Shooting Stars hurt Spartans of Owerri in the last game of the 1980 National league. It was like a grand finale. If the Naze Millionaires won with a three-goal advantage, they were as good as champions. Shola Akinwale did not know this story when he joined the Oluyole Warriors in 1991.
The Ibadan stayed away from that decisive match in Owerri. That was how they won the league as the NFA awarded Spartans two points and two goals. At that time victory attracted two points. By today’s regulations failure to honour the match would have cost them the trophy.
When Shooting Stars stormed Owerri in the 1981 league, Spartans beat them 4-0. It was vengeance. Following that 1980 disappointment, Spartans made life a bit difficult for Shooting. When the Owerri side became Iwuanyanwu National, there was no forgiveness. In 1986, the hosts were lucky to get a 3-3 draw in Ibadan when Iwuanyanwu came calling.
At the end of the 1986 season, Shooting Stars were relegated to the second division. League winners were fellow Ibadan side, Leventis United. The Coca Cola Boys were playing in the fiorst division for the first time.
By 1991, Shooting Stars had returned to the premier league. Iwuanynawu were defending champions and had become the first Nigerian team to win the league three times consecutively.
In Week Two, the Oluyole Warriors were in Owerri to face Iwuanyanwu who had beaten Plateau Highlanders 2-0 in Jos in Week One. The defending champions had seven of their players playing for the Super Eagles at the time.
Ben Iroha, Emma Okocha and Isaac Semitoje had won African Nations Cup silver at Algiers ’90. Ishaya Jatau,Tony Nwigwe and Okwuchukwu Waobikeze ,were the most lethal strikers around. Thompson Oliha was one of the finest midfielders. There was the defensive trio of Ajibade Babalade, Mike Onyemachara and Tunde Charity Ikhidero.
Shooting arrived with known names like Ogbein Fawole, Friday Christopher, Ben James, Dotun Alatise, Golden Ajeboh and Cecil Eboigbe. None one looked the way of dark horse Sola Akinwale.
Akinwale had been poached from Kano. Shooting Stars officials had monitored his progress from Works Golden Stars to Bank of the North [BON] and North Breweries and made a dealthat saw him come down to Ibadan for the National Youth Service scheme upon graduation from Bayero University in 1990.
Owerri fans were shocked when the visitors held their darling team to a 2-2 draw. More painful was the fact that the man who dazed them was an unknown quantity. Akinwale scored both goals for Shooting and that was the beginning of a success story.
Akinwale said: ” The 1991 season was a very sweet and memorable one in my football career. My most memorable match came in that year when Shhoting Stars faced Iwuanyanwu National in Owerri. National was star studded.
“The match ended2-2 and I scored both goals for Shooting Stars.That announced the rebirth of Shooting . We ended the season as runners-up which qualified us to represent Nigeria in the first CAF [MKO Abiola] Cup which we eventually won in 1992.”
Julius Berger ended the season as champions with 58 points from 30 matches. The Oluyole Warriors followed with 57 points. Iwunayanwu who were also taking part in the continental Sekou Toure Cup finished in the 10th position with 40 points. Enyimba and Highlanders were relegated.
National hit 66 points from 30 games, the previous year when professional soccer debuted. Shooting were 20 points far below at 46.
The Owerri team stayed away from the 1991 return leg, Week 18, in Ibadan. The hosts gained a walk over. The defending champion were even walked over in Owerri Pillars. Two more walk overs in Jos against Plateau and Lagos against Berger kept tongues wagging. Iwuanyanwu said the NFA was not being fair to them. Their defence was that they had more players in Super Eagles camp than the other clubs.
Akinwale’s second season in Ibadan yielded the CAF Cup in 1992. Shooting Stars beat Nakivubo Villa of Uganda 3-0 aggregate to become the first winners of the trophy. Villa had eliminated Iwuanyanwu in the semi finals of the Sekou Toure Cup in 1991.
In the Kampala first leg that ended goalless, coach Niyi Akande introduced Akinwale for veteran, Felix Owolabi Akinloye. In the Ibadan return leg, Akinwalegave way to Ken Ugorji in the 58th minute.
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The 1992 champions defeated teams like USCB, Burkina Faso, Mbongo Sports, Congo DR and Bizerte of Tunisia on the way to the finals. They will not forget Mbongo who took them to Mbuji Mayi. The first leg in Ibadan ended 1-0, thanks to Isiaka Awoyemi’s strike.
The return leg was tough. Shooting arrived Kinshasa but there was no flight connection to Mbuji Mayi which was several hundreds of kilometres away. The only available flight belonged to President Mobutu Sese Seko.
The Congolese were planning a walk over when CAF Match Commissioner, Mawade Wade, of Senegal threatened to deal with them according to the book.
The match ended 1-0 in favour of the Mbongo. Akinwale replaced Ugorji.In the resultant penalty kicks, Shooting escaped with a 3-2 win. Most of the Nigerian players were counting money in millions. Unknown to them, the Congolese currency under Mobutu was worthless. Their millions could barely buy a plate of beans.
Akinwale was just happy with winning the cup at the end.” The CAF Cup meant a lot to me. That was the first international silverware I won as a footballer, and shortly after bagging a university degree. I saw it as an icing on the cake. As a fulfillment of a glorious career that began in Kano.”
Akinwale and soccer were one at a very early age. Hear his story : ” I began playing football even before I got into primary school. I remember, shortly after the Civil War, as a little boy in Kano we played soccer in our compound and we called it Igbo versus Yoruba because we lived in Sabongari, where you had a large concentration of Yoruba and Igbo.
“I attended Baptist Primary School, owned by the Baptist Church populated majorly by the Yoruba of Ogbomoso. Istarted representing the school in my primary five, 1974. I later captained the school. My Gamemaster was Mr. Steven Olarinoye, who later retired from the Sports ministry.”
Secondary school was Ahmadiyya. ” I began to represent the school right from form one. When I got to form three, Nosa Osadolor joined us. One of our seniors, Ayo Thompson Adesina played for Raccah Rovers in the late 1980s”.
Akinwale combined studies with soccer. He played for Kano teams Leventis and Yacs Super Eagles. He played for Kano in the final of the Manuwa/Adebajo Cup in 1984. His team lost to Oyo, parading future Golden Eaglets Stars like Bella Momoh and Babatunde Fapetu.
This is one player who never joked with his books.He holds a Second Class Upper degree in Mass Communications from the Bayero University, Kano after serving as Director of Sports in 1989.
It was as an undergraduate that he met his wife,Olaide, who studied English in the same university. Both are proud grandparents, thanks to their daughter, Mrs Mrs Olamide Akinyinka, a post graduate degree holder in Conflict Resolution.
Their first son, Oluwaseun, is not all work and no play. With an Msc in Psychology, he is into music as well. Feranmi is reading for a degree while David is still in college.
Akinwale was invited to the Eagles camp in the Clemens Westerhof years but was only able to paly in a 1991 WAFU Cup match.
As an ex-academical, he played an active role in the Shell Cup. ” The Shell Cup for secondary schools was the greatest thing that ever happened to school sports and grassroots football. The programmeran for almost 20 years and helped to discover a large number of football talents that have gone ahead to win laurels for Nigeria,” the former Shooting Star explained
Akinwale lives in the United States. He has not forgotten his brace in Owerri. The Oluyole Warriors have not forgotten too. The only pain is that Shooting are no more in the Premier League. And CAF Cup is no more but there is the 1976 African Winners Cup as memorabilia.