Last year same time, a die-hard Arsenal fan committed suicide after Manchester United eliminated Arsenal from the UEFA Champions League.

The intense rivalry between English Premier League top clubs among the Kenyans has left in its wake a teenager – a Manchester United fan – nursing serious stomach injury after a supporter of Arsenal stabbed him repeatedly following a fight over their favourite teams’ standings in the league.

Abubakar Baishe, 19, was stabbed in the lower left side of the abdomen when an argument ensued with his schoolmate (name withheld) after the game pitting Manchester United and Liverpool ended last Sunday. After the attack, the 20-year-old assailant is said to have fled to the neighbouring country of Tanzania.

This sad incident comes just a year after an Arsenal fan committed suicide in Nairobi in the wake of his team’s elimination from the UEFA Champions league by to Manchester United.

The body of Suleiman Omondi, clad in an Arsenal T-shirt, was found dangling from the ceiling of his room after he went home in utter bitterness following the Gunners’ Champions League humiliation at the Emirates.

According to Baishe’s father, the assailant fled soon after the attack and left him bleeding profusely. A pedestrian who saw him lying in a pool of blood raised the alarm and his rescuers managed to hire a speed boat that took him to hospital, arriving three hours later.

A team of doctors led by King Fahd Hospital superintendent Dr Nurein Muhidin carried out a major operation on the victim in Lamu District on Wednesday and managed to safely restore protruding intestines to their proper position.

“There was an intestine perforation of at least 2.0 centimetres, and we had to carry out major surgery to correct the situation. He is currently out of danger,” Dr Muhidin told the Sunday Nation on the phone from the hospital.

Dr Muhidin said that Baishe who is a Form Two student at Kizingitini Secondary School, was in serious condition when he was taken to hospital.

“His condition has greatly improved,” he said.

Hussein Miji, a family friend, told the Sunday Nation that the two boys had earlier in the day joined their colleagues in a friendly match between Kizingitini and Chundwa villages in Lamu District, Coast Province. The two young men played for their Kizingitini team, which won the match.

Yusuf Baishe, the victim’s father, is yet to come to terms with the close shave his son has had, all for the love of football.

To complicate matters, the assailant is a relative and his son’s classmate. This, according to the senior Mr Baishe, limits his options regarding the course of action to take against his son’s attacker.

“This is mere childishness as we adults cannot turn on each other with a knife; not for the sake of the English Premier League going on in a far-away continent,” he said.

Mr Baishe, an employee of the planning department at Lamu County Council, said the two boys were reportedly embroiled in a serious debate as to who between Manchester United and Arsenal would clinch this season’s premier league trophy.

“But my son took it just as a mere debate usually exchanged by die-hard fans across the globe, only for his colleague to turn his anger on him with a pen knife he was carrying,” he said.

Arsenal and Manchester United are the two most popular clubs in Kenya with Chelsea and Liverpool coming a distant third and fourth. The other premier league clubs hardily enjoy any support in the county.

The rivalry between the Gunners and the Red Devils is so intense such that whenever the two are in action, fans turn up in large numbers to watch the games in pubs, entertainment spots and halls that have sprung all over the country for purposes of screening the games live to massive supporters who pay per view.

Despite Arsenal commanding a better fan base than Manchester United, the Gunners have suffered four years of torment from the Red Devils die-hards who never wastes time to remind them of their annual dusty trophy less cabinet.

Arsenal’s league misadventure is also a bane for businessmen because whenever the team loses the title focus, the pubs and other places miss the massive clientele. The fans disappear because it is only the extremely courageous ‘Gooner’ who can withstand the torrent of ridicule from the Devils’ mouths.

A typical rejoinder to arsenal fans’ consolation that the team plays beautiful football is the disclaimer that their sex game is akin to engaging in too much foreplay without any penetration! Such is the life of an Arsenal supporter in Kenya, and why they have developed short fuses in the recent past.