1.0Mathematical 7https://mathematical7.com/m7rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="3SMr0IkvI6"><a href="https://mathematical7.com/m7/america-on-my-mind/">America on my mind!</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://mathematical7.com/m7/america-on-my-mind/embed/#?secret=3SMr0IkvI6" width="600" height="338" title="“America on my mind!” — Mathematical 7" data-secret="3SMr0IkvI6" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); //# sourceURL=https://mathematical7.com/m7/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js /* ]]> */ </script> https://mathematical7.com/m7/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/America.jpg259194I was missing on this page last week. It is because my family and I have been on vacation in America. Unfortunately, last week, things did not work out as I had thought they would. I completely miscalculated the time it would take and the effect it would have on me, to make the long haul from Lagos across the Atlantic Ocean to London (6 hours), then to Miami (8 and half hours, after transiting for 4 hours in London), and finally to our destination, home of Disneyworld, Orlando, Florida (another 4 hours by road). By the time we arrived Orlando on Thursday night, my little 3-year-old ‘terrorist’, his mum and I, with little or no sleep most of the journey, passed out like candles in the wind! This much-needed vacation coincides with the invitations I had received from groups in the US that wanted to present me with awards during separate programmes. Prince Ben Ejindu, the patron and main sponsor of the Enugu Rangers International Football Club supporters in the USA, invited me to the celebrations marking 40 years of the anniversary of Rangers’ historic achievement of being the second club in the history of Nigerian football to win an African continental club championship. The first club to achieve that monumental feat was IICC Shooting Stars International of Ibadan in 1976. That victory by the Ibadan Club provided the psychological challenge and boost Rangers needed to follow in their footsteps, having attempted and failed several times before then to win the more coveted African Champions Club Cup. Not only did they go on to win the Africa Cup Winners Cup in 1977 they did so by also defeating along the way the defending champions, Shooting Stars International, in two, epic semi-final matches in Lagos and Kaduna that many people still consider the greatest club football matches in the history of Nigerian football. The country has surely not had that acuteness in a rivalry between two clubs, or a similar experience, since then. My invitation to Houston, Texas where the event will take place on August 12, therefore, is because of the significance of that victory to generations of the great club’s followers. I believe my hosts expect me to relive that experience. It will be my pleasure to do so when we congregate next week. I am told that a few members of that Rangers team of 1977 will be present at the event including Christian Chukwu, Emmanuel Okala, Adokie Amiesimaka, David Adiele, and others.I look forward to a great reunion with them as well as with many of the other players living in the USA that sustained the indomitability of Rangers International Football Club of Enugu for over a decade after the end of the Civil war in 1970 as one of the most dreaded clubs in Africa. The team undoubtedly dominated the Nigerian football space like no other team in that era. Last weekend, on July 28, in the City of Atlanta, Georgia, another group of ex-international football players that had emigrated to the US and made the place home between the late 1970s up till the late 1980s, led by former Bendel Insurance’s ‘Bulldozer’, Francis Moniedafe, invited me to an event organized by the Nigerian Internationals Football Association in America to kick-start a welfare program to support the less privileged amongst ex-international footballers around the world that may be going through hard times (and there are very many of them) and may need the occasional critical help for one thing or the other. The association’s inaugural program was designed to launch it to the American public and to raise funds to meet their major objectives. I was the Special Guest, and the group also wanted to induct me into their Hall of Fame. The event turned out to be a very elaborate reception held inside the Akwa Ibom Events Centre in Atlanta, attended by a representative of the Nigerian Consular-General in Atlanta, and the Nigerian community. It was a memorable and humbling experience for me.