It happened at last. The 2008 Shell Cup finals took place last Sunday at the National Stadium, Abuja. Unlike the previous nine editions last week’s held in the month of April, not January as has been the practice. Why? What affects Nigeria as a country affects everything within it, don’t you think? Shell Cup cannot, therefore, be an exception and be immune from the social, political and economic upheavals of the past year!
The end of January every year usually is a fixture in the national academic calendar of schools. The last four schools, from an initial number of over 3000 that start the competition all over the country, congregate at a venue over a period of three days to determine which amongst them is the number one football-playing secondary school in Nigeria. Apart from the lateness in the date this year and the relatively few spectators that attended the finals, everything else was basically the same – the players had plenty of fun, the competition was fierce (all the four matches were settled through penalty kicks as the teams could not be separated in regulation time), and there were plenty of football scouts that came to see and possibly recruit some of the future stars of Nigerian football!

This year’s finals held great surprises. At the end of the matches the most exciting and possibly the ‘best’ team, Winners College, Akure, Ondo State, came fourth. The team that looked and played some of the least attractive football, Government Day Secondary School, Army Barracks, Bauchi, came first! Winners College played all the football but lost their games. St. Thomas Secondary School, Benin, runners-up this year and previous winners in 2004, looked good too. They got to the finals, created an endless number of goal-scoring chances and frittered them all away. They lost the final match against the school from Bauchi State that played grittily as if their lives depended on it. The Bauchi lads may not have looked attractive to watch but they managed the pressure of penalty kicks better than the others, winning the two matches they played and earning over N2 million as a result in addition to the Silver trophy they may now keep forever. From 2009 the competition will have a new name and an additional sponsor. NNPC and Shell shall now jointly fund the most prestigious youth and grassroots football development project in Nigeria. As joint-venture partners in the exploration business with Shell, they were really not new to the championship but they have decided to increase their stake in the event by becoming major co-sponsors with the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited in funding the championship. From 2009 the championship shall be called NNPC/Shell Cup and a new trophy reflecting this new relationship will be introduced. NNPC’s entry to the event is to add value to the championship and to take it to a higher level. Into the next edition all the features to achieve this objective will be introduced. As reward for winning the 2008 edition of the NNPC/Shell Cup each of the players of Government day School received a bonus of 15,000 Naira from the sponsors, plus medals!
The four finalist schools – Government Day Secondary School, Army Barracks, Bauchi, St. Thomas College, Benin, Edo State, Winners College, Akure, Ondo State, and   Adamawa State, did a good job advertising school’s football. All the Under-17 national coaches were present at the Abuja national Stadium venue to witness the two matches. Also present were officials of the NFA and the Sports Ministry who had come to join in the identification of the next generation of the country’s national Under-17 team.

It was a great show and one more feather to the cap of the organizers – the Nigeria School Sports Federation!