Marked for Kenneth Eze
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Sep 2040
“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.
Squad10 Sep 2040
Akeem 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.
Squad10 Sep 2040
Words at Kwara United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idris Ajiya 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.
Match8 Sep 2040
0‑1 to Remo Stars, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market10 Sep 2040
Warri Wolves are about to pick up the phone
A conversation is coming this week. Kwara United will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Sep 2040
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Kwara United told Kammonke Willie something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market13 Feb 2040
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kwara United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Player ratings13 Feb 2040
Johnmark Atule, 35, rolls back the years — 7.92
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad13 Feb 2040
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Kwara United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad13 Feb 2040
Idris Ajiya 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.
Match11 Feb 2040
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Johnmark Atule. 1‑0 against Bendel Insurance, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings13 Feb 2040
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad13 Feb 2040
David Iwobi gets it from the manager
“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.
Squad13 Feb 2040
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Player ratings13 Feb 2040
Shots: 12, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match12 Sep 2039
63 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market12 Sep 2039
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Kwara United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Sep 2039
Akeem 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.
Squad12 Sep 2039
Words at Kwara United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Idris Ajiya 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 ratings12 Sep 2039
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match10 Sep 2039
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Idris Ajiya in the middle of it, and Rivers United unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings12 Sep 2039
A performance of 8.44 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad12 Sep 2039
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad18 Apr 2039
A knee injury of the worst kind for Olisa Olagunju
44 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kwara United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match16 Apr 2039
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Barau had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Kwara United did not stop to explain themselves.
Match16 Apr 2039
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Squad18 Apr 2039
Akeem 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 Kwara United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Apr 2039
Idris Ajiya 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.
Match16 Apr 2039
It finished 2‑1, and it was Idris Ajiya’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Kwara United.
The terraces18 Apr 2039
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Kenneth Eze has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Player ratings18 Apr 2039
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings18 Apr 2039
The afternoon belonged to Idris Ajiya
7.98, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Kwara United had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Feb 2039
A knee injury of the worst kind for Afeez Bankole
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Kwara United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match26 Feb 2039
Going 2 down does something to a side, and what it usually does is finish them. Not here. Kwara United rebuilt the afternoon goal by goal, and Ikorodu City had no answer to any of it.
Player ratings28 Feb 2039
A brace, and Abdullahi Mohammad takes the afternoon — 8.70
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Abdullahi Mohammad provided it, and the 8.70 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad28 Feb 2039
Akeem 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 Kwara United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces28 Feb 2039
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. David Iwobi has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad28 Feb 2039
Words at Kwara United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jamiu Sulaimon 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 ratings28 Feb 2039
A performance of 8.03 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad28 Feb 2039
Yahaya Ibrahim has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Kwara United will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.