Covid-19 brings out the singing prowess in football twins Vivian and Sharon

Covid-19 brings out the singing prowess in football twins Vivian and Sharon

Chief Writer, Women Football

The outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic has turned life upside down and athletes are not spared. In fact they have bore the brunt as in most countries sports activities are yet to resume.

Though regrettable, it has presented these athletes with more time in their hands to try other things.

Gaspo FC twin sisters Vivian Akinyi and Sharon Aluoch are doing just that.

The duo, long known for their football skills, Vivian playing as a goalkeeper for the team and her sister Sharon as a defender have now ventured into music, composing and belting out gospel tunes.

When Citizen Digital caught up with them for an exclusive interview, Vivian said that since the Corona virus struck the country in March 2020, life has become unbearable since they no longer receive match allowances after sports activities were halted.

They have since decided to use the ”free time” to put their singing skills into use, and have since released two gospel songs, over the last six moths!

“Since we were young we really loved singing, we could sing in church and in school. We chose gospel due to the Christianity background we were raised in and we had a dream of nurturing our talent besides taking part in football,”she explained.

“In 2016 we released our first song Ahsante but it did not get good reception due to poor marketing. We shared it with different radio stations but it was hard for it to get airtime. Since then we concentrated with football because there were many tournaments and national team commitments and that’s why we decided to release two audio songs this year going by the titles Mwambie and Ahsante.

The defender explains that the Covid-19 break accorded them the time and space to work on the two songs but  financial limitations being a challenge they’ve not been able to record the video part of it.

With recording the audio costing them some Sh 24.000, they hope when finances come by they’ll be able to record the song’s video.

The duo are also tech-savvy and have the songs on their YouTube channels already.

But how do they balance football and singing; is there a possibility of finding a rhythm even when sports resume locally?

“All we do is give each its time. We mainly report to training everyday at around 2pm and by 5pm we are done, that’s when we refresh our minds and start composing songs. We’re actually appealing to well wishers to help us do our videos, we have so many pending songs but lack of funds is holding us back.”

Vivian has also urged the Sports Ministry to allow football to resume noting that as women footballers they’ve endured suffering with no allowances coming by since the game was halted way back in March.

“We are depending on football all our lives, so how can we survive without league matches allowances?”

Sharon meanwhile attributes their growth to support from family. “We had the dream since we were young to venture into music.We have received support from our family, friends and colleagues who love what we do. The good thing with us being twins we agree on almost everything hence making things easy.

We both love football and music so things just flow easily. We are now 26 and we are looking forward to releasing more songs in the near future and becoming household names in the gospel industry.”

On the other hand Gaspo FC manager Edward Githua congratulated Vivian and Sharon for nurturing their music careers urging well wishers to assist them in realizing their dreams.

“They are well disciplined. I don’t remember ever punishing them for misconduct issues, and seeing them venture into music is a very good idea. I am just wishing them well, as a club we usually listen to their music whenever we are travelling for away matches and for sure they sing good gospel music compared to many people who purport to sing gospel but the messaging is not dedicated to God,”he observed.

The duo was born and raised in Rongo constituency, south Kamagambo in Migori County in a family of six girls and three boys. They attended their primary school at the Valley View Academy in Mathare before joining Sega Girls in Siaya, later moving to Maina Wanjigi due to their football talents.

The duo has been lethal for their club Gaspo as well as the national team as they were in Harambee Starlets squad which took Kenya to her first ever African Women Cup of Nations Finals in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Vivian urged young players to nurture their talents as it pays more.

“Success does not come on a silver platter, they should also not be ashamed of venturing into other side hustles…,”she concluded.

Tags:

music football Gaspo Youth Sharon Aluoch Vivian Akinyi

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