Antelopes do not fly. That’s why I often wondered why Rangers International Football Club of Enugu are nicknamed ‘the Flying Antelopes’.
One year after the end of the war, the team played its way to the finals of the most prestigious club competition in Nigeria at the time – the FA Cup! That same year, 1971, in a competition that was referred to as an ‘emergency league’, Rangers FC emerged the league champions for the first time. Remarkably, it was not only the victories that made Rangers International FC famous and a great team. It was inthe manner of their performances on the field of play. They played with uncommon passion and determination. They had very skillful, very strong and very fast players in all departments on the field, with a goalkeeper who,at about 6 ft 5 inches tall, was a real giant between the posts.
In 1977, Rangers FC added the appellation ‘International’ to its name when it won the Africa Cup-winners Cup, only the second Nigerian club side to win the same continental trophy. One year earlier, in 1976, IICC Shooting Stars International FC had blazed the international success trail. The epic semi-final matches of the Africa Cup-Winners Cup in 1977, pitched Rangers International with their fiercest domestic rivals, Shooting Stars FC. Those two matches are still considered amongst the greatest and most memorable football matches in Nigeria’s football history.