Two rather wonderful things have happened in the life of Shola Ameobi this week. Not content with securing a place in Nigeria’s World Cup squad, the former Newcastle United striker has been identified as the ideal replacement for Alessandro Del Piero by Sydney FC.
Even Ameobi’s staunchest admirers might hesitate before mentioning the striker in the same breath as the one time Italy international but Sydney are extremely keen to see off competition from New York City and Hull City and transplant the 32-year-old to Australia.
First there is a World Cup to be attacked and Newcastle fans, who have spent more than a decade in a state of deep division over the precise value of an unorthodox talent now polarising public opinion in Nigeria, will be intrigued to see how he performs in a group also featuring Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iran.
If defenders may underestimate the one-time England Under-21 international at their peril, Stephen Keshi, Nigeria’s coach can be assured Ameobi will be a “good tourist.”
Alan Pardew, Newcastle’s manager, was so impressed by his dressing room demeanour that he placed David Cameron and Goodluck Jonathan on alert by predicting Ameobi would one day become “either the British prime minister or the Nigerian president.”
Were the former to happen he would be unlikely to command a single vote in Sunderland. Long known as the “Mackem Slayer” a striker who has never been exactly prolific – he scored 79 goals in 397 appearances for Newcastle – came alive in games against the Wearsiders. Indeed only Jackie Milburn has scored more goals against Sunderland than Ameobi who struck seven times in Tyne-Wear derbies.
If, overall, his goals were strictly rationed they were often rather stunning, with exquisite volleys a speciality. Unpredictable and erratic, it was sometimes all too easy to underrate a Newcastle striker whose fine touch, clever turns and inventive little passes too often got overlooked in today’s tick-box coaching culture.
When in the mood, Ameobi can also delight in using his height and aerial ability to beat centre-halves in more traditional ways with one “beasting” of his former team-mate Titus Bramble during a game at Sunderland lingering in the memory.
Down the years Alan Shearer’s former Newcastle understudy has perplexed some of the best football brains. “Shola’s definitely got something,” mused Howard Wilkinson, after giving him his England Under-21 debut. “It’s just that I’m not sure what.”
Ameobi had just scored twice in a 4-0 win against Finland at Barnsley. Twenty four hours earlier there had been consternation in England’s hotel where Wilkinson, only half joking, revealed that “the Nigerians are trying to kidnap Shola, they want him to play for them”. When a West African businessman – who had nothing to do with football – checked in at reception he ran a gauntlet of suspicion.
Back then though Ameobi was too immersed in life on Tyneside to be overly interested in exploring his family’s roots back in Zaria, northern Nigeria.
He was five when his parents relocated to Tyneside as his father prepared to study for a PhD in agriculture at Newcastle University. Meanwhile his mother began work as a nurse in the city’s hospitals.
“For a few years we struggled to pull the strings together and fit in,” says Ameobi, who has two brothers and three sisters. “It took us a while to be accepted. We looked different and we lived differently - and I still remember the shock of the cold.”
Everything changed when he began playing football on a pitch perched on a hill high above St James’ Park and Ameobi fell in love with not only the game but Newcastle United.
Within a few years a teenager whose parents feared he might be wasting 11 GCSEs and two A levels on football was on the fringe of the first team. When Sir Bobby Robson received a prescription for a new pair of glasses from Ameobi’s optician sister she told the Newcastle manager. “Now you will be able to see well enough to pick my brother!”
Some of Robson’s successors suspected he was too laid back for his own good but things changed when a striker whose progress has been undermined by assorted injuries underwent career-saving hip surgery in Colorado eight years ago.
A committed Christian, Ameobi believes it was a sign he should maximise his talent and duly raised his game. Around this time he began taking an interest in his Nigerian heritage and started visiting the country of his birth. In 2012 the call to pull on the green and white and join the Super Eagles finally came.
Now six caps and two goals later he is travelling to Brazil aware that Sydney see him as the perfect replacement for Del Piero. “It’s a dream,” Ameobi says. “It’s surreal.”
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