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If you don’t have much to do thave some idle time, you are welcome to read this piece of unwritten and unimportant history.
A few days ago, Tosin Adebambo, a former player-colleague now based in the USA unearthed and posted a picture of a team of footballers.
The very rare picture speaks.
It is attached here for those old enough to recognize some or all of the faces. But look carefully. It is a very unusual and uncommon picture.
Standing from left to right are:
Christian Chukwu, Segun Odegbami, Leotis Boateng, Kadiri Ikhana, Adokiye Amiesimaka, Peter Fregene, Phillip Boamah, Annas Ahmed, Idowu Otubusen and Coach Jossy Lad.
Squatting from left to right are:
Best Ogedegbe, Adeleye Abai, Nathaniel Adewole, Mudashiru Lawal, Martins Onwuachi, Emmanuel Okala, and Sani Mohammed and coach Joseph Ladipo (aka Jossy Lad).
The team does not ‘add’ up to any known team in history.
The first thought that crosses the mind is that it is a picture of the Green Eagles of an era in the past – the late 1970s or early 1980s. Wrong!
Most of those in the picture were in the national teams at different times from the late 1960s to 1982. Two of the players never made the national team.
So what team is this?
To start with, none of the players in this star-studded team was still in the national team when my friends assembled in Ibadan in response to my invitation to play in the inaugural friendly match of my proposed first professional Football club in Nigeria, the Soccer Ambassadors FC, in 1983. The match was played under flood light at the Liberty Stadium, Ibadan.
The NFA at the time did not know how to react to the development and threatened to deal with any team that agreed to play against Soccer Ambassadors FC in what they considered an unapproved match with an unregistered club.
Only John Mastoroudes of Leventis United FC was courageous enough to allow his team to play the match. He believed that no rules were breached at the time.
The second picture is of some members of that famous team..from left: Paul Okoku, Mathew Onyemah (captain), Henry Ogboe (lurking at the back), Peter Egharevba, Leotis Boateng and Wole Odegbami.
The details of what transpired and everything else about that chapter of my life, one year in retirement from active football, and a return to it in 1984, will be told in a book that I am planning to write for the reading pleasure and benefit of primary and secondary school students interested to know my odyssey in Nigerian football – from 1960 to 2024!
Soon!
Dr. Olusegun Odegbami, MON, OLY, AFNIIA, FNIS
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