Football Career Peak: Shooting Stars’ Historic Run
The only continental club trophy that Nigeria had not won by 1984 was the African Championship Clubs Cup. A few clubs had got to the finals, or close to it, and faltered.
In 1984, IICC Shooting Stars FC of Ibadan were probably the best team on the African continent, parading an awesome squad of goal scorers that were banging in goals with consummate ease, match after match all the way to the finals of that year’s African Club Championship.
Everything pointed to a win for Shooting Stars FC, as the team prepared for the most important match of our lives.
The second leg was to be played in Lagos, Nigeria. We had lost the first leg by 1-0 in Cairo, Egypt.
We had a lethal team and a front-line that included Rashidi Yekini, Felix Owolabi, Mudashiru Lawal, Wakilu Oyenuga, Lookman Oshun, Rotimi Ademodi, Ademola Adeshina. Most of us were members of the national team at one time or the other.
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It was probably the biggest match in Shooting Stars FC’s history. The stakes were very high!
Football Career High Point: Personal Brilliance And Team Strength
By 1984, I was very mature and vastly experienced in football. I played some of the best football of my career. I played economically and with ease, particularly in scoring goals. A very young Rashidi Yekini was providing some diversion I needed for me to be more lethal even as he ended the campaign as the highest goal scorer with 8 goals. I scored many goals as well including the best goal of my career in MAC Fez, Morocco, during the quarter-finals!
I would have added more feathers to my cap if we had won. I was already Third-Best Player in Africa in 1977/1978, and Second-Best in 1980. I would most likely have been crowned Africa’s-Best if we had won that final match.
Injury Blow And Mounting Pressure Before The Final
Things were going smoothly until from the blue came some unexpected challenges from hell. What was going to be the moment of my greatest triumph suddenly became the moment of my greatest challenge with new obstacles.
An old injury, a torn-ligament in my right knee, that I sustained 3 years before that, resurfaced during the first semi-final match in Ibadan. I could not play again until the final match. My team did everything humanly possible to patch me up as best as they could, and fielded me. It was purely for the optics and as a psychological weapon against Zamalek FC of Egypt. It didn’t work because, in my condition, I could not perform at all. My injury had not healed. My fitness was zero.
Felix Owolabi, Owoblow, the one-man riot squad of our team was also out of the line-up having collected two yellow cards during the semi-final and first-leg of the final. Rashidi Yekini was too young to do the needed demolition alone.
The pressure for us to win could be cut with a knife. Unfortunately, the last weeks and days before the final match became a classic case of how NOT to manage pressure and prepare for your toughest match.
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Winning the match meant our club would have created history by being the first club to do so in Nigeria’s history. I would, most probably, also, have been named Africa’s best player. The pressure came from the fear of losing the match at that final hurdle.
Football Career Turning Point: Spiritual Preparations And Costly Failure
In response to that, the club decided to go spiritual. All the top parapsychologists in Nigeria showed up; all the top marabouts appeared on the scene; the most powerful babalawos were consulted; powerful ‘men of god’ went to the river side and the mountaintops to offer ‘special’ prayers and sacrifices.
On the eve of the match, the airwaves were filled with chanting of incantations by spiritualists. The blood of cows and sheep were spilled around the theatre of the encounter. It was the most brazen display of Juju that I had ever seen or experienced in my life.
On the eve of the match, directly and indirectly, the message was conveyed to the team and the people that the match was already won with several predictions in the public space of the final scores.
That was our ‘preparation’ to overcome the fear of failure. The pressure was our undoing!
Had we won that match, many of us would have become disciples of all manner of spiritualists forever. We would have become slaves to Juju, abandoning hard work, discipline, strategy, team work, focus, and our skills for some ineffectual spiritual intervention that does not exist in the realm of sport, as far as I now fully accept.
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So disappointing was the night, so devastating was our failure, that, personally, I nailed any ‘powers’ beyond the simple prayer to the cross, forever.
Lessons From Defeat And The End Of A Football Journey
In Sport, as in the rest of life, there is no substitute for the powers of hard work, of commitment, focus, discipline, planning and strategy, good tactics, and endless rehearsals for perfection. These are the ingredients that produce the last essential ingredient – good luck!
1984 saw the best and the worst in my football career. It was also my last year in football. After that match on Saturday, December 8, 1984, I never played a football match again in my life.
On this new day in the month of May, I delve into my archives to bring you that story. Take from it what you will.
