Mary Wanjiru is a player and she lives like one.
She plays professional football in the Kenya Women Premier League for Makolanders F.C., and she loves playing with life.
She lives for the thrill of the moment, and if life was a big sport, she says she would still choose to play in the midfield in the heart of things.
To feel every emotion, to participate in every pain and to be behind each laughter and triumph in football and in life.
Life is for the players, and she is here to win.
At 24, Wanjiru has collected medals in the field as well as scars from life. She has lost matches and mourned lovers, but just like a player she always goes back to the field to seek out more.
She started her professional football journey with Thika Queens, which had finished fourth last season in KWPL. The club, which plays its home matches at Thika Stadium boasts of being league champions three times.
She was a key figure in Queen’s midfield for two seasons before she moved to another league side in her home area, Thika Rangers where she played for a year before moving to her current club.
She plays in the middle of the park, she gives passes and interrupts opponents play every weekend for a living.
And when she is not terrorizing opponents in football matches, she sits down like a lady and dresses up like one. She enjoys coffee dates and loves her man.
LOVE
She is a firm believer in fairy tales where the prince will come and sweep her off her feet, only this time the prince must quickly rescue her from a career ending tackle in the middle of the park when she is playing football on a weekend. She struggles to remember a time in her life she was not in a relationship except when she was in primary school. But she still insists that even at such a young age, she used to have one.
SEX
Just like in football when there is time to press hard and there is time to sit back and accumulate the pressure, between the sheets she loves the variation of the tempo. Sometimes she takes in the pressure and sometimes she goes on the offensive. Her rule, always use rubber.
CRUSH
She swears there is no English word that can describe what Savara Mudigi of Sauti Sol does to her. She can’t pin point if its his vocals or his chisel shaped chest that plays a number on her. What she is certain of is that Savara is an incarnate of Apollo and if he is not, then she vows he must be his descendant. She hugged him once in 2019 and she still has his scent, obviously in her mind.
EMBARASSING MOMENT
The first thing she does whenever she visits the toilet is to check whether there are enough tissue papers at her disposal. While football taught her to always check her back before receiving a pass, life taught her to always check out tissues in the toilet. Life can be a nasty teacher. She laughs. ?
