Parklands Sports Club emerge Hotoso games overall winners

By Erick Ochieng’

Parklands Sports Club are this year’s overall winners of the 13th edition of Hospitality and Tourism Sports Organisation (Hotoso) games finals held at the Kenya Utalii College Sports Club grounds, Nairobi at the weekend.

Parklands accumulated 154 points in the games that involved football (men), basketball, netball, scrabble, lawn tennis, squash, table tennis, pool, draughts, darts, swimming  and athletics to emerge overall winners while runners up were Hilton Hotel with 120 points.

Parklands took gold in tug-of-war (women), pool table, squash, and lawn tennis and had impressive finish in badminton and swimming.

Hilton, coached by Kenya Netball Federation and continental umpire Peggy Ajusa, were unbeaten in netball in which they won gold.

Hilton were also unbeaten in darts and badminton and finished second in swimming, tug-of-war and squash.

Nairobi Airport Services (NAS) finished third with 118 points after winning in table-tennis and badminton.

Intercontinental Hotels, who finished fourth with 85 points, won gold in swimming and table tennis.

Fifth were hosts Kenya Utalii College with 80 points after winning silver in lawn tennis (men0 and pool table (women).

Methodist Guest House proved a tough nut to crack in scrabble and men’s tug-of-war which saw them accumulate same points as Utalii College to finish in sixth place.

Nairobi Safari Club (NSC), that reigned supreme in athletics and football, were placed seventh with 37 points.

It was the second time NSC, coached by Julias Okwach, were winning the coveted football title after edging out perennial rivals Nairobi Java House 7-6 on post-match penalties following a barren draw in regular time.

Tough game

Nairobi Java House lost the highly contested match after Kevin Omondi’s penalty shot hit the goal post. It took agility and accuracy of Fredrick Were to beat former Gor Mahia custodian Maurice Serulo who was manning Java House goal mouth.

“The game was tough, it could have gone either way, but all the same we have been training on penalty shot, that is why we won the match,” said Okwach, who is also a former Hotoso player, after the game.

Jeremiah Ukaya, Nairobi Java House team manager blamed the referee for their loss but said they will come back stronger next year.

“Last year, we finished third, this year second so next year we are clinching the football trophy,” said Ukaya.

Hotoso games were established 13 years ago to promote growth of a variety of sports in the local hospitality and tourism industry.

The current Hotoso members are Hilton Hotel, Kenya Utalii College, Kenya Airways, Intercontinental Hotel, Nairobi Serena Hotel, Nairobi Safari Club, Methodist Guest House, NAS Airport, Tribe Hotel, Nairobi Java House, Windsor Hotel and Parklands   Sports Club.