Onigbinde Eulogises Thunder Balogun’s Wife as Family Marks Death Anniversary

The former Chief coach of Nigeria’s senior national soccer team Chief Adegboye Onigbinde, has praised the late wife of the country’s most celebrated soccer player Teslim ‘Thunder’ Balogun as the family marked her 25th death anniversary today at their home in Lagos.

Onigbinde said in Ibadan that it was the late Alhaja Mulikat Balogun that motivated her late husband to become Nigeria’s greatest soccer player and indeed a hero nationwide.

Chief Onigbinde, who was the first indigenous coach to handle a Nigerian senior national soccer team to the FIFA World Cup finals at Japan/ Korea 2002 added that in some of the matches he watched ‘Thunder’ Balogun play in his active international days, his wife Mulikat, in fact took it as a ritual to encourage her husband to score winning goals in crucial matches, before the kick off of such games.

The former Shooting Stars Sports of Ibadan Chief coach said this enabled ‘Thunder’ Balogun to spread his name nationally and even to the diaspora:

“Thurder put extra efforts that distinguished him in all the games he played before his retirement from active football.”

Onigbinde, said, its on record that, it was Madam Mulikat who ensured Thunder Balogun returned to Nigeria to continue his football career when he first rejected the plea of then Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo who wanted the late player to help the West Rovers Fc win the Challenge Cup, the biggest football competition in the country at the time.

The former FIFA and CAF Instructor dislosed that, this was a period ‘Thunder’ Balogun was midway into his career in the English Soccer League, playing for Queens Park Rangers Football Club in 1958.

On his return, ‘Thunder’ helped West Rovers win the title in 1958 for the first time in history.

His football excellence and artistry made the victory possible.

The former FIFA instructor stressed that, looking into the future, Alhaja Mulikat was the one who advised her husband to form a number of youth clubs in Lagos for the development of football in Nigeria which formed the foundation for the emergence of new football teams in the country.