My passion for sports dates back to my childhood. It was football that got me enrolled into primary one through the backdoor. In my days, you would not “smell” the classroom until you clocked six when you were expected to touch your opposite ear with the longest finger. You would have to achieve this by passing the hand over your head. At three, I arm-twisted my old man to use his influence as the patron of the choir of the Baptist Church, Kumasi, Ghana, to bend the rule.
Tired of pestering him, he took me to the headmaster of Baptist Primary School located in our neighbourhood. The headmaster received us warmly. After being briefed about our mission, I was asked to touch my left earlobe. I failed.
The following year, after practising the touch-your-ear attempt without much success, I spoke to my mum to convince the old man for a second trial. He reluctantly agreed. At four, I still had two more years for either of my hands to grow long enough to touch the earlobes. To shorten a long story, the same headmaster insisted on the laid down rule. However, owing to my persistence, he promised to consider me when I turned five.
Pissed off, I stormed out of the office with my dad and the headmaster in tow. As I sauntered along the open space in his office, a ball strayed to my path. I met it with high velocity and kicked the ball. The headmaster followed the object until his cap, similar to the ones worn by the sanitary inspectors of old, fell off his head.
Then I heard him call out to my dad: “John, bring back the boy”.
We went back to his office and that was how I was promptly enrolled into primary one prematurely. Ghanaians love soccer and they also believe in the catch-them-young philosophy.
Football also rescued me from the jaws of demotion when I was shipped to Abeokuta to continue my primary education at Bode Ijaiye Baptist Day School. I was among the new pupils on a long queue seeking transfer to the school.
Then one of the teachers who later turned out to be the games master, named Mr. Adeshina, approached me, looked at my feet and asked: “Where are you transferring from?” I told him I was a Ghanaian import. All the while, his eyes were transfixed on my bare feet with some kind of curiosity. I had no shoes on, a la Goodluck Jonathan, in his school days. But I did not have his kind of luck that got him to the Aso Rock Villa as the president!
Then he asked further: “Do you play football?” “Yes, I do. In fact, I was the vice captain of my primary school”, I answered. Mr. Adeshina promptly pulled me out of the line. I did not have to go through the rigours of screening for eligibility. When I asked the games master what was so special about my feet, he said the shape of my big toes had the imprimatur of a footballer. We both shared a laugh.
Then the demotion: I had difficulty speaking or understanding the Yoruba language. In fact, my spoken Yoruba was very lousy but my English was too good for a primary four pupil. I could also speak Hausa very fluently because the cosmopolitan Kumasi was home to many tribes including Hausa speakers from the northern belt of Ghana. And most of my kid friends were from the Hausa tribe.
Owing to my corrupt Yoruba, the school authorities decided I should repeat primary four. I protested the demotion and wondered why the relegation on the grounds of poor Yoruba when the medium of instruction was English.
However, after making few appearances in the school XI in the annual Alake Football Cup-tie, my soccer prowess became the talk of the town. Some schools heard about my downgrading and offered to fix me in primary five or even six provided I jumped ship. But my elder sister who brought me to Nigeria advised I should not skip one class in my own academic interest. When Mr. Adeshina heard about the plot, he told his boss to grant me the deserved promotion. He did! Not only that.
In my final year, I was made the captain of the football team, while the skipper was relegated to the vice.
Years to come, I found myself being pulled by the Plateau Golf Club and the Jos Polo Club. The two clubs wanted me to become official members so that they could enjoy good publicity in my capacity as the group sports editor of The Nigeria Standard Group of Newspapers based in Jos.
Chief Sunday Lawuyi who was my brother-in-law’s close friend when I was in my early teens was like an uncle to me. He was a key member of the Jos Polo Club and offered to give me a horse and the polo kits. But I remembered the tragedy that befell the Second Republic governor of Sokoto state, Alhaji Shehu Kangiwa, who fell off his horse during a polo tournament and I got scared.
As for golfing, I was also scared of the possibility of twisting my waist, knees and ankles out of shape while teeing off among other swings that are associated with the game. Golf icon, Tiger Woods, later proved me right when he was plagued by all manner of back, ankle and knee injuries later in his glorious career.
Woods reportedly suffered 17 injuries within a period of six years from 2011. He has also undergone four back surgeries, the recent being in 2017 which he described as being the most successful. Other ace golfers like Rory Mcilroy and Jason Day have suffered similar fate.
However, Woods’ ordeal must have been compounded by his extra-marital exploits, culminating in the collapse of his marriage in 2010. A year earlier, the former king of golf was accused of adultery involving dozens of women who claimed they had slept with him. Woods’ spouse did not find it funny. Filled with anger occasioned by the betrayal, one evening, she weaponised one of the golf sticks that brought her man fame and fortune. She chased him around for a while but the king was lucky to make a fast escape in his SUV, eventually. In my golfing view, the back injuries suffered later by Woods were the fallouts of subjecting his backbone to extracurricular (adulterous) exploits.
However, the truth of the matter was that I had been enslaved by football… my childhood sport. While golf and polo were pulling me, my involvement with the Plateau SWAN XI as its skipper and top striker with the Plateau Highlanders of Jos was engaging enough. To add golf or polo or both to my menu would have amounted to biting off more than I could chew. Although soccer too has its own risks, I suffered no serious injuries throughout my playing career that spanned over 30 years! My only regret is that football was not a money-spinner in my time. I would have monopolised Ballon d’or for as long as my legs could carry me.
