Former Super Eagles Goalkeeper Denies Using Handkerchiefs To Bewitch Opponents

• Ike Shorunmu started his professional career with Lagos-based Stationery Stores, where he spent three years
• The former Nigerian international has denied allegations that the squad of 1990 had a fetish
• Ike admitted that one of the coaches handed each player a handkerchief before matches

Former Nigerian international Ike Shorunmu has disclosed that there was a misconception about the Stationery Stores squad of 1990.

The ex-goalie was a member of the historic team based in Lagos until 1993 when he left to join Concord Football Club.

In the early 90s, Stationery Stores were one of the best teams in Nigeria, winning the FA Cup in 1990 and the league two years later.

Football fans were stunned by the heroic performances of the team, and many alleged that the players adopted diabolical means to succeed.

The biggest World Cup snubs: A list of footballers left out of their countries’ World Cup squad

Football

In a chat with Ebenezer Bajela via Punch, Ike stated that those insinuations were not true:

“That’s absolutely not true. People were comparing us to the Stores of the 80s because then they had a coach who they called Baba Joo.

“I didn’t meet him when I joined in 1990, but I heard a lot of stories, that he was a very fetish man and when I went to watch their trainings, I saw things too.

“When I joined, the coach Austin Ofokwu would stop by the roadside on his way to camp and buy two dozens of white handkerchiefs and share them with every player.

“While every other player tied theirs around their necks, I always tied mine around my wrist and people concluded that it was our juju. They said I used mine to command the ball.

“I won’t say it didn’t happen before because I wasn’t there in the 80s, but coach Ofokwu was a very religious man and a born-again Christian.”

Ranking the top 10 best Brazilian football strikers of all-time

Football

Ike Shorunmu receives house keys from FG

Sports Brief earlier reported that some ex-internationals have received keys to three-bedroom bungalows, which were promised to them by the Nigerian Federal Government in 1994.

National heroes like Finidi George, Ike Shorunmu and Mutiu Adepoju have all been handed the properties by the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola.

Akin Amao, who served as a team doctor at the time, was also a beneficiary of the national housing project as well as Adewale Adesokan.