When elephants fought, they suffered

To cut the long story short, every time there was a major football match, we always expected the worst to happen. This time around, St. Leo’s College was going to play with the so-called Mpanga Senior Secondary School. First and foremost, Mpanga students envied and hated St. Leo’s for a number of reasons; most probably they had wished to join St. Leo’s College but due to their poor performance, they had been shunned! Secondly, they were no match academically and we always beat them in every event – debating, sporting, you name it! St. Leo’s students always expanded the word Mpanga as “Market People Are Never Good Academicians (M-P-A-G-A). You see, the school might have derived its name from either being in proximity with the popular Mpanga Market or River Mpanga. Now can you see where the grudge emanated from! This was not any of our creation; it is just that some of us were found in the right place at the right time and they (the Mpanga students) were in the wrong place at the right time (twist it anyway you like.)As the tournament kicked off, nearly 75 per cent of St. Leo’s students were at Buhinga Stadium, ready for two things: to play real football and to defend our gallant players. We either won or they lost! The tourney was flagged off by none other than the DEO (District Education Officer).On their part, Mpanga SS had mobilised their students as well as most of the town hooligans to come and rally behind their boys so that they, too, would have big numbers, in the likely event of a fight, and they would not be easily defeated! As expected, we led in the first half with a goal to none. In the second half, as they were about to score, we tricked them and their striker was caught offside! This angered them very much; they could not accept the referee’s decision that he was offside. And this was when all hell broke loose. Their striker went ahead and “scored” but that was after the whistle had blown. Now the problem was, we could not accept the goal and neither could they forfeit it! The match prematurely ended and hell broke loose. As I said earlier, they greatly outnumbered us and we had to tactically withdraw. We rushed off the pitch andheaded for the Fort Portal – Kamwenge Road (that is the road that led to our school) as they followed us in hot pursuit, shelling us with all sorts of “missiles”. Little did they know that they were stretching their luck. As we retreated further and further, some of our students were jumping into the bushes around both sides of the road and taking cover. When we had stretched them for nearly half a kilometer, an order was issued and we sprung from the bushes and caught them in an ambush. I tell you, we beat them up until we could beat no more! They could neither retreat nor continue! It was the appearance of the Police on the scene that saved them. Of course this did not come easy; the Police had to discharge several rounds of live ammunition into the evening sky. Rumour had it that they lost two of their own from the stampede. On our side, we had several injuries but not life threatening save for a one Mugasa, who lost a set of teeth!