Vipers: Season Review 2018/19

The 2018/19 football season will be done and dusted when curtains finally come down on June 30th as the Fufa calendar officially closes to pave another anticipated season.

It proved to be an up and down season for the Venoms as the runners up of the StarTimes Uganda Premier League slot and a quarter final placing in the Uganda Cup was all we achieved to our known standards is an under performance to say the least.

Failing to defend the league trophy was a devastating blow and ranks high on our disappointments list but there are still plenty of reasons to feel every positive about the future of the forth coming season.

Replicating the previous season’s achievements was always going to be a tall order for the new look squad as various stars left the club for greener pastures while some were deemed surplus to requirements at the club and the others sought for new challenges but that as it was, the end results did not justify the input as we struggled to find form consistently.

Portuguese tactician Jorge Miguel Da Costa who master minded a successful 2017-18 campaign with a league winners medal and a Uganda Cup second place finish, had a disastrous showing during the Cecafa Kagame Cup in Tanzania leading to his exit.

His replacement, Mexican born Javier Martinez Espinoza also didn’t live to see the start of the league second round as our performances on the field left a lot to be desired despite an unbeaten domestic run thus the club administration showed him the door out.

In came Kenyan born Micheal Nam Ouma who started his reigns away to Bright stars and has managed 22 matches in all competitions to date registering 11 wins, 6 draws with 5 losses making it a 50% winning score on the board, 27 goals were scored averaging 1.01 goals per match while 15 goals were swallowed keeping 14 clean sheets.

On the continent, Vipers represented Uganda in the CAF champions league eliminating El Merriekh of Sudan at the first hurdle before falling to CS  Constantine of Algeria earning a CAF Confederations Cup group stage play off slot against Tunisian giants CS Sfaxien and despite bowing out to the Arabs of the desert, it was a perfect exposure  for the lads.

However, despite under achieving on the field, off we gained tremendous progress ranging from a growing fan base, improved stadium facilities, a well structured youth development structure and setting up administrative units which will go a long way in lifting the club to desired international levels.

Despite unsatisfactory performances on the field, Vipers tremendously improved on the fans development scheme as numbers in the terraces increased to promising levels.

This increment is attributed to the various branches the club marketing department opened in different parts like Kasenge, Baita Ababiri, Kamengo just to mention a few and the corporate social responsibilities we conducted, lured a host of fans in the process.

Seasonal ticket holders also increased in numbers and club merchandise sales further improved though a lot still remains to be done as we continue to build the institution.

Players monthly awards were boosted after our main sponsors Hima Cement increased the prize from 10 bags of cement to 20 bags for each month thus the lads motivational levels sky rocketed high.

In summary, Vipers Sports club realised a sixty percentage achievement generally though silverware eluded us, positives on which to build for future victories are many.