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My mind was in turmoil when he left, a number of thoughts ran through my mind some of which I will share here. The late Alum Aule was the captain around this time; he took over the captain’s band from Moses Kpakpor. Moses was the captain when the team won the FA cup in 1989, the first major trophy in the history of the club. While Alum even went a step further, leading the team to win the African Cup Winners Cup aka Mandela Cup the following year 1990 and led the team in the defence of the title to the final losing to Dynamos of Zambia in 1991. But by 1992 his form was waning and he was no longer a regular in the team. But for some reasons best known to him, he would hand over the captains band to me during the match after he would have done all the captain’s formalities. Then suddenly he stopped doing it, both actions I never questioned, I never sought the band in the first place so when he stopped I felt relieved.
But one day while we were in the camp, Alum came to my room and said to me, do you know why I stopped handing over the band to you? I told him I did not even know why you were handing it over to me in the first place, how do you expect me to know why you stopped. He then went on to apologise and then confessed that he came under pressure from some of the indigenous players in the team before me who felt slighted he bypassed them by handing the band over to me. He said they told him that I might start gunning for the band and seize the opportunity to oust him as the captain. This conversation that we had, was the first thing that came to mind when the GM broached the issue of making me the captain. I am not a backstabber; I like to see myself as loyal in every aspect of a relationship. But it was like someone saw into the future, a future that was kept away from me at the time. This was one of the reasons why I quickly turned down offer. What will Aule think? What will those people who told him I might oust him think? These were the questions running riot on my mind.
The second basis for my fear had to do the ego in the dressing room. When you play for one of the biggest teams in the country, at a time when all the best players still ply their trade in the country, you are rubbing shoulders with household name. Some of these players were already made stars while I was still in the University and playing in the lower league. Looking back at the time, how do I face Aule, how do I relate with Moses? What about the someone like David Ngodigha who was the captain of the national team the Super Eagles, or Friday Christopher who had just captained Shooting stars FC Ibadan to capture the CAF Cup. What about the late Christopher Edem who was the captain of the nation’s U23 team or Patrick Mancha his assistant? How can I be the captain of the late John Ene Okon, who was the captain of Calabar Rovers or Fuludu Edema who had captained his University team (Uniben) and then captained one of the best clubsides in Nigerian football history, the NNB FC. There were couple of other lads in the dressing room who probably felt they were the rightful heir. Such was the intimidating prospects that I saw ahead and they scared the hell out of me.
Talking about ego in the dressing room, it must perhaps be stressed that this is one of the most difficult aspect to manage. All humans have ego, but for some reasons gifted and talented individuals who have been lavished with praise from their teeming fans appear to have an inflated ego. This makes the dressing room an interesting place and the job of the coaches and yes even the captain a challenging one. Let me state here , you cannot be a successful athlete or footballer without an ego. Often times the word ego is mistaken for pride, far from it, ego can become pride when it is not managed and allowed to run riot. Several words are used to describe ego and they include the following ‘Self consciousness, self awareness, self esteem, one definition simply puts it as “a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance:” . There is nothing wrong with this until when it clashes with that of another player with perhaps even a bigger ego or evaluation of self worth.
Let me digress a little here and talk more about the dressing room and players ego. One of the important aspect of player management, is the management of the ego in the dressing room. Some egos must be massaged to get the best out of such. There were players at the time it would appear the manager favours, but in truth such players needed to be paid that extra attention in order to get the best out of them. Some egos have to be cut down to size and some have to be challenged and made to rise up. It does not matter how well drilled physically a footballer is, if his ego is not where it should be, his performance will not measure up to the hard work. Sometimes all a coach needed to appeal to is the ego of his players, doing so by way of massaging or even challenging it. It is the psychology behind benching of a star player , doing so with the hope that such a player might respond to the bruised ego. It does not always work as some players might respond in a negative way. Such has been behind the many falling out in the dressing room between coaches and players. Ask any coach what they dread most walking into any dressing room, if they would be honest, they would mention managing the ego of players present. It is always an interesting topic the way coaches go about this, every successful coach comes into a dressing room with the aim of managing, massaging or culling egos of the players. Failure to do this means only one thing-failure!
Every player in our dressing room had an ego that must be managed or massage where necessary, nd at the time, I felt intimidated with the manner and size of ego in our dressing room. The late Amir Angwe , Aham Nwankwo the guy who scored the goal that won BCC the Cup were some of the guys with egos that needed to be massaged, this I say not in a negative way because both of them I got along with very well. How was I to relate with all of the players I mentioned earlier?
_________________  "There is big pressure at this club as you cannot be like the manager at Arsenal and ask for five years to try and to win one trophy" - Jose Mourinho .... I believe in God. I try to be a good man so He can have a bit of time to give me a hand when I need it - Jose Mourinho
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