Old football foes: Highlanders, City Rollers, Hoppers, Young Bees set to trade tackles in Kaduna Veterans reunion cup
By Abdulgafar Oladimeji
The inaugural edition of the annual Kaduna Veterans Reunion football competition will kick off on June 8 at the playground of the now defunct Lagos street primary school.
Our correspondent reports that , four teams would be taking part in the maiden edition of the tournament sponsored by an international businessman, Abdulmalik Umar and co sponsored by Kaduna based clergyman, Pastor Joseph Andishu.
Andishu speaking with our correspondent last Wednesday in Kaduna said “ Kaduna was the cradle of football promotion and development in northern Nigeria, this envious status that made Kaduna to tower amongst its equals is submerging, and making way for only negative attributions, our main target is to contribute our quota towards changing the narratives.”
He further said “ we had grass root clubs like Highlanders which produced the famous Babayaro’s, City Rollers Hoppers, Young Bees, they were household football names whose brand legs travelled far and wide across Nigeria, Africa, Middle East and Europe.
Adding that “ therefore we decided to bring together veterans from these four clubs to compete in the reunion cup to give positive narratives about Kaduna as against what is been peddled around and to motivate the up coming talents not to relent .”
According to him the tournament will serve as a platform for Kaduna veteran players in the diaspora to return home to savor their childhood memories.
In his words “good memories is key and essential to human development especially using sports as a tool, we decided to organize this competition at the school premises ,where many of us ran around as kids and also as semi professionals and where many then always returned back to the same venues, during their sojourn abroad as professionals .
He stressed that the tournament will strengthen the bond between the alumnus of these clubs, adding that they are tinkering with the idea of expanding the tournament in the nearest future to also feature alumnus of renowned clubs like KKD, which produced great football stars like Daneil Amokachi and the host of others.
Our correspondent gathered that, Former NFF executive member, Alhaji Babayaro, SWAN president, Isaiah Benjamin, chairman Kaduna state FA, former Super Eagles star Garba Lawal and the host of others have been scheduled to witness the finals slated for June 12.
