I have known him all my life even though most of my thinking about him started only last Saturday. I was at the Ilorin Township stadium when someone came to me and asked if I had heard the news that he was dead. Who? Even my informant had to whisper as he was not sure what my reaction would be. ‘Aloysius Atuegbu is dead!’ I went numb! I could not say a word. In the past year I had written and paid too many tributes about people I know that had passed on! It was becoming scary! Why is everyone dying all of a sudden? What’s going on? My mind raced through time. But Aloysius is different. I could not recall much about him, yet, of my contemporaries in football he is the one I have known the longest! ‘Block Buster’ Aloysius Atuegbu is just different! Even though his contributions as a player to Nigerian football are monumental thoughts of him never easily and readily come to mind. I think it has to do with his personality. For example, how many people know what Aloysius did through all the years after retiring from the game well over twenty years ago? Not many people also actually recall that he was a member of the technical crew of a few of the junior national teams in the recent past. He did everything he did very unobtrusively. Not many people know that until he died last Saturday he had been working in Keffi for two years as technical adviser to Keffi United Football Club in Nassarawa State. He is not loud or loquacious. He is hardly ever quoted in the newspapers about his opinion on the game, teams, the league or even administration generally. Yet he is one of the most active retired international players of my time maintaining contact with colleagues, administrators (past and present), journalists and even fans of football generally.

When you least expect Aloysius to see or hear from him that when his call comes through asking why you have forgotten him. Of course, it would not be that he was forgotten it was just that one never seemed to know what to do with or for him.