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Nigeria Premier League club, Bendel Insurance FC of Benin City, has received a N1 million financial boost from the family of one of the club’s pioneer supporters, late Mr Israel Menson Ehimiaghe (nee Bamawo).

According to the Ehimiaghes, the gesture is in support of a sports club that their late father worked for and supported during his life time.

Prior to his death in December 1979, the late Israel Menson Ehimiaghe was the branch manager of the now defunct Bendel Insurance Company in Auchi.

One of the children of the late supporter of the “Benin Arsenal,” Cornelius Ehimiaghe said: “My father was one of the greatest supporters of Bendel Insurance FC. I grew up to hear the slogan ‘Nobody can win us, only Bendel.’ When my late father was alive, there were commemorative clothes, T-shirts, caps, and paper flags that celebrated our winning the 1972 and 1978 Nigeria Challenge Cup.

“Though I could not read properly in 1978, there was a pictorial football magazine that covered our 1978 FA Cup victory over Enugu Rangers. After my father’s death in 1979, I more or less inherited all these football memorabilia, as well as his transistor radio,” he said.

Ehimiaghe added: “I recall that after we (Bendel Insurance) won the Nigerian league in 1979, my late father scouted a player from street football in Auchi, got the permission of the player’s (Aminu Momoh) parents, drove the player to Benin City in his 504 Peugeot car, and introduced the player to coach Alabi Aisien. After a brief trial, the young midfielder was employed by Bendel Insurance FC. My father used to plan his travel to Benin around the weekends that the Benin Arsenal had their home matches.

“The last time he watched his beloved Bendel Insurance FC play was the semifinal match of the Africa Cup Winners Cup against Cannon Sportiff of Yaoundé, at the Ogbe Stadium in Benin, in November 1979. The match ended in a goalless draw which meant that the Benin Arsenal failed to make it to the final due to a dubious offside goal by Onguene Manga, two weeks earlier in Yaoundé.

“A few years ago, I told coach Alabi Assien that my late father would not have died on 12/12/1979, if the Benin Arsenal had triumphed over Cannon Sportiff. Without fear or favour, my late father would have negotiated with the angel of death to come and pick him up a few weeks later, after Bendel Insurance FC would have won the 1979 Africa Cup Winners Cup. The rest is history.”