Isaac Juma is not your ordinary soccer fan. Known to his fans as AFC or Ingwe (the leopard), Juma has come to be associated with football over the years in Kenya. AFC Leopards is a local team that he has supported for many years with all his heart since he started being a fanatic of soccer. This is how he got his nick-name.

By Stephen Mudiari/Twenty Ten
Location: Nairobi, Kenya

Juma features on television and radio stations for live interviews whenever there is a match. Every so often, he travels to Nairobi, about 160 kilometres away to watch football. He finds happiness in entertaining the crowds at the stadium. He dances and sings traditional songs in praise of his team. His body is a mass of water-colours, painted all over with messages supporting his team.
 

Its hard to understand this man when you meet him for the first time. He says he rarely speaks when in the mood of a game. Neither does he like to associate with women during such times. And true to his word. For more than 160 km as we travelled together, he did not say much. Clearly his mind was far away. This was a different man to the Juma that I had known during the first few hours of the shoot. He kept to himself and only nodded his head when answering something. I knew the spirits of football had descended on him and taken over total control of the man of soccer.
 

“I don’t know what is wrong with me and football,” he told me during a shoot. “Its something in me that I also don’t understand at all. I once asked the doctors if they can drain my blood and replace it with new one…its like witchcraft, I am crazy. I just love football,” he said.
 

Juma says he hardly sleeps on the eve of a major match. The match between Kenya and Nigeria was only a few hours away! Nigeria beat Kenya 3-2 in a World Cup qualifier match in Nairobi and will take part in the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.
 

A heartbroken Juma left the stadium after the match, crestfallen and almost moved to tears. His face had turned pale. The water-paints on his face were beginning to crack, peeling out in disappointment. “Kenya was just beginning to play. But the referee was against us…” Juma retorted, with anger in his tone. In an earlier interview with CNN, he had predicted a 2-2 draw in the crucial match.
 

Juma is married with two wives and ten children. They all live in his rural home in Mumias, while he stays in a rented single room with a relative in Nakuru town. His dream is to travel to South Africa in 2010 to cheer participating African teams in the World Cup taking place on the continent for the first time in history.