Good morning Enyimba Faithful.
Saturday’s win disappears into the horizon and getting into focus is our away trip at Katsina. The team set out enroute Katsina Monday morning for that road trip and I’ll resist the urge to ask again, what our United Airlines contract was all about. Cos clearly the team has found no use for it this year.
What is of uttermost concern today is how scanty our Aba Stadium has become on matchdays. And this is an issue that every true Enyimba Fan should be very concerned about. The Uyo stadium served up our Continental assignments but the rest of our League games have been played so far at the Aba Stadium.
Last Saturday, the club management threw the doors/gates open. But yet the stadium wasn’t even half filled. That is concerning. Pretty sure the club is wondering how to get the Aba fans back to the stadium on Match Days. I do have a few thoughts in this regard, the rest will come with a proper consultation.
First, the Enyimba management has run the club in isolation of the fans. Back in the day, there was barely any home game that FAA wasn’t in attendance. This current regime though, have led in absentia. The club chairman is seen once in a blue moon and that has the connotation of a club management concerned only with itself and not the team.
Secondly, tye club has turned our players into robots. No emotions. No voice. No expression. They are playing timidly under the fear of retaliation by management. No one is at liberty to speak to the media because they are forbidden by the club to do so. We know the facts – players aren’t paid promptly and bonuses are withheld. It’s no secret and fans can see this too. Truth is, fans aren’t happy with Kanu and Ekwueme.
On October 15th 2014, I accompanied Enyimba players Rasheed Olabiyi and Emma Anyanwu to the Ngwa Road Motherless Babies Home. Rasheed had just won the LMC’s Wonder Goal Award of N100,000 and he took half of that money to the Ngwa Road Motherless Babies. Beside the impact of such visit to the children of the home, it was a gesture that made the Aba fans feel that their darling team isn’t shy to give back to the community.
Enyimba as a football club cannot exist in isolation and expect fans to trope in their numbers on matchdays. There has to be a thriving relationship between the city and the club, for fans to sacrifice “beer” money for tickets to Enyimba games.
Ill end with this. It is said, that Rome wasn’t built in a day. In a similar vein, a football club isn’t destroyed in a day. Most times, it is gradually and subconsciously done. Abandoning the principles that produced success and appointing a management that cares only for their bellys and personal coffers- that is one way to destroy a football club.
