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SPORTS PERSONALITY: Talent Devt: ABS FC firmly on track  – Coach Allen

Festus Allen is the pioneer coach of ABS Football Club of Ilorin. In
this interview with MIKE ADEYEMI, he speak about his stewardship
accounts as the pioneer head coach of the club as well as how ABS FC
has risen to sustain the concept and the philosophy it was
established. Excerpts:
What informed your career in coaching?
My getting into coaching was informed by passion. I was about to leave
Nigeria for oversea, but failed. A brother called me and sought for my
assistance to coach his boys. I gave it a second thought and agreed to
take off the offer.
We engaged in the Emirs cup then in 1997. I cut my teeth with new star
football club of Gaa-Akanbi. We got to the Quarter final of the
competition. Emir’s cup is for teams in Ilorin emirates.
The following years, a club in Gaa-Imam saw me and asked me to come
and handle the club. I led the team to the Semifinal of Kwara FA with
Kwara United beaten us by 5-2. We were defeated but not disgraced.
After the match Coach Gafar Alabi of blessed memory called me to
acknowledge my performance at the tourney.
Later, another club in Ilorin South Local Government called me; we won
the governor’s cup that year. I was later invited by a national league
1 team called Pako FC owned by an oil magnet.
So that was how I started my coaching career. And that was where I got
my first pay of N5,000 in year 2000.
What led you to ABS FC and what are your achievements then as a coach?
I’m proud of ABS FC any day,  any time. It was the club that brought
me into limelight.
It was shortly after I  trained at All stars that one of official
working at the Government House approached me that there was a new
club at its formative stage  that I should come to help the club. I
agreed.
That was how we started Abubakar Bukola Saraki (ABS) Football Club in
2004 and we played our official match in August same year.
I was the pioneer coach of ABS FC. It was then known as Bukola Babes.
That was how the club got birthed.
That very year, I left for Kaduna for Ranchers Babes. I came back to
ABS in 2007 and qualified the team from amateur 1 to the premiership.
I won the FA cup with the team and I had first unbeaten run at the
NPFL then.
I also won Rookey coach of the year. I won the best 10 best coach in
Nigeria. Then ABS was the Cindarella of Nigerian Football because we
played sweet football.
ABS FC of yesterday and now, how would you compare them?
They are miles apart. Though ABS is a platform for bringing up any
player that want to rise to the peak of his carrer. ABS provides such
a platform.
I wouldn’t want to malign anyone. ABS of then can’t be compare to what
is in vogue now.
How?
In terms of playing, in terms of motivation and then we are in the
limelight then. So they are Incomparable.
Looking in retrospect, would you say the concept and the philosophy
for establishing ABS FC has the been achieved?
Yes. The concept and the philosophy of the club has been grossly
achieved. Being a platform to give talented players to rise. And most
of the products of ABS have risen to stardom across the globe.
So the philosophy is intact and has been achieved.
Would you say football development in Kwara is progressive?
Yes. Football development in Kwara State has risen, but there are more
eyes to it. In the sense that most of the club were not encourage,
exception of Kwara United being sponsored by the government and ABS is
a private run entity.
Had it been we had more individuals or companies as it were before.
Then we had injector, NEPA, central bank. So football development in
the state I won’t say is that par excellence.
But with the new board of Kwara FA, I believed Kwara Football will get
back to his lost glory.
Some schools of thought have avowed that the solution to football
development in Kwara is to go back to the Grassroots. Are you of the
same thought?
Grassroots is it, but we cannot outrightly go back without some
palliative measures on ground. Who are the people in the grassroots?
There must be some level of foundation lay there.
If we say grassroots, I think in the sense we are talking of school
sporting activities like principal cup, inter colligate and so on. In
those days you see secondary school boys playing with the club side.
That is grassroots.
Yes we had to go back to it, but not in totality. We have to enhance
our potentials at that level and nurture it to the highest height.
Has there been any period in your career you seems to back out?
I have never regretted being a coach. Coaching gives me joy. There are
lots of challenges on my path.
If you call yourself a coach and you have not been sacked, then you
are not a coach. I had been sacked, I had been suspended and I had
also been employed.
You have to accommodate three things in coaching: win, lose and draw.
As a coach you must face the trio.

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