Undoubtedly the finest soccer league in the world at the moment, the success story of the Barclays English Premier League will not be whole without mention of the enormous contributions and glittering performances the African soccer stars are putting up in England.
The 20-team Barclays English Premier League started in 1992 (formerly known as Football League First Division). It has seen sixteen seasons so far and has seen four different winners—Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers.
Compared with the multi-national Premier League we have today, the first season of the League had few foreign players with no West African players at all. The only Africans in the Premier League’s debut season were Zimbabweans Peter Ndlovu—scored the second Premiership goal—that was with Coventry City and former Liverpool captain, goalkeeper Bruce Grobelaar.
How things have changed! Now almost every team in the Barclays Premier League has a couple of African faces with some of them going to the extent of captaining their various teams. Soccer fans across the globe come across African players’ heroics as they watch Premiership highlights week in and week out.
Since Ghanaian legend Tony “Yegoola” Yeboah and Nigerian Daniel “The Bull” Amokachi took the Premiership by storm in the mid 90’s, it has seen no turning back for the African professionals plying their trade in England. Cote d’Ivoire’s Kolo Toure is Arsenal’s new captain and fans of the Gunners (Arsenal) cannot help but sing and chant Togolese striker Emmanuel Sheyi Adebayor’s name every week.
With Ghana’s own Michael Essien donning the famous blue jersey of Chelsea, the South London club has an array of African stars lining up for them. Two seasons ago top scorer Didier Drogba, influential midfielder John Obi Mikel of Nigeria and Solomon Kalou are part of an African contingent helping the cause of oligarch Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea.
Same cannot be said of the current champions, Manchester United, who have no African currently on their roster. However the likes of former South African international Quintin Fortune have helped the Old Tradfford outfit in the past. One African who has taken the Premiership by storm in his first year is Egyptian Nations Cup winner Amr Zaki. The former Zamalek hitman is behind the success of Wigan Athletic’s rollercoaster season, so far, hitting ten (10) goals for the JJB Stadium outfit.
The African legions in England are not only making headlines on the soccer pitches but off as well. With Senegal’s ‘bad boy’ El Hadji Diouf at Sunderland, Chelsea’s outspoken Ivorian striker Didier Drogba and a couple of ‘notorious’ African players, the tabloids in England get field days as they write scandalous stories about them week in and week out.
The ever-growing number of African players now plying their trade in the English Premier League has boosted businesses for small scale local entrepreneurs in Africa as well. One is bound to spot various sign boards in Accra (I guess it is so in other big cities in Africa too) indicating an impending English Premiership match and now it is not rare to see people have their local names at the back of replica jerseys of their idolized clubs in England and Europe as a whole.
Before I sign off on how African soccer stars have immensely contributed and are still contributing to make the English Premiership the envy of all leagues in the world today, help me pay a deserved tribute to one of the foremost torch bearers of the African cause in the English Premiership in the last decade, Nigerian and Portsmouth striker Nwankwo Kanu. With a career spanning over fifteen years, Kanu has been a consistent performer from his days at Arsenal, to West Bromwich Albion and then to his present club Portsmouth. I salute you ‘old soldier’ - keep the African fire burning!
The 20-team Barclays English Premier League started in 1992 (formerly known as Football League First Division). It has seen sixteen seasons so far and has seen four different winners—Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Blackburn Rovers.
Compared with the multi-national Premier League we have today, the first season of the League had few foreign players with no West African players at all. The only Africans in the Premier League’s debut season were Zimbabweans Peter Ndlovu—scored the second Premiership goal—that was with Coventry City and former Liverpool captain, goalkeeper Bruce Grobelaar.
How things have changed! Now almost every team in the Barclays Premier League has a couple of African faces with some of them going to the extent of captaining their various teams. Soccer fans across the globe come across African players’ heroics as they watch Premiership highlights week in and week out.
Since Ghanaian legend Tony “Yegoola” Yeboah and Nigerian Daniel “The Bull” Amokachi took the Premiership by storm in the mid 90’s, it has seen no turning back for the African professionals plying their trade in England. Cote d’Ivoire’s Kolo Toure is Arsenal’s new captain and fans of the Gunners (Arsenal) cannot help but sing and chant Togolese striker Emmanuel Sheyi Adebayor’s name every week.
With Ghana’s own Michael Essien donning the famous blue jersey of Chelsea, the South London club has an array of African stars lining up for them. Two seasons ago top scorer Didier Drogba, influential midfielder John Obi Mikel of Nigeria and Solomon Kalou are part of an African contingent helping the cause of oligarch Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea.
Same cannot be said of the current champions, Manchester United, who have no African currently on their roster. However the likes of former South African international Quintin Fortune have helped the Old Tradfford outfit in the past. One African who has taken the Premiership by storm in his first year is Egyptian Nations Cup winner Amr Zaki. The former Zamalek hitman is behind the success of Wigan Athletic’s rollercoaster season, so far, hitting ten (10) goals for the JJB Stadium outfit.
The African legions in England are not only making headlines on the soccer pitches but off as well. With Senegal’s ‘bad boy’ El Hadji Diouf at Sunderland, Chelsea’s outspoken Ivorian striker Didier Drogba and a couple of ‘notorious’ African players, the tabloids in England get field days as they write scandalous stories about them week in and week out.
The ever-growing number of African players now plying their trade in the English Premier League has boosted businesses for small scale local entrepreneurs in Africa as well. One is bound to spot various sign boards in Accra (I guess it is so in other big cities in Africa too) indicating an impending English Premiership match and now it is not rare to see people have their local names at the back of replica jerseys of their idolized clubs in England and Europe as a whole.
Before I sign off on how African soccer stars have immensely contributed and are still contributing to make the English Premiership the envy of all leagues in the world today, help me pay a deserved tribute to one of the foremost torch bearers of the African cause in the English Premiership in the last decade, Nigerian and Portsmouth striker Nwankwo Kanu. With a career spanning over fifteen years, Kanu has been a consistent performer from his days at Arsenal, to West Bromwich Albion and then to his present club Portsmouth. I salute you ‘old soldier’ - keep the African fire burning!
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