Henia-Kamau’s FA Cup Hat-Trick Meets a Kenya Snub

Sammy Henia-Kamau scored an FA Cup hat-trick for eighth-tier Jersey Bulls on 22 August. The Harambee Stars forward had been released by Hull City three days after his Kenya debut, and Benni McCarthy’s September qualifier squad does not include him.

Samuel Anthony Henia Kamau, born in Jersey on 17 February 2006 to an English mother and a Kenyan father from Makadara in Nairobi, is 20. He had not played a senior Football League match when Kenya first capped him. He is now scoring cup goals in the eighth tier of English football.

An FA Cup Hat-Trick in the Eighth Tier

Sheerwater led at Springfield Stadium after 14 minutes through Harvey Valter. Henia-Kamau equalised in the 30th minute with his left foot, after a teammate let the ball run and he sent the defender the wrong way. He scored again in the 33rd minute, Lorne Bickley made it 3-1 in the 37th, and Henia-Kamau completed the treble in the 60th for a 4-1 win in the FA Cup preliminary round.

Jersey Bulls named him man of the match on his FA Cup debut. Manager Elliot Powell, speaking after a first half he did not like, pointed at the quality that turned the tie.

For 25 minutes we were poor, but then we had a bit of individual quality which got us ahead in the game.

Elliot Powell, Jersey Bulls manager, on BBC Radio Jersey

That was not his first goal since coming home. On 15 August, in an FA Trophy preliminary round tie staged at Hayes and Yeading because of building work at Springfield, he opened the scoring in the eighth minute from a Luke Lister pass. The match finished 2-2. Hayes and Yeading won 4-1 on penalties after Henia-Kamau and Jack Lumsden missed Jersey’s first two kicks.

On 31 August he started the league home game against Ashford Town (Middlesex), beat his man on the right, and crossed for Toby Ritzema to head the opener in the 20th minute. Ritzema scored again eight minutes later. Jersey then had James Carr sent off on 34 minutes and James Sunley on 39, and Henia-Kamau was withdrawn on 36 minutes after the first red. Nine men held on for 2-1.

HIS CONFIRMED GAMES BACK IN BULLS COLOURS

The club’s own Jersey Bulls 2026/27 results list also shows a 1-0 win at Harrow Borough on 8 August and a 1-1 draw at Moneyfields on 18 August, plus a 1-5 pre-season defeat to Dulwich Hamlet on 11 July, the friendly he was told he would be available for. League position after three games is sixth, on seven points, with four goals scored and two conceded.

https://x.com/JerseyBullsFC/status/2091173779049263549

Kenya Capped Him Three Days Before Hull Let Him Go

McCarthy named him in May 2026 as one of five uncapped players in a Harambee Stars group first built around friendlies with Kyrgyzstan and Palestine, then switched to Lesotho in Pretoria. The other new names were Deon Woodman, Micah Obiero, Sydney Agina and Caleb Kramer.

Kenya drew the first Lesotho match 1-1. On 7 June, at Lucas Moripe Stadium, they won the second 4-0. Henia-Kamau came on in the 65th minute with Amos Nondi, Lawrence Okoth, Sydney Agina and Kramer, and played the last quarter. He worked the right side for a chance that Aboud Omar Otieno sent over. He did not score. It remains his only cap.

After that first call-up he said the moment still felt unreal, something he had carried for years while growing up and dreaming of playing for Kenya. Three days later Hull published its retained list.

THE MONTH THAT WENT BOTH WAYS

1. May 2026: McCarthy hands him a first senior Kenya call-up among five uncapped players.
2. 7 June 2026: He debuts as a 65th-minute substitute in a 4-0 win over Lesotho in Pretoria.
3. 10 June 2026: Hull City lists him among under-21 players whose deals will not be renewed.
4. 30 June 2026: The one-year Hull contract ends. The extra-year option is not taken.
5. 10 July 2026: Jersey Bulls announce his second spell and say he has trained through pre-season.
6. 15 August 2026: He scores his first competitive goal since returning, in the FA Trophy.
7. 22 August 2026: He scores an FA Cup hat-trick against Sheerwater.
8. 1 September 2026: McCarthy’s 38-man qualifier squad comes out without him.

When Kenya capped him he was still on Hull’s books as an under-21 forward. When Hull cut him he was already a senior international. Those two facts arrived in the same week, and the club that then took him in plays at Step 4 of the National League System.

What Jersey Bulls Saw Before the Academies Did

Jersey Bulls is a community club in St Helier. Springfield Stadium holds 2,000. He started there as a boy, and the scoring numbers from that first spell are why Swansea came calling.

WHAT THE ISLAND ALREADY HAD ON FILE

• Under-16s: 20 goals in 15 matches.
• Under-18s: six further goals.
• Senior hat-trick: the youngest player in club history to score three in a first-team game.
• Sid Guy Award: named the outstanding player at the Jersey FA Centre of Excellence in June 2022.

Swansea City gave him a scholarship in July 2023. He scored a hat-trick against Cardiff City in the under-18 Professional Development League Cup and finished that first academy season with 10 goals. The club put him on his first professional deal in July 2024 and used him in the Professional Development League, the Premier League Cup and the Welsh League Cup.

He has said those early Jersey years taught him that nothing in football is given, and that Swansea changed the speed of his thinking. The island still had the file. He rejoined Jersey Bulls in July after the Hull year ended, and the club put the Kenya debut in the same sentence as the academy stops.

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Last season, before he returned, Jersey finished third in Isthmian South East with 84 points from 42 games, 24 wins, 12 draws and a plus-46 goal difference on 81-35. They lost the playoff to AFC Whyteleafe 3-4 on penalties after a 0-0 on 28 April, in front of 1,590 at Springfield, and were then moved into South Central for 2026/27.

The Extra Year Hull Chose Not to Take

Hull took him in the summer of 2025 after two under-21 trial appearances against Cardiff and Millwall at the end of 2024/25. The club announced the signing on 31 July 2025, a one-year contract with an option for a further year, and put him with the under-21s.

We’re delighted to welcome Sammy to the club. He made a strong impression during his trial at the end of last season, showing some excellent qualities in both training and matches.

Conor Sellars, Hull City lead professional development phase coach

He scored four times for Hull’s under-21s in 2025/26, and a free-kick against Grimsby Borough in pre-season. He did not break into the first team in a season that ended with Hull going up to the Premier League. On 10 June 2026 the club released seven under-21 players: Pharrell Brown, Rocco Coyle, Sammy Henia-Kamau, João Mendes, Harry Revill, Noah Wadsworth and Callum Yam. Five others stayed on existing deals. Five more were offered new contracts. His option was not among them. The deal ran to 30 June.

No Football League club then signed him. The island club that had already seen the 20-in-15 season did. In Nairobi that gap is being read as a hard note on the academy trail: a Kenya cap whose next employer is in Isthmian Division One, because the EFL sides who had him on trial or on contract did not keep him.

Why Henia-Kamau Missed Kenya’s September Squad

McCarthy named a 38-man provisional group around 1 September for the opening 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, Eritrea at Nyayo Stadium on 26 September and Guinea in Conakry on 1 October. Kenya already have a finals place as co-hosts with Uganda and Tanzania. The coach is still using the group to look at players. Henia-Kamau is not in it.

Three of the five men uncapped with him in June are still there. Two are not.

THE JUNE INTAKE, THREE MONTHS ON

Woodman has been playing at Bromley. Obiero is at Wealdstone. Kramer is at ADO Den Haag. Those clubs sit well above Isthmian South Central. McCarthy has not given a public reason for the cut. The club form in front of him is a hat-trick in the FA Cup and a Trophy goal, at a level the Kenya staff can treat as too far from the finals.

That is the bind. The cap arrived while he was still in a Premier League under-21 dressing room. The football since the cap has been Step 4, and it has been good enough to win ties, not good enough to keep him in a 38-man list that still has room for other June debutants.

Flight Trouble Grounds the FA Cup Replay

Powell’s next FA Cup target after Sheerwater was Burgess Hill Town, a division above in Isthmian Premier. On 5 September, with Powell away getting married and former Jersey representative-team boss Martin Cassidy in caretaker charge, Bulls drew 0-0 away. Henia-Kamau had a shot deflected for a corner on 22 minutes and came off on 71. Cassidy praised the back four and goalkeeper Euan van der Vliet, and said his side missed two late chances that would have won it.

Channel Island clubs cannot host FA Cup replays; they only host if the first draw puts them at home. The replay was set for Burgess Hill on 8 September. It was postponed after flight problems, a delay reported on 9 September, and has not been played.

Powell has already said the league is the priority and that the club’s cup aim is the first round proper, the round where a draw can send you to a ground like Sheffield Wednesday or Leicester. Jersey are unbeaten in South Central after two wins and a draw. Kenya host Eritrea on 26 September. The forward who scored three in one FA Cup afternoon will be on the island unless that squad list changes.