Without forgetting or disrespecting all the Rugby greats that have come from western region, and how individual schools used to have and play the game, the real journey for Western Ug Rugby begun in 2004.
In 2004, Dr Guma (An OB of Ngo, Ntare, Impis and Kobs) was posted to work in Mbarara by his then employers MJAP and when he came, he realized that rugby was being played by some few schools albeit with little competition.
He took up the gap to train the Ntare school team and teamed up with another former Kobs player (Sam Acellam) that was a former student at NGO pursuing medicine at MUST as a coach player for MUST. Together, they started the first schools rugby competition in Mbarara featuring Ntare, Chaapa and Mbarara Modern School in 2004 where these schools were playing against each other on a rotational basis.
This is also the year Ntare first played in the Schools Independence Cup, where the school didn’t have a budget for this but Dr Guma Sam paid for transport out of his pocket and negotiated with Kings College Budo to host the boys over night and provide meals for them (in one of the many sacrifices he made for the game to grow)
The other one never to be forgotten was when he hosted the annual Rugby dinner awards at Ntare and provided a goat to the school as facilitation, a gesture that would be carried on to this day.
This was the beginning of Ntare school actively taking part in the several schools 7s tournaments at Namilyango, Kyadondo, Smack, and participation in the East Africa games.
After this event, he went on to organize the first western Ug 7’s which featured the 3 rugby playing schools each presenting 2 teams and this time round had the MUST team, The KIU team and a festival side of the Ntare OBs comprised of former Ntare players at different universities. This was in 2005 and this tournament was won by KIU western campus who defeated Ntare OBs in a hotly contested final.
In 2006, Dr Guma went back to Kampala to pursue his medical career but he had sowed a seed. Rugby continued to thrive at Ntare school where I was a visiting coach and at Mbarara high school where Elvis Muhinda was also a visiting coach, but sadly we lost Mbarara Modern and also MUST players graduated and the university quit formal rugby for about 3 years.
In 2009, I came back to Mbarara and teamed up with Bobby Bibangambah to to rejuvenate what had been created by Dr Guma Sam. Together we organized the schools and MUST to hold another western Ug 7s which was won by a festival side called “The Wazeeyi” a team comprised of mainly retired players.
The subsequent western 7s became bigger as we started inviting other teams from Kampala and Rwanda and also got some sponsors on board.
Until 2013, when we handed over the mantle to Tim Iraka, Bumwe, Kalimba Steve, Timothy Mudoola and a few other gentlemen to carry the game on. The rest as you now know, is the current state of the game in western Uganda which has spread to Kabale, Masaka, Fort Portal etc.
So, Dr. Samuel Guma, the gentle doctor that has rested is indeed the founder of the great platform that we have today as Western Uganda Rugby🙏🙏🙏🙏
May his soul rest in peace.
Good bye my coach, my mentor, my old man.
Rogers Mwine (Chairman Ntare Rugby 2005, Hima Impis V/C 2008, Founder Member WURA)
