Connected by fate, separated by death! Tale of two strikers – Sunny Oyarekhua and Thompson Usiyan by Segun Odegbami

Connected by fate, separated by death! Tale of two strikers – Sunny Oyarekhua and Thompson Usiyan by Segun Odegbami

By Trek Africa Newspaper

Thompson Usiyan

The elements are at work again, playing games with the affairs of men. This is an unlikely tale of two of Nigeria’s greatest football strikers.

This past week I received two telephone calls, one day apart, from two friends…Both calls were spirit-dampeners.

“Oyarekhua is dying, please you must do something to help him”.
Of course, I know Sunday Oyarekhua..he was the mercurial Centre-Forward for the Police Machine FC and also for Green Eagles in the early 1970s.

I recently read somewhere that he was bedridden….and living in pain…. unable to walk or talk… slowly being drained of life.

Sunny Oyarekhua was Nigeria’s most prolific goalscorer in the national team for the years that he was there…..

Unfortunately, by the time the team returned from the African Cup of Nations in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, in 1976, Nigeria had identified a fresh pair of legs  to strike for the national team – Thompson Usiyan.
He took over from Sunny at the Championship.

I was still trying to digest Sunny Oyarekhua’s plight when another call came…from Francis Moniedafe, from his base in the USA, breaking the sad news to me – Thompson Usiyan was on his death- bed, waiting to die.

Thompson’s wife had just called Francis a few minutes before he called me… Nigerians should pray for him as…he had terminal Colon Cancer.

Two hours later, a journalist called to inform me that Usiyan was dead. Then the calls started to rain.

I start to think of Thompson and cannot but see the uncanny connection with Oyarekhua.

I remember my years with Thompson in the Green Eagles as if they were yesterday.

In 1975, during the Second National Sports Festival, Thompson Usiyan played only one match as a sub in the Academicals team of Mid-West State,…. and with only a few touches on the ball and a great goal he was invited to the senior National team.

He was the player the coaches had been looking for …. to succeed the great Sunny Oyarekhua.

Roll through the years, here we are …36 years after… the two characters have resurfaced together again,….under sad circumstances.

In my humble estimation, Thompson was the most gifted striker in the history of Nigerian football…extravagantly skillful like Jay Jay Okocha, but more lethal..  with his greatest weapon being his ability to shoot or bend the ball from a standing position with precision and power whilst surrounded by defenders.

As we now mourn Thompson, we also draw attention to Oyarekhua’s plight.

For the full version of the ‘baton exchange’ between Oyarekhua and Usiyan, for a brief history into Thompson’s remarkable career in the Green Eagles, and for refreshing  recalls of his unforgettable daily duels with ‘Man Mountain’ Emmanuel Okala, who was both his ‘friend’ and his ‘foe’, go quickly and get a copy of any one of tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) edition of Complete Sports, Vanguard or the Guardian newspapers and read my syndicated column.

It is a chapter in the history of Nigerian football that all football followers will love to read, enjoy, thoroughly digest and be better informed.

It can also be found from 12 noon tomorrow on my website, www:mathematical7.com.

Don’t miss it.

Segun Odegbami