EDO STATE GOVERNMENT SET RE-LAUNCH BENDEL INSURANCE
Read Time:2 Minute, 28 Second
The Edo State Government is planning to re-launch Bendel Insurance, one of the tripod of traditional club sides that set the Nigerian fields aglow in the mid-1970s and early 1980s. The event is slated for Benin on February 27.
Along with the then dreaded Enugu Rangers and the flamboyant and record-setting IICC Shooting Stars, Bendel Insurance of Benin was a delight and paraded excellent players while also being a rallying point for football followers in the then Midwestern Nigeria.
Emerging from the ashes of the then Vipers FC, Bendel Insurance became an instant hit in 1972, getting to the final of the national cup –the Challenge Cup – and defeated the perennial finalists, Mighty Jets of Jos in a dramatic encounter that ended the historical Onikan Stadium as the home ground of the competition.
The final match ended 2-2, with the great Sam Garba Okoye, scoring the equalising goal almost at the blast of the referee’s final whistle,putting the game into utter confusion, necessitating a replay at the then Liberty Stadium, Ibadan.
When Bendel Insurance won the replay 3-2 in Ibadan, the club became the first to win the trophy outside its birthplace – the Onikan Stadium then called the Lagos City Stadium.
Bendel Insurance went ahead to win the national cup two more times in 1978 and 1980 before rots set in. It went into relegation for the first time in the 2007/2008 and had since become the permanent chairman of the lower division of the Nigerian football league.
It is a reversal of this that the Edo State Government is trying to achieve. According to a press release circulated by Ben Alaiya, the Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, has declared that football in Nigeria will never be the same again when the club is re-launched.
The deputy governor reeled out the rich history of the club that shocked the football world in 1978, when it won Nigeria’s most prestigious national trophy, the Challenge against the then untouchable Enugu Rangers. According to the release, Comrade Shaibu, said the re-launch seeks to give football and new face.
“It’s not only about the government but Corporate Nigeria, as ex-soccer stars like, Segun Odegbami and indeed the might of ‘Old Bendel’ led by NFF President, Melvin Amaju Pinnick will be brought to bear on a new idea that Bendel Insurance has come to represent,” read the deputy governor’s press release.
He revealed that he has the full support of the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, to help reposition football and indeed sports through Bendel Insurance.
“I want to listen to these names that we will mention, just a few, Sebastian Brodericks-Imasuen, the first coach to win a World Cup for Nigeria, a proud Bendel Insurance player, our father, Coach Alabi Aisien, Kadiri Ikhana, Humphrey Edobor, Friday Elahor, Henry Ogboe, goalkeepers Agwo Nnaji and Alhassan Mohammed, legendary, Roland Ewere. It’s time for re-discovery”.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0