Friday Ekpo Unveiled As Buruj Sports Academy Head Coach

MICHAEL AKINOLA

In what appeared a good start for Buruj Sports Academy ahead of their busy year 2020 with series of international tournaments in Spain, Holland and England, National League (NL), former Super Eagles player, Friday Ekpo, has been engaged to served as the new Head Coach of the academy. His evolvement with the team is expected to foster more strength for the team.  

Friday Ekpo bestrode the Nigerian football scene of the 1980s like a colossus and was arguably one of the most talented midfielders to play the round leather game.

His size belied his talent and he played for some of the country’s biggest club sides and holds the record as one of the select few midfielders to win the highest goal scorers award in the domestic league.

Big things, they say, come in small packages. And this truism rings truer for Friday Ekpo more than most. Pint-sized, diminutive, dynamo, one-man battalion, solo riot-squad etc are some of the adjectives commentators used to describe him during the heydays of his reign as the most influential playmaker in the Nigerian league of the late 1980s and into the early 90s.

The good thing about the story of Ekpo’s road to the top is the fact that you can easily relate with it. He was your typical boy-next-door, kicking balls made of stuffed nylons as a toddler and playing set football with his mates inside his father’s compound in Surulere, Lagos, where he grew up. Next was primary school and he was a member of the school’s football team; same for secondary school. Sound familiar? It should, it is everybody’s story.

However, it was at the Premier Grammar School, Abeokuta, that Ekpo’s career path took an upward trajectory. He led the team to many famous victories in the then Principal Cup competition and became an household name in Ogun State.

So, naturally, when the late billionaire, Bashorun MKO Abiola, was putting together a football team in his hometown, the popular and talented Ekpo was drafted into the team from National Sports Commission FC.

He had previously starred for Savannah Bank Football Club of Lagos. Ekpo remains grateful to the late philanthropist for his large heart.

That year, 1986, Ekpo was at the peak of his career as a goal-scoring midfielder. He was eventually crowned the highest goal scorer at season’s end, the first and only midfielder to win such an honour. He also won the League, Challenge Cup and Unity Cup for Leventis that season.

In between his forays at all these clubs, Ekpo also caught the eye of national team selectors and was invited to both the U-20 team and the Green Eagles in 1983. The junior team was preparing for the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Mexico while the senior team was preparing for the 1984 Nations Cup in Cote d’Ivoire.

He turned down the offer to join the junior team even though he knew there was little or no chance of making the team to the Nations Cup given the calibre of players there. Nevertheless he opted to train with the big boys than play for the juniors and the experience helped lift his game.

However, strangely, it wasn’t until six years later, despite his unrivalled skills in midfield, before he became a regular feature in the senior national team under Paul Hamilton. This lacuna is still one of the unsolved mysteries of the game in Nigeria.