Kenyans are in mourning after the country’s best known football fan, a colourful former newspaper vendor, who was found hacked to death. Photo: Twitter @Harambee__Stars
RIP: Colourful Kenyan football fan hacked to death in GRUESOME murder
Kenyans are in mourning after the country’s best known football fan, a colourful former newspaper vendor, who was found hacked to death.
Kenyans are in mourning after the country’s best known football fan, a colourful former newspaper vendor, who was found hacked to death. Photo: Twitter @Harambee__Stars
Kenyans were mourning on Thursday the country’s best known football fan, a colourful former newspaper vendor who was found hacked to death at his home.
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Issac Juma Onyango was a familiar feature when the national team Harambee Stars were playing – painting his body from head to toe in Kenya’s colours of black, red and green, and staging animated dances in the stadium.
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“His passion for the game was unmatched,” the Harambee Stars said in a tribute on Twitter.
For more than two decades, Onyango was a walking advertisement for the Harambee Stars and other top club teams, including his favourite AFC Leopards, and his appearance in the stadium was believed to be a good luck charm.
“I do it because I love football so much, I can hardly miss an international match anywhere in the country,” he said in a 2007 interview with a Kenyan newspaper.
“After being painted I stop talking to anybody, abstain from sex and do nothing to compromise my concentration until after the match.”
He said his love for the beautiful game began when he was a youngster and he used to sneak out of school to watch football matches.
Awarded Kenya lifetime achievement award
Onyango was awarded a Kenyan lifetime achievement award for his contribution to football in 2011.
The 56-year-old was hacked to death by armed men at his village home in western Kenya on Wednesday in what was believed to be a dispute over ancestral land, media reports said.
He is survived by two wives. Reports said he had 10 or 11 children.
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