The Kano Pillars Gazette
Market3 Jan 2028
Ali Abdullahi hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Kano Pillars can pretend not to have heard.
Match1 Jan 2028
The wait goes on for Kano Pillars
8 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.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
Kano Pillars tie Olisa Onyekuru down
A new deal for the man in the dugout, and the clearest thing a board can say without calling a press conference about it. Stability is cheap to promise and expensive to deliver.
Squad3 Jan 2028
Tempers go at Kano Pillars
Mustapha Umar 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 Jan 2028
Muhammed Usman honoured for the season
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Kano Pillars had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Boardroom3 Jan 2028
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Kano Pillars
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Market3 Jan 2028
Muhammed Usman comes back from a loan that worked
29 appearances and 145 goals away from here, and a player the manager did not have in August. Loans are sent out hoping for exactly this and most of them do not deliver it.
Match1 Jan 2028
Junior Aliyu’s goal not enough for Kano Pillars
Junior Aliyu scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Niger Tornadoes, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad3 Jan 2028
A row about effort at Kano Pillars
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Chiedozie Okorie was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
- Market Abraham Awoniyi steps up from the Kano Pillars academy
- Market Gabriel Ejuke steps up from the Kano Pillars academy
- The dugout The manager makes an example of Abuchi Okeke