About 10 years ago, when a dispute emerged over the ownership of the Serani Sports ground, few would have predicted the concerted efforts to save the ground for the community would lead to an even more practical idea.
After the dispute was temporarily resolved, the ground, one of the best in Mombasa County, is home to more than 15 football teams.
Today, the ground opposite Mbaraki Police Station in Mombasa hosts football matches in four tiers of the Football Kenya Federation, including Coast Regional, National Division Two, National Division One and National Super Leagues.
However, Serani Ground's managing Trustee, Alamin Abdalla believes something has always been amiss. “The quality of matches for upcountry teams have been below expectations."
“Fatigue has always taken a toll es[especially on visiting teams' players because of the long hours they spend on the road,” Abdalla says.
" We realised teams from as far as Taita Taveta, Nairobi, Kisumu and Vihiga among others preferred timing their journeys to arrive and play their matches almost immediately to avoid spending the night in Mombasa."
This is ostensibly due to a lack of finances. “A team like Eldoro Villa FC from Taveta in Taita Taveta county would start their journey as early as 5 am to honour a fixture at 11 am and return to their base,” Abdalla said.
"Some teams like Vihiga Bullets FC from Vihiga County would travel overnight and play their game on the day of arrival," he said.
"This will now be a thing of the past as we have worked to ensure the teams are comfortable and the quality of matches is high level. The essence, of football, is to entertain fans," said Abdalla.
That is why they have come up with the idea of constructing hostels for visiting teams at Serani Sports Ground.
They successfully looked for a partner, to whom they sold the idea of the low-cost but comfortable hostels, and the partner bought it.
According to Abdalla, they are constructing a Sh55 million multi-functional two-storey building within the Sports Ground with accommodation facilities for the players and a technical bench.
One of the two accommodation facilities will host 20 players while the other is much smaller and can host four technical officials. There are four washrooms for players and two for the officials. Besides, the officials have a kitchen, sink and slab.
Two changing rooms have also been constructed with an extra room for the match officials. “We have also constructed a hall, where the teams can have a meeting before a match,” he says.
Abdalla says the project, set to be completed in August, will see visiting teams pay a small sum that will go towards maintaining the facility.
“It is more like charity than anything. We will not charge to make any profit because we want to help teams, especially from the Coast region.
“A team from Taveta will no longer need to travel at 5 am to honour a match at 11 am. They can come a day prior and spend the night in Mombasa so that they are fresh to play their match,” Abdalla says.
The proximity of the facility to the CBD also makes it very appealing.
Serani Sports Ground is about 500m away from Pandya Hospital— making it ideal in case of players' injuries during or after a match.
The multi-functional building will also have 20 executive rooms on the second floor for individuals and couples, and a restaurant.
Abdalla says they have also bought a minibus that would be used for player transfers from the SGR Mombasa terminus to the Serani Hostels.
Currently, the Serani Sports Ground hosts Congo Boys FC, established in 1963, as their franchise team and uses the minibus for their travels.
Congo Boys play in the National Division One League and finished fourth in the just-concluded season.
“We will be catering for the transportation of teams from the SGR in Miritini. That would be our after-sale service,” he says.
The building will have a conference hall that will also be used as an income-generating project for Congo Boys.
“Whatever we will be charging will not be for profit. We, as the Serani community, have decided to help our local teams and this is one of our contributions to football in Mombasa, the coast and Kenya at large,” he says.
The Serani ground is used by more than six schools and over 15 football teams.
A football team is charged Sh1,000 to use the ground for a match but schools do not pay. "The Sh1,000 caters for the maintenance of the ground. This shows anything that people put their heads on, can be done,” Abdalla says.
Local sports scientists say a player's body requires approximately twice the number of hours travelled to regenerate and shake off travel fatigue.
Ideally, this means a team that travels for 12 hours should rest for about 24 hours before taking to the field of play.
However, Horace Odhach, a sports scientist in Mombasa, says the lack of resources for most teams means this rule is more often than not compromised.
Odhach, who also manages Okota Sacco FC, a Mombasa County league side, says locally, resources determine the number of hours players who travel rest.
“A minimum of eight hours of rest after travel would be enough for a player to be effective in the match, according to our local standards. However, scarcity of resources makes resting hours less of a priority," he says.
“A team with resources like Bandari FC will travel to Kakamega county for a match even three days before their fixture."
On the other hand, the likes of Kibera Black Stars from Nairobi would travel by road to Mombasa overnight and play at 3 pm before embarking on the return journey the night after the game.
“This is all because they may not have a lot of resources to accommodate the players like Bandari FC would.”