Is Sporting Lagos The New Stationery Stores?

BY VICTOR GANZALO

There is a fresh wave of optimism and palpable excitement among soccer lovers in Lagos, the excitement is almost infectious if you happen to know the history of the city and its love for football and all that has to do with it.

For those who are conversant with Lagos football history and followership, the mention of Onikan Stadium elicits nostalgia and reflection on the lost glory of the round leather game in the Centre of Excellence.

Soccer in Lagos used to be synonymous with one name mostly, Stationery Stores Football Club, also popularly known as Super Stores, Flaming Flamingoes, Adebajo Babes or simply Flaming.

Lagos soccer lovers and the club were like Siamese twins, it was a bond made in football heaven. The passion and fanaticism can’t be described or captured succinctly in words but better witnessed at one of their matches at the old Onikan Stadium. The love and support for the team was so strong, that often the small stadium was always filled to capacity and supporters who couldn’t gain access to the limited seats inside the stadium converted the Onikan Bridge, directly behind the stadium to their own makeshift stand.

The love and support for the team didn’t go unrewarded as the team had some success to its name, winning the Lagos State Challenge Cup 13 times and the National Challenge Cup 4 times.

In its glory years, the players of the team dominated the Nigerian national team. The first 11 of the Nigerian national team to the 1968 Olympic football event had 9 Stores players. Stores was also renowned for developing some of the best goalkeepers in the history of the national team, goalkeepers like Peter Fregene, Peter Rufai and Ike Shorunmu were products of the club.

One of the endearments to the club for football lovers was its fluid and entertaining style of play, which can be likened to Arsenal football club of England and Barcelona of Spain.

Stationery Stores would win the Nigerian League in 1992, only to be relegated the following year and so began its woes. Family feuds between the children of its founder, the late Israel Adebajo would effectively saw to it that the once loved and darling team of Lagosians and supporters beyond the city would become history.

All soccer lovers in Lagos would console themselves with is the sweet memories of the glorious days of the Flaming Flamengoes and wait for the emergence of another team that will take the place of Stores in their heart. MFM FC emerged at some point and appeared ready to fill that vacuum but that joy was short lived. The team simply lacked the spirit, vibrancy and followership that was synonymous with Stores.

Recently, newly promoted National League side, Sporting Lagos won the Super 8 competition and tongues started wagging that this might just be the emergence of the replacement for Stores, indeed there is a reason to be cautiously optimistic. Like the founder of Stationery Stores, Israel Adebajo, the owner of Sporting Lagos, Shola Akinlade is an entrepreneur who has a deep passion for the club; he is also wealthy and has shown his readiness to make the necessary investment in the club. He has also recruited experienced and capable hands to steer the affairs of the club.

The Super 8 tourney was hosted at the newly renovated Onikan Stadium, which was the home of Stationery Stores, and having gained promotion to the elite division of Nigerian club football, Sporting Lagos may be playing its home matches there. Indeed many who have seen the team play spoke glowingly about its style of play and technical depth. Judging from the atmosphere and turnout of soccer lovers during the Super 8, a brainchild of sport marketing guru, Jenkins Alumona, Lagosians appeared to be ready to welcome its new team with open arms and give it the needed support to succeed.

It is for this reason and more, Lagosians who have been starved of the joy and satisfactions of having a team to call their own are gleefully waiting to see if Sporting Lagos has come to rekindle and reawaken the ‘Flaming’ spirit in Lagos.