By Isaac Akugizibwe

KIU, Main Campus-Fans of KIU Titans and Rangers are looking to establish themselves as a strong force that will cheer the teams to the long-awaited glory this season, going forward. In a meeting held at KIU Main Campus on Sunday morning, the fans resolved to, among others establish themselves under an association that will ensure effective mobilisation.

The KIU Titans and Rangers Fan's Association will be headed by an executive body of nine individuals with the chairperson as the top leader. Its main objectives will be ensuring effective mobilisation, growing the fan base and gathering fans' ideas that can help the KIU basketball teams improve.

Both KIU Titans and Rangers have progressed to the playoffs though KIU Rangers will end the regular season on Wednesday when they play KCCA Leopards in a game which was postponed from Sunday.

KIU Titans will face Power in a best-of-three series playoff starting Friday 19th August 2022. The fans have vowed to use this encounter as a yardstick of their strength as a fan base. They want to have as many people in the crowd as possible.

"We need a fan base of over 1000 people and now that our teams are going for playoffs, they will need a lot of morale boosting," Shillah Dornum Amumpaire told a group of basketball enthusiasts who gathered at KIU Library gardens on Sunday.

Sunday's meeting was the first of its kind, bringing together individuals whose job is to shout, sing and dance on match days to share ideas on how better they can improve themselves as fans and the teams they back.

They resolved to establish an executive committee that will help in managing the organisation, mobilisation and the welfare of fans before, during and after match days. Fahad Kyazze was entrusted to lead the KIU Rangers and Titans'fans association and will be deputised by Jovia Mukisa. Mark Manzi will be the fans' secretary while green cheer star, Shillah Dornum Amumpaire has been tasked to manage the association's Public relations.

The meeting also resolved to have all fans registered for accountability reasons though they also concluded that it will help in lobbying for various resources.

"We first of all resolved in the meeting that was held yesterday that we are going to register our Fans Association with Uganda Registration Service Beaural and also with KIU," Fahad Kyazze, the KIU Titans and Rangers Fan's association chairperson-elect said.

"We further resolved that going forward we need to register all our fans and also recruit more fans. Our target is to have over 1000 fans for these playoff games," he added.

The cheer stars in green also concluded that the whole of kansanga should be turned green. They argued that Kansanga people love basketball and KIU yet they have less information about different activities. 

"We are coming up with Registration Forms and recruitment will be conducted at campus, our team will be going through the university registering people, who we shall later give phone calls welcoming them to the club," Kyazze said.

Isaac Wamala, a fourth-year law student and one of the top cheerleaders has been tasked to mobilise at least 500 fans by the end of this week.