Harambee Stars legend Elijah Koranga passes away

Former Harambee Stars and Defence Forces Sergeant Major (DFSM), Warrant Officer Class One (WO1) Elijah Koranga. [KDF, X]

Former Kenyan international and Scarlet FC midfielder Elijah Koranga is dead.

Koranga was a midfield maestro at the Scarlet FC, a military football outfit that featured in the Kenya National Football League (now FKF Premier League) from early eighties up-to early nineties.

He also played for the national football team Harambee Stars within the same period.

At the club football, he played with the likes of goalkeepers Washington Muhanji and Jack Matanguta, defenders Saidi Billo, Patrick Miya and Dan Odhiambo, midfielders Ambrose 'Golden Boy' Ayoyi and Rithwani Juma and strikers Jack Sihul and Charles Odero, among others under the tutelage of Peter 'Gadaffi' Oloo.

Koranga died on Wednesday morning at the Blooms Hospital, Nakuru city after being rushed to the health facility a few moments after collapsing at his residential home in Lanet.

"We rushed him there (hospital) after he collapsed at home while complaining of severe-endless headaches until we got to the hospital and got him admitted," his son Barlev Koranga told Standard Sports.

At the hospital, Barlev said his father was diagonised with a blood clot in the brain, which was steadily developing into a stroke.

"All these developments have shocked the family since we didn't have any prior knowledge of all these but we have to put up with it because it's God's wish," added the 30-year-old Barlev.

He said for a long time his father had not shown any signs of serious sickness even after retiring from the military in October last year where he was an instructor at the Kenya Military Academy in Lanet for decades.

He retired at the rank of a Defence Warrant Major.

He was a brother to former Shabana and Gor Mahia midfielder Frazier Ochieng' who featured for the two teams in the mid-1990s and early 2000.