No sprints, no tackles, all heart: Nairobi's sixty-somethings play football like medicine

Tobias Ocholla, 63, used to defend for Kenya's national team, the Harambee Stars, where they nicknamed him 'Jua Kali.' Now he coaches the Donholm Eagles — six-a-side walking football in Nairobi: no running, no tackles, players mostly in their 50s and beyond. 'This is now like a hospital,' Ocholla says, 'to make sure our bodies are ever active.' Pioneer Mureithi Riitho, playing since late 2024, found health and friendship in the game. And this week the East Africa Legends Festival gathered 60-plus former players from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan around the UN's International Day of Older Persons. The movement now spans Nigeria to Morocco to Namibia — just as the UN's Africa commission notes the continent's over-60 population will triple from 74 million to 220 million by 2050.