Hooters is for hooligans

By Tony Mochama

There are two things that are certain in Kenya this Thursday whether you are at home or you’re away: tragically, 10 million Kenyans are facing starvation and, sometimes tragically, 10 million Kenyans love football.

So today, I’ll avoid all mention of chakula in this column, and stick to the soccer.

Everyone has their idea of where to watch their games — less often the local Cecafa and more the sagas of the English Premier League where Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United FC are slugging it out. To use a ‘Kenyanism’, me I like to chill out at ‘Hooters Bar and Restaurant’ in the CBD to view these games. I’ll tell you why in a while.

First, how to get to Hooters. Everyone knows Kenyatta Avenue and the 680 Hotel. Opposite, is Simmers. Sashay by there because we are not going there, at least not today.

On the side of Fedha Towers there is a little slip entrance that let’s one stream into the pub and restaurant. They used to have one of those pavement-and-umbrella affairs there, much loved with yuppie lawyers from the nearby High Court, but the also-nearby city askaris knocked those down, in the reign of one Dick Wathika.

No matter. In the corridor area, filled with barrels for tables as well as the counter liner, a casual customer can just chill out with their pint or glass of wine.

For patrons who prefer more fancy fare, however, there is always upstairs.

Camaraderie

Their kitchen, through which hot smoke sometimes billows, prepares a mean dinner at fair rates. For fun, there is also a deejay upstairs pretty much ready to play anything one wants, as well as an active pool table — for folk who still find pool cool since the fad first appeared in 1999.

But football isn’t just forever. It is perennial, and during game weekends Hooters really comes to life especially in its main area. Outside, they advertise the big games. (Oh, and there’s a little side bar, no newspaper pun intended, they’ve added to the establishment).

Like an amphitheatre of the last real gladiators of football, a roar hails the new comer as they walk in during a soccer game. The main arena of Hooters is filled with low chairs, and good cheer, as the beers and bellows flow, yet the ambience is paradoxically mellow, and the camaraderie good. And from amiable Ali, the owner, manager John, supervisor Maurice (MuKamba) to stewardess Caro, the service is great.

Two big screens, often showing two different pieces of soccer action, dominate the room, with a smaller TV hanging over a section of the arena now nick-named the ‘Director’s Box’ where the regulars sit to watch their football. Not any fool can just walk into Hooters and pose at the Director’s Box, you must be a regular of many years’ standing (or sitting) or be the guest of a member.

Football

The Directors’ tradition stems from the English one of ‘football firms,’ where the most hardcore supporters called themselves directors as can be discerned by a viewing of the film Green Street Hooligans.

But whereas the ‘firms’ of Britain used to be made up of fanatical hooligans, most unemployed yobs who met up to fight and bar-brawl, Hooters is the safest pub for footering about town.

The clowns (Kip, Monami, Pherooze & Company) who meet there call themselves ‘Ma-Fans’ and most of their action consists of singing themselves silly with songs like ‘Vijana musi lale, bado Adebayor’ and similar lunatic lore.

This is good because, even in older times, the African tradition was to ‘battle’ symbolically through mocking song and dance, before the English came with the Bible, Gun and, thankfully, football.