Rangers International Football club of Enugu, yesterday, broke a 32 year trophy drought, when they beat hard fighting El Kanemi Warriors of Maidugri,4-0 to clinch their 7th league title.
The Flying Antelopes at the Nnamdi Azikwe Stadium now dubbed,”the Cathedral” in the Week 38 of the 2015-2016 season of the Nigeria Professional Football League final match earned three points to finish with 63 points to top the log.
The victory ended the team’s jinx that has dogged the pride of the East for 32 long years. And the club which means so much more to the Igbo nation, has thrown the people into a frenzy mood.
This comes in the first full tenure of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s as Enugu State Governor which speaks volume of motivational prowess as the helmsman. The 25,000 capacity stadium which was filled to the brim rose to its feet when Chisom Egbuchulum sent Elkanemi keeper in the wrong direction to net the first goal, through a penalty in the second minute,.
Determined to earn the N40 Million price money, Rangers doubled the lead at the 39th minute when,Osas Okoro, volleyed a diagonal shot past the keeper.
However, the third goal came off the itching foot of Chisom Egbuchulum in the 64th minute as Rangers attackers mesmerized Elkanemi defence which was caught napping. Egbuchulum scored from the spot to record an hat-trick in the 90th minute to make it 4-0.
Formed from the ashes of the civil war in 1970, Rangers became one of the two institutions that played inestimable roles in healing the Igbos’ wound – physically, socially and psychologically from the devastating 3-year civil war.
Within four years, precisely in 1974, Rangers had not only lifted Nigeria’s league title, they went ahead to repeat the feat five more times in 1975, 1977, 1981, 1982 and 1984. Their series of conquests did not stop at the league, they replicated it in the FA Cup, winning the prestigious trophy a record five times, in1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, 1983. Coming out from a devastating war, the team became a pictogram for the Igbo spirit of industry and resilience.
Rangers became Nigeria’s most recognizable flag-bearers in international competitions, conquering both at home and afar, and bringing to our shores such great teams like Asante Kotoko of Ghana, Union Douala of Cameroun, Al Ahly of Egypt, Etoile Sahel and Club Africain of Tunisia, El-Marriek of Sudan and so on.
In those glorious years, the Enugu stadium later remodeled to 30,000 capacity and named after Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe became the slaughter arena where great teams likes Egypt’s Mehalla saw real wahala.
In those giddy days, Rangers provided the bulk of players to the then Green Eagles, like giant goalkeeper Emma Okala, skipper Christian Chukwu, Aloysius Atuegbu, the Onyedikas (Emeka and Ifeanyi), Christian Madu and many more. By 1984, just within 14 years of its formation, they had triumphed in the African Cup Winners’ Cup in 1977, after reaching the finals of the African Cup of Champions Clubs two years earlier in 1975.
