Cybereagles

Rangers Vs Hafia first leg 1975
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Rangers Vs Hafia Second leg
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IICC VS TONNERRE 1976 first leg

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That 1975 Rangers loss to Hafia at home was my first major football heartbreak.
Late Moses Otolorin of Shooting Stars was widely respected for his long throw-ins which often led to goals from headers from Segun Odegbami.

Ahidjo, na you biko.

Thanks for 'sheering'.

Nice!

That Hafia match in Lagos still hurts.

Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

amafolas wrote:Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

Extended footage is the only way we can really assess standards back then with today.
We all bask in the nostalgia of our heroes but we cannot ignore the fact that there really is little or no way of comparing except from memory and little snippets like this.

My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

amafolas wrote:Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

I would not make such conclusions based on these clips alone. I doubt we have been able to get a GK in the calibre of Okala....perhaps Rufai in his prime comes close.

Chief Ogbunigwe wrote:

amafolas wrote:Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

I would not make such conclusions based on these clips alone. I doubt we have been able to get a GK in the calibre of Okala....perhaps Rufai in his prime comes close.

We all loved Okala but how good was he really?
Kids of today will probably tell their children in 30 years time that Enyeama was 'the best keeper in the world'.
That's what time does.

I watched Okala most of his career and of course Rufai and Enyeama. I believe Enyeama is a tad better. In fact, I ran a stats to compare those three on my blog site and Enyeama showed up better. I think that for some growing up in Okala era when he was a legend could affect your perception and I must state that I always thought he was the best until I ran the stats and began to conceptualize in my mind.

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Aswani wrote:

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Yeah, the thing pained me nor be small.
The old man was taking a real liking for CE and indirectly interacted with us here a couple of times.
That's when he said he would love to share his collection which he stored in his sports office in Lagos.

But death struck a little too early. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=137483
He regretted none of his kids were sports-inclined and was looking to his grandkids instead.

Damunk wrote:

Aswani wrote:

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Yeah, the thing pained me nor be small.
The old man was taking a real liking for CE and indirectly interacted with us here a couple of times.
That's when he said he would love to share his collection which he stored in his sports office in Lagos.

But death struck a little too early. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=137483
He regretted none of his kids were sports-inclined and was looking to his grandkids instead.

Oga Damunk, I wont be surprised if there are dozens of tapes collecting dust in some forgotten shelves at NTA...

Back in 2000, I once had an eye-opener while working on some material for FESTAC 77...
I visited Daily Times Archives at their offices at Oba Akran(?)...Man, the amount of Daily Times back-issues going way back to 1920's stocked there were eye-popping...

I confessed my amazement to the good lady at the desk...she simply shrugged: "No one visits here...everything is here.."

But they were so poorly catalogued...

Won't be at all surprised if NTA is the same...Our researchers & chroniclers are lazy...

The pitch for the Rangers v Hafia game was a glorified cabbage patch. Utterly dire. The ball was bobbling all over the place and forced players to constantly control with their knees, thighs, tummies, and chests.

Loved the Ajax retro kit in the Tonnerre CWC final match. It is amazing how much fitness and athleticism has improved from them to today though. Today's players are so much faster and fitter that it makes the guys playing in those 1970s games seem as if they are jogging and playing a practice game in training. The intensity today is so much greater.

amafolas wrote:Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

FATHER TIKO wrote:

Damunk wrote:

Aswani wrote:

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Yeah, the thing pained me nor be small.
The old man was taking a real liking for CE and indirectly interacted with us here a couple of times.
That's when he said he would love to share his collection which he stored in his sports office in Lagos.

But death struck a little too early. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=137483
He regretted none of his kids were sports-inclined and was looking to his grandkids instead.

Oga Damunk, I wont be surprised if there are dozens of tapes collecting dust in some forgotten shelves at NTA...

Back in 2000, I once had an eye-opener while working on some material for FESTAC 77...
I visited Daily Times Archives at their offices at Oba Akran(?)...Man, the amount of Daily Times back-issues going way back to 1920's stocked there were eye-popping...

I confessed my amazement to the good lady at the desk...she simply shrugged: "No one visits here...everything is here.."

But they were so poorly catalogued...

Won't be at all surprised if NTA is the same...Our researchers & chroniclers are lazy...

FATHER TIKO,

Actually, some of the places have kept good record. Boer who published a book on the history of Nigerian football and Kunle Solaja have used the archives in Lagos for wonderful work. Boer mentioned using entries in the Hope Waddell Institute's archives to locate the early games played at the turn into the 20th century in Calabar. In the USA, I have used the Library of Congress to collect important football data. At that Library the Times of Southern Nigeria , going back to 1904, is available i.e. then years before the Southern and Northern Protectorates were amalgamated into Nigeria. The good thing is they have it in microfiche which helps to preserve it better. I have used the data to disprove some work by Saveedra and Awurumibe who claimed women football started in Nigeria in 1978. In reality, the records indicate women football had existed by the 1930s until it was banned by colonial government through an edict issued in June of 1950.

FATHER TIKO wrote:

Damunk wrote:

Aswani wrote:

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Yeah, the thing pained me nor be small.
The old man was taking a real liking for CE and indirectly interacted with us here a couple of times.
That's when he said he would love to share his collection which he stored in his sports office in Lagos.

But death struck a little too early. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=137483
He regretted none of his kids were sports-inclined and was looking to his grandkids instead.

Oga Damunk, I wont be surprised if there are dozens of tapes collecting dust in some forgotten shelves at NTA...

Back in 2000, I once had an eye-opener while working on some material for FESTAC 77...
I visited Daily Times Archives at their offices at Oba Akran(?)...Man, the amount of Daily Times back-issues going way back to 1920's stocked there were eye-popping...

I confessed my amazement to the good lady at the desk...she simply shrugged: "No one visits here...everything is here.."

But they were so poorly catalogued...

Won't be at all surprised if NTA is the same...Our researchers & chroniclers are lazy...

Definitely.
NTA is really an embarassment.
Many years ago I had the good fortune of meeting the sons of Giringory who were at the time trying to retrieve NTA copies of their father's work.
Long story short, NTA had either destroyed their tapes or allowed them to deteriorate into uselessness.

Damunk wrote:

FATHER TIKO wrote:

Damunk wrote:

Aswani wrote:

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Yeah, the thing pained me nor be small.
The old man was taking a real liking for CE and indirectly interacted with us here a couple of times.
That's when he said he would love to share his collection which he stored in his sports office in Lagos.

But death struck a little too early. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=137483
He regretted none of his kids were sports-inclined and was looking to his grandkids instead.

Oga Damunk, I wont be surprised if there are dozens of tapes collecting dust in some forgotten shelves at NTA...

Back in 2000, I once had an eye-opener while working on some material for FESTAC 77...
I visited Daily Times Archives at their offices at Oba Akran(?)...Man, the amount of Daily Times back-issues going way back to 1920's stocked there were eye-popping...

I confessed my amazement to the good lady at the desk...she simply shrugged: "No one visits here...everything is here.."

But they were so poorly catalogued...

Won't be at all surprised if NTA is the same...Our researchers & chroniclers are lazy...

Definitely.
NTA is really an embarassment.
Many years ago I had the good fortune of meeting the sons of Giringory who were at the time trying to retrieve NTA copies of their father's work.
Long story short, NTA had either destroyed their tapes or allowed them to deteriorate into uselessness.

Before the CE era, after spending some Uni years in wilderness, I had heavy nostalgia for Naija footie. I asked a sister who was an NTA higher-up to help me get tapes.....she made inquiries and reported back that they had "dubbed on most of them".

I once remember watching a crystal-clear recording of Nig vs Tun Spain 82 qualifiers, second leg (2-0, 2-2, aggregate), followed by PKs. She couldn't get that.

Enugu II wrote:

FATHER TIKO wrote:

Damunk wrote:

Aswani wrote:

Damunk wrote:My one regret was not taking up the offer of the late Chief Femi Olukanmi who invited me to come and digitize his old IICC & Rangers 'tapes' for CE before he died suddenly not long after.
After his death, his wives threw out all his 'junks' and the tapes were lost forever.

Oh no, what a shame, didn't he have any children that was a football fan.

I wish they had contacted the NFA or any TV station to come for them.

What a loss!!

Yeah, the thing pained me nor be small.
The old man was taking a real liking for CE and indirectly interacted with us here a couple of times.
That's when he said he would love to share his collection which he stored in his sports office in Lagos.

But death struck a little too early. viewtopic.php?f=18&t=137483
He regretted none of his kids were sports-inclined and was looking to his grandkids instead.

Oga Damunk, I wont be surprised if there are dozens of tapes collecting dust in some forgotten shelves at NTA...

Back in 2000, I once had an eye-opener while working on some material for FESTAC 77...
I visited Daily Times Archives at their offices at Oba Akran(?)...Man, the amount of Daily Times back-issues going way back to 1920's stocked there were eye-popping...

I confessed my amazement to the good lady at the desk...she simply shrugged: "No one visits here...everything is here.."

But they were so poorly catalogued...

Won't be at all surprised if NTA is the same...Our researchers & chroniclers are lazy...

FATHER TIKO,

Actually, some of the places have kept good record. Boer who published a book on the history of Nigerian football and Kunle Solaja have used the archives in Lagos for wonderful work. Boer mentioned using entries in the Hope Waddell Institute's archives to locate the early games played at the turn into the 20th century in Calabar. In the USA, I have used the Library of Congress to collect important football data. At that Library the Times of Southern Nigeria , going back to 1904, is available i.e. then years before the Southern and Northern Protectorates were amalgamated into Nigeria. The good thing is they have it in microfiche which helps to preserve it better. I have used the data to disprove some work by Saveedra and Awurumibe who claimed women football started in Nigeria in 1978. In reality, the records indicate women football had existed by the 1930s until it was banned by colonial government through an edict issued in June of 1950.

I myself used the Newspaper Library in Colindale London (no longer exists) for a lot of my research. They also had copies of the The very first edition of the Daily times and hundreds of other publications on microfilm. I also visited the Daily Times Archives in the mid nineties and got some good material and photos.
Does the Peter Obe photo agency still exist? I remember going to the offices in Surulere and asking to use some of his pics in my book but he turned me down (practically chased me out of his office infact ). He had some absolutely wonderful images. I hope they are not all lost as well?

Damunk wrote:

Chief Ogbunigwe wrote:

amafolas wrote:Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

I would not make such conclusions based on these clips alone. I doubt we have been able to get a GK in the calibre of Okala....perhaps Rufai in his prime comes close.

We all loved Okala but how good was he really?
Kids of today will probably tell their children in 30 years time that Enyeama was 'the best keeper in the world'.
That's what time does.

its funny you said this because my best Ghana friend told me that in Ghana the name Okala has a completely different connotation because just like in Nigeria we refer to all our bad keepers as BASKET and the good ones as Okala. In Ghana however following some Rangers or perhaps green eagles game where they managed to put 3 goals in okala's net all bad keepers in Ghana since till date are referred to as Okala. So next time you hear a Ghanaian yell Okala!!! no, he is not actually glorifying the great Okala.

Nonetheless I think we often make this mistake of comparisons say - of Labron james to Michael jordan etc forgetting you can't really eclectically extrapolate events of one generation to another

jette1 wrote:

Damunk wrote:

Chief Ogbunigwe wrote:

amafolas wrote:Those pitches (except national stadium) were so bumpy that ground passes were rare. Even short passes that should be made on the ground, were nearly always slightly lofted, which means the receiver often had to take more touches to control the ball. It really makes it hard to compare the technical ability of those players to modern footballers. The quality of goalkeeping was dire.

I would not make such conclusions based on these clips alone. I doubt we have been able to get a GK in the calibre of Okala....perhaps Rufai in his prime comes close.

We all loved Okala but how good was he really?
Kids of today will probably tell their children in 30 years time that Enyeama was 'the best keeper in the world'.
That's what time does.

its funny you said this because my best Ghana friend told me that in Ghana the name Okala has a completely different connotation because just like in Nigeria we refer to all our bad keepers as BASKET and the good ones as Okala. In Ghana however following some Rangers or perhaps green eagles game where they managed to put 3 goals in okala's net all bad keepers in Ghana since till date are referred to as Okala. So next time you hear a Ghanaian yell Okala!!! no, he is not actually glorifying the great Okala.

Nonetheless I think we often make this mistake of comparisons say - of Labron james to Michael jordan etc forgetting you can't really eclectically extrapolate events of one generation to another

Wow. Spot on.
Its actually fascinating to hear another perspective on someone or something we assume to be infallible or flawless.

thanks for sharing..

There was one Rangers match I remember watching live on a black&white tv back in the day on a heavy downpour at amaduadhijo stadium Cameroon. I still remember waves of endless desperate attacks that Okala was flying like a kite from one post to the other . Perhaps someone here knows the particular match

jette1 wrote:There was one Rangers match I remember watching live on a black&white tv back in the day on a heavy downpour at amaduadhijo stadium Cameroon. I still remember waves of endless desperate attacks that Okala was flying like a kite from one post to the other . Perhaps someone here knows the particular match

Canon v Rangers African Clubs Champions Cup SFinal 2nd Leg 1978 0-0

1st Leg also ended 0-0...

Canon won PK Shootout 6-5...and went on to win the trophy...