In sports, but in this particular case, football, fans play a massive role during matches mainly because they create an atmosphere in which the home players blossom, whereas the visiting players are unsettled, thereby affecting the performance of either team.

For the ardent football followers, whether local or internationally, you will notice how, in most matches, especially at the highest level, certain opposition players are booed by the home crowd every time they touch the ball—fans here don’t do this because they either don’t know how to or probably why they should.

This can have an impact because it’s very annoying and distracting, and leads to misplaced shots and passes, particularly for the more inexperienced players—the reason, most teams, if not all, more often than not, do really well on home grounds than away.

In more serious leagues, home players are constantly cheered, often with songs of praise, for either the individual player or for the club, unlike our local league, where, if you’re a first time visitor and you happen to attend a league game, you would be hard-pressed to name the home team until you’re told.

Ideally, supporters often come up with chants for the club’s best players, and use them during matches to encourage their stars. Could you imagine the motivation you get when thousands of people cheer you on?

Would you not want to destroy the opposition in a bid to please those cheering you?

That said, now imagine a situation where a team as big as APR FC playing in-front of a near empty stadium in probably their most important league of the season!

That is what happened when the army side hosted Isonga FC in the final game of this season at the 25000-seater Amahoro stadium, where not more than 200 people turned up to watch it—remember, this number included the two teams, government and FERWAFA officials as well as journalists plus the ball boys.

It was a match that APR needed not only to win but also not to lose to be crowned champions, and indeed they got a point, which was all they required to win a record-extending 15th league title—but it was shame they did it in-front of a handful of their fans, if you can call them fans.

The match ended in a 1-1 draw, which was enough to hand APR the title and ended second-placed AS Kigali’s slim hope of a first ever league title while Isonga who were in the bottom two all season, were relegated to the second tier division after one season of returning to the top flight league.

APR are Rwanda’s most successful club by a country mile, unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the club in terms of fan base—on that account, the military, which has also won three CECAFA Kagame Cup titles, the most for a Rwandan team, is bettered by the likes of Rayon Sports, Etincelles, Mukura and Kiyovu despite their dominance of the local game in the last 20 years.

Over the last ten years or so, we had started seeing the number of APR fans grow considerably thanks mainly to their dominance brought about by a host of relatively exciting foreign players.

But the last two seasons have also seen a decline in terms of overall standards of Rwandan football in general, which, in my opinion, has ‘chased’ away the fans, who these days prefer to watch Arsenal vs Man United or Chelsea against Man City instead.

Players make teams but fans are the backbone of any given club—so for APR to be considered a big club, at least at a regional level, they need to woo more fans—from where? I don’t know but they have to because real fans, who turn up in big numbers to support their team, are the true heroes of any club.

However, the issue of local fans not knowing how to support their teams in good or bad times is not confined to APR only but to almost all local clubs and the national teams, and the onus is on the clubs through their fans’ clubs to change this.

For the APR fans, though I feel like not calling them fans, if they cannot come to see their team receive a record 15th league trophy and the second in a row, which they have achieved with only home-grown players, one wonders what else would bring them back to the stadium to support their stars as they used to do in the past.