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10 Things you must know about Benjamin Ayimba

By COLLINS NABISWA September 16th, 2015 1 min read

1. He was born on August 27, 1976 in Nairobi. He’s a Virgo.

2. He started playing rugby in 1993 in Maseno School, famous for excellent sporting and academic results, in Kisumu County. He was in Form 3 when he was first introduced to the game.

3. He joined Impala RFC as a rookie in 1995 and went on to play for the Red Shirts till 2001 winning a couple of Kenya Cups, Enterprise Cups and Floodlit tournaments along the way.

4. He was poached by Nondies RFC in 2002 where he went on to spend three season. At Red Lion, he was not as successful as he was while at Impala.

5. He was appointed the Kenya Sevens captain in 2000 leading Shujaa to two Word Cups (Argentina ’01 and Hong Kong ‘05).

6. Interestingly, he succeeded his club coach Bill Githinji as the Kenya Sevens head in 2006, making him the youngest coach on the IRB circuit and in Kenya’s history. He was only 30 years old.

7. On 5th April 2009, he led Kenya to the first ever Main Cup finals in Sydney, Australia on the then IRB World Series where they lost 7-26 against an inform South Africa.

8. In recognition of this sterling achievement, in December 2010 Ayimba was decorated by President Mwai Kibaki with the Order of the Grand Warrior (OGW) award.

9. In March 2013 he failed in his bid to become a director of the Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) during the Annual General Meeting. Ayimba lost to Paula Lanco, Godwin Karuga and Kadieda Oguta who won the three available slots.

10. He is a devout Catholic who attends the early morning services at the Holy Family Basilica alongside his family of three sons – Brian, 16, Gabriel, 12 and Ochieng, 9.