Suspicions rise among Simba SC fans if regular harsh tackles are

While its expression is like a ‘hot wire’ in its urgency, it has largely failed to find its way to FM radio stations’ talking points by soccer analysts, perhaps for fear of either libel accusations or unethical thrust in airing personal sentiments, etc. Suspicions are not evidenced but rather convincing.

What is surprising is how seeming antipathy against the Msimbazi Street side now appears to cross the usual club loyalties we presume still operate around the country.

In Tanga, for example, traditionally Coastal Union are younger siblings of the red and white city giants, while African Sports belong to their near namesakes at Jangwani Street outfit.

In past decades, Msimbazi Street club leaders did all they could to bag Omar Mahadhi to the side, the dependable goalkeeper of African Sports, as this way it weakens the rival green side. Today it would be a transfer market issue.

The foul on Simba SC central defender Henock Inonga seemed so out of the way that a red card had to be produced, leaving many unanswered questions as to this behaviour.

Worse still, the foul-committing player and at an exaggerated level is a regular captain of the side, thus supposed to be an example of discipline, sportsmanship based on the fact that soccer players are professionals on the job, not enemies on the other side of a trench. There were other tell-tale signs that all was not well there.

A fairly astonishing background factor to that incident is the way a Coastal Union leader virtually swore all-out war with the city giants who were otherwise either allies or comrades in the past.

Pundits said he had declared that if the side was defeated he would conduct an environment clean-up the next morning, which he is said to have done along with his technical bench.

That says nothing of the actual incident on the player, but it bespeaks of a situation on the bench and on the pitch where, for some reason, defeat by the city giants was being seen more or less as an insult.

It may as well suggest that someone paid for this sentiment to be cultivated among the team members and every player should know it, thus conducting a public act of shame if this was not carried out. That goes well beyond the call of duty as to handling matches.

That is what can be cited as circumstantial evidence not really of intentional foul play but a foul play mood at Coastal Union at the moment they took to the pitch against Simba SC.

It also helps to clear the issue of why the captain should lead in the display of non-sportsmanly behaviour, crude aggressiveness that could shock even a usually tolerant referee, as last year’s league experience tended to show that it was habitual for regional Premier League sides to play rough against Simba SC in particular.

While this has not been openly put to debate to compare what this or that pundit recalls of matches involving the two rivals, it appears well beyond doubt that Msimbazi Street Club's players are more regular victims of bad fouls.

More of last year’s experiences could help, where it was unclear why the side was putting up poor performance in upcountry pitches.

One explanation was that the pitches tend to be less than standard, but an undercurrent was that players tend to be careful when playing there as regional clubs tend to be especially aggressive when playing the city giants.

Still, it is somewhat visible that the fouls were coming more in the direction of Simba SC than to the archrivals, for rather unclear reasons.

One reason for the differential treatment by upcountry teams for the two sides is professional, namely that despite the hype as to Yanga reaching the final of the continental second-tier tournament, its profile has always been second to their rivals.

So their grip on upcountry teams wasn’t as visible as the other side, and, in a sense, Yanga's prowess boiled down to superstar Fiston Mayele, nearly as a solo performer in the side, not in play but in dependability for clinical finishing. By contrast, Simba SC always either excelled or failed to do so as a team, not one marksman.

The other side of reasoning is entirely unprofessional, namely in the slogan where Yanga is ‘wananchi’, the people, citizens, implying that the other side is made up of rich people, brings up expensive players, etc.

In other words, there may have been a sort of ‘professional hatred’ in the tackle on Inonga, where one finds he is a ‘mwananchi’ at heart and feels it easy to injure someone who will be paid 10 times more than himself at the end of the day if one counts the match into the salary for each of the players.

So the ‘wananchi’ tag creates class empathy, and inversely, antipathy for the better-paid professionals, and these are tucked into the Msimbazi Street outfit.

There is a way in which this non-professional outlook is beefed up by most top cultural leadership, and right into the soccer fraternity.

The current Taifa Stars' head coach has all the support for leaving out ‘aged’ Simba SC defenders and appears to be winning the psychological contest. The bad foul on Inonga is the tip of an iceberg.