Marked for Jonathan Mairiga
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Apr 2028
Only the photograph left for Chizoba Okoh
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Chizoba Okoh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Wikki Tourists the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market3 Apr 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Wikki Tourists can pretend not to have heard.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Qudus Akanni was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Apr 2028
The medical room confirms 33 days on the sidelines for Abba Musa, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad3 Apr 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad3 Apr 2028
Too much change too quickly at Wikki Tourists
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Match1 Apr 2028
It needed Aliyu Mamuda to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Plateau United, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Player ratings3 Apr 2028
5.55 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match11 Mar 2028
No end in sight to Wikki Tourists's wait for a win
10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Wikki Tourists has to find a result from somewhere.
Market13 Mar 2028
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Wikki Tourists, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market13 Mar 2028
Usman Abba has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Wikki Tourists they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match11 Mar 2028
4 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Match11 Mar 2028
0‑2 to Nasarawa United, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad13 Mar 2028
The manager makes an example of Albert Gomez
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Abba Musa falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad13 Mar 2028
Klinshak Longbak was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match4 Mar 2028
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Wikki Tourists are no longer polite ones.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Wikki Tourists may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market6 Mar 2028
Chizoba Okoh has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Wikki Tourists they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market6 Mar 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad6 Mar 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Shuaibu Ibrahim commits to Wikki Tourists for another 3 years.
Match4 Mar 2028
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad6 Mar 2028
Albert Gomez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match4 Mar 2028
0‑2 to Abia Warriors, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad6 Mar 2028
The manager makes an example of Shuaibu Ibrahim
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Jan 2028
Shuaibu Ibrahim damages knee ligaments — 16 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 16 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market31 Jan 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad31 Jan 2028
Qudus Akanni in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wikki Tourists this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market31 Jan 2028
The name of Usman Abba has come up in conversations Wikki Tourists were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad31 Jan 2028
The manager makes an example of Ebuka Akobundu
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match29 Jan 2028
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad31 Jan 2028
7 new faces, and Wikki Tourists are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings31 Jan 2028
A mark of 5.55 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Dec 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Shuaibu Ibrahim
58 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wikki Tourists lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad20 Dec 2027
A season's verdict on Haruna Aliyu: the best of his age
Wikki Tourists have a 21-year-old the division has just voted its finest young footballer. The club's next problem is that everybody else now knows it too.
Market20 Dec 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Nov 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Shuaibu Ibrahim
86 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Wikki Tourists lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market22 Nov 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Qudus Akanni was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad20 Sep 2027
Ebuka Akobundu damages knee ligaments — 74 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 74 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match18 Sep 2027
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. Ikorodu City kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Wikki Tourists will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Market20 Sep 2027
Abba Musa puts it in writing
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Wikki Tourists, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match18 Sep 2027
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Qudus Akanni in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Wikki Tourists this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces20 Sep 2027
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words at Wikki Tourists training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yusuf Mohammed is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
A performance of 8.11 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad20 Sep 2027
The manager makes an example of Mahmood Aliyu
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.