West Nile Regional League side Tipsha FC came from two goals down to eliminate Uganda Premier League side Arua Hill 6-5 on Penalties after a 2-2 draw in full-time in the stanbic Uganda Cup round of 64 at Nyarilo primary school Playground.
Japheth Mawa scored from the spot before Sabit Ali equalised for the minnows and Stanley Geriya’s side went to produce the biggest shocker at the round of 64.
That, was by far the biggest result in the history of the Koboko based side that was formed in 2015!
Currently, Tipsha FC is 4th in the Nile Zone with 10 points after 7 matches.
As stated earlier, Tipsha was founded in 2015 by the Tipper and Sahara Drivers, and the club is made up of six executives who are just Volunteers.
Jamal Kamara the Co-founder, Hajji Bushira the Director, Delema George who is the Club Chairman, Mubarak the club CEO, Babu Denis the Technical Director and Kokole the PRO.
During an exclusive interview with The-SportsNation, Club Chairman Delema George, narrating the history and Background of the club revealed that Tipsha was started on 10th February 2015 by Tipper and Sahara Drivers from Koboko.
According to Delema, the name Tipsha was merged from Tipper and Sahara as the Drivers’ association wanted to come up with one name.
“Tipper and Sahara Drivers organised a friendly match amongst themselves, so they decided to contribute some money for the ball but they never had jerseys so one team removed their shirts,” Delema remembers.
“The game was nice and interesting so from there they decided to join together and and name it Tipsha FC.”
Tipsha FC whose motto is We Drive to Win was later registered in the Koboko District 5th Division.
“In the Association, we have the drivers and loaders of both Tipper and Sahara, so after there they wanted to register the club in the Division 5 in Koboko,” Delema adds.
“When the club was registered, they started looking for local based players from the local tournaments because they said for them they are old they cannot perform better so they started looking for young players to raise the name of Tipsah.
Since they are their own sponsors of the team, the association contributed for a set of Jersey but the players played bare-footed!
“The drivers and loaders started contributing money as fans to manage the team and they bought jerseys minus the playing boots.
“In 2016, they realised that the team is becoming better so they agreed to contribute for playing boots. Because the team is for the drivers, movement within Koboko was easy.”
Tipsha was promoted to the Regional League in 2016 after leading the table in the Koboko 4th Division, though they lost to Odramacaku FC in the Zonal final.
“In 2016 in the fourth Division, we played with teams like Primo FC, Nyai Young Stars, Barifa FC, West Nile FC, Superstars, Talent FC and we topped the table so they picked three teams from Koboko for Zonal League in Maracha.”
“In the Zonal League, we lost the final to Odramacaku FC 4-3 on Penalties after a 2-2 draw and our goals were scored by Mandela and Horohoro, they used to take four teams and we qualified to the third Division”.
Since the 5th Division, Muzamil Barau is the only player who is still with the team. “He is currently the captain. We started with coach Marlon who was a player-coach and he is now an assistant coach for Superstars FC in South Sudan.”
The Chairman adds that their aim is to bring Big League football back to Koboko and are targeting bigger dreams as well.
“Currently, we are fighting to reach the Big League, we want to bring Big League to Koboko. With the commitments I see in my players, God willingly even the Uganda Cup we can take it.”
“Our main challenge is only transport for now,” adds the Chairman. “We don’t have sponsors, we are our own sponsors. There’s no support outside so its our voluntary work with my executives.”
Delema says eliminating a big club like Arua Hill was due to the high level of commitment and the pledge they made to the players.
“We eliminated Arua Hill in the Uganda Cup because of our very high commitment since we were playing a big team.”
“We promised the players something if they eliminated Arua Hill so when we won the game, we fulfilled our promise.”
