self-help and collective action and access to masses of home-grown talent saw the team steadily rise through the Kenyan football leagues until they made it into the top flight in 2001.

Anthony Kimani, Mathare's team captain and a player for the national team, exemplifies the MYSA story.

He grew up in Karabangi, a poor Nairobi suburb, always playing football as a boy.

Many of those he used to play with, who didn't stay with MYSA, were not as lucky as him.

"Many are dead, shot by the police, involved with drugs and crime," said Mr Kimani.

"If it wasn't for MYSA, I might be there too."

Crowning glory

In November 2008, on the penultimate weekend of the Kenyan football season I travelled with the team to Muhroni in the Western Kenyan highlands, where they faced Agro Chemicals, the works team of the local sugar plantation.

There were no changing rooms for the players at the final

Mathare United needed just a draw or better from the game to win the Kenyan football league for the first time in their history.

There were less than 500 spectators, who drifted in from the nearby sugar refinery whirling cane sticks around their heads.

There were no changing rooms, no stands, no TV cameras, only a deeply rutted pitch.

The game itself was a tense affair and both sides showed amazing skill in controlling the ball under such difficult surfaces, the ball often flying off in unexpected directions.

Both sides hit the woodwork in the final minutes of the game but Mathare held on for a 0-0 draw and were crowned champions.

The Mathare players celebrated, danced and sang and the home crowd decided to join in too and flooded the pitch.

On the team bus back to the hotel, thousands of texts seemed to arrive on every player's phone, as Mathare and the other slums of Nairobi celebrated.

Despite the poverty and the spectre of ethnic violence, Mathare United's triumph is testament to the amazing talents and energies of Kenya's poor.

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