Nigerian Football
Who Are the Masters?
BY KUNLE SOLAJA
The GTBank Masters Cup final this Thursday will certainly evoke nostalgic feelings of the 1960s and 1970s when schools football was almost drawing the same passion with competitions among top club sides in Lagos.
Two of the teams that made secondary schools football tick in the old federal capitals will clash on the sacred turf of Onikan Stadium where great footballers of the past have graced. Such included the legendary Pele who came in 1969 with the only club side he ever played for in Brazil, Santos FC.
Sports Village Square recalls that this time around, it is the 10-time winners of the old Lagos Principals’ Cup, St Finbarr’s College Akoka facing another strong hold of secondary schools football, Anwar-ul-Islam College which under its previous name, Ahmadiyya College, featured in eight final matches of the old Principals Cup and won thrice in 1957, 1960 and 1965 in era when the school had the likes of Tunde Disu, Muyiwa Oshode and Tajudeen Olarenwaju who later became a general in the Nigerian Army.
Incidentally as great as both schools were, this Thursday is the first time they are meeting in a final match, courtesy of the platform offered by GTBank Masters Cup.
While St Finbarr’s College hold a record of most victories in the Principals Cup, Anwar-ul Islam also can lay claims in the record books. Sports Village Square notes that when the school won the then Zard Cup in 1957, it became the first victorious school outside the original seven that pioneered secondary schools football competition in Lagos in 1948.
Sports Village Square also recalls that both schools produced many great names in Nigerian football. St Finbarr’s College had Stephen Keshi, Paul Okoku, Henry Nwosu, Samson Siasia among others while as Ahmadiyya College, Anwar-ul-Islam produced, perhaps the greatest school football sensation of the 1960s, Tunde Disu and also Tajudeen Olarenwaju.
But Thursday’s setting is under a different platform produced by GTBank. According to information offered Sports Village Square, the Masters Cup, which the bank previously called Heritage Cup, began in 2012 as a stand-alone league especially for the old strongholds of the Lagos Principals Cup.
In the women’s category of the competition, Ansar-ud-Deen Girls High School, Itire will face Queens College, Yaba. Both schools have dominated the competition in the past. Sports Village Square recalls that this year’s final match is a repeat of the keenly contested 2014 final match.
Score line at after regulation time was goalless before Queens College prevailed 4-3 on penalties. Queens College won the inaugural edition in 2012 while Ansar-ud-Deen Girls High School, Itire won that of 2013 defeating Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, which Queens had also defeated in the previous final match.
Sports Village Square also notes that both finalists this year had been alternating victories in the Masters Cup. Queens College won in 2012, 2014 and 2016 while Ansar-ud-Deen Girls High School, Itire won in 2013 and 2015. Will 2017 be a victory for Ansar-ud-Deen Girls High School, Itire? The answer will emerge when both clash at 2pm at the water front Onikan Stadium on Thursday.
The Nigeria U17 women’s team has been given incentives to make it to the Women’s World Cup for the eighth time.
The team, Flamingos, who arrived in Algiers in the early hours of Wednesday aboard a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul, are highly inspired by the imminence of another FIFA World Cup ticket as well as further financial windfall from the Nigeria Football Federation and billionaire business mogul Kunle Soname.
Soname gifted the young players and their officials the sum of N4 million (one million naira for every goal) following their commanding win over the North Africans at the Remo Stars Stadium on Saturday, while the NFF gave out the sum of N2 million (five hundred thousand naira for every goal).
President of NFF, Ibrahim Musa Gusau and Soname have both confirmed that the same financial incentives are in place for the second leg in Blida on Friday.
“Our objective is clear – to win the FIFA World Cup ticket. That is the big motivation.
“Yet, we have been further incentivised by the monetary rewards. My girls will go all out on Friday night,” Head Coach Bankole Olowookere said.
Olowookere, who led the Flamingos to their last two World Cup ventures, will most likely rely on first-leg two-goal heroine Queen Joseph, lone-goal scorer Zainab Raji and Kaosarat Olanrewaju to start at the fore, with Shakirat Moshood, Muinat Rotimi and Philomena Isaiah supplying the passes from the midfield.
Goalkeeper and captain Christiana Uzoma and defenders Azeezat Oduntan, Hannah Ibrahim, Christiana Sunday and Jumai Adebayo are also likely to start.
The Confederation of African Football has selected Cameroonian official Marie Noelle Etong to be the referee, with her compatriots Marcelle Teikeu and Innocentia Ntangti as assistant referee 1 and fourth official, respectively, while Chadian Ngarassoum Victorine will be assistant referee 2.
Oumou Souleymane Kane from Mauritania will be the commissioner, and Sabelo Maphosa-Sibindi from Zimbabwe will be in the role of referee assessor.
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Former president of the initially 15-member West African Football Union (WAFU), Chief Jonathan Boytie Ogufere, has expressed his heartfelt condolences over the recent death of former national team captain and coach, Christian ‘Chairman’ Chukwu.
He remarked that the erstwhile Enugu Rangers’ defence stalwart will ‘be dearly missed’. In a personally signed letter of condolence, Ogufere described Chukwu, who died on Saturday, April 12, in Enugu after a brief illness at 74, as a ‘hero of our time and a friend’.
The nonagenarian recalled with nostalgia how he nearly recruited the young Chukwu for his P & T Vasco da Gama Football Club of Enugu, adding he was impressed with how the ‘Field Marshal Christian Chukwuemeka ‘Chairman ‘ Chukwu (MFR), conducted himself throughout his career as he led both the national team, the then Green Eagles and his beloved Enugu Rangers to many conquests.
“I join numerous others to mourn the transition of the legendary Christian Chukwu, a hero of our time and friend,” the Ugbugba of Okpe Kingdom wrote.
“As one of the young academicals discovered after the end of the Civil War in 1970, I tried to enlist into my club, the P & T Vasco da Gama Football Club of Enugu but he was fair and frank in informing me that he had already joined Enugu Ranges Football Club, and I respected that attitude. From the rivalries between the two clubs, his exploits as a central defender were very visible.”
He continued: “Christian Chukwu emerged at the national level as a trustworthy and formidable captain of the national team who led by example.
“He was one of the heroes during the Golden age of Nigerian football when I was one of the Board Members of the Nigeria Football Association under the chairmanship of Chief Sunday Dankaro as Nigeria won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1980 for the first time where Christian Chukwu as captain of the Green Eagles was declared the best player of the tournament. He led the national team in several battles, which endeared him to millions of football lovers.
“After his playing days, he showed his talents through coaching in Nigeria and abroad.
“I express my sincere condolences to the family he left behind, the football family and the country in general. He will be dearly missed.
“May the good Lord grant his noble soul eternal rest,” he noted.
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Remo Stars are coasting to what will be their greatest moment ever, a win of the Nigeria Premier Football League title, as they recorded a 1-0 win over Shooting Stars in Ibadan in a match played behind closed doors.
In doing so, they achieved their sixth double of the season, having earlier beaten Shooting Stars in the first stanza of the league.
They maintained the seven-point lead over second-placed Rivers United, who also beat Sunshine Stars 1-0 in Port Harcourt.
After a ding-dong affair, Alex Oyowah scored the vital goal for Remo Stars from a right-wing cross from Ismail Sodiq.
In another match, Ikorodu City continued to work tenaciously to obtain a continental ticket as they held El Kanemi to a 1-1 draw.
SUNDAY RESULTS
- El Kanemi 1-1 Ikorodu City
- Niger Tornados 1-1 Bayelsa United
- Heartland 0-0 Kwara United
- Plateau United 1-0 Akwa United
- Rivers United 1-0 Sunshine Stars
- Shooting Stars 0-1 Remo Stars
- Bendel United 1-1 Nasarawa United
SATURDAY
- Katsina United 0-0 Abia Warriors
- Enyimba 2-1 Kano Pillars
- Lobi Stars 2-4 Enugu Rangers
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