Stationery Stores F.C.

History

The team was founded in 1958 by Israel Adebajo, who ran the Nigeria office of the Stationery Stores Supply Company. They immediately established themselves as one of the dominant teams in the area and country, supplying the bulk of the first editions of the national team and winning a total 13 Lagos State Challenge Cups, the preliminary round for the Nigerian FA Cup. The club's glory years started in 1967. Their fluid and entertaining style of play endeared the club to Lagos fans as they delivered two FA Cups within that period. The first 11 of the Nigerian national team in the 1968 Mexico City Olympic football event had 9 Stationery Stores players, including Sam Opone and Peter Fregene. Between 1973 and 1993, Stores was in the top division of Nigerian football. Throughout those years, they enjoyed a particularly brutal rivalry with Enugu Rangers International F.C., going back to the East vs. West feelings from the Biafran War.

Relegation/Financial Problems/Hiatus

The final title for Stores came in 1992. However, the next year Stationery Stores were relegated because of failing to complete their fixtures, not because they finished on a relegation spot. The team continued the next five seasons in the second division. However, in March 1998, the NFA was compelled to cancel all outstanding Pro League Second Division games involving Stationery Stores following an injunctive order issued by a Lagos High Court restraining Stationery Stores from playing any Pro League games pending the resolution of a lawsuit filed before the court to determine the ownership and control of the club. This action constituted the culmination of a long-festering ownership dispute involving two of the Adebajo siblings (each of whom was a director of The Nigeria Office of Stationery Stores Supply): Gloria Adebajo-Fraser whom exercised administrative control over the club's affairs throughout the course of the 1997 football season and her half-brother Adetilewa Adebajo whom (with the apparent blessing of the NFA) assumed de facto control of the club's management for the succeeding 1998 football season. The lingering management crises and festering lawsuits so decimated and depleted this much-celebrated clubside that, throughout the course of the 1998 football season, its players were compelled to campaign without the benefit of formal contracts, sign-on fees, bonuses or club-supplied playing equipment. The team was demoted to the amateur ranks in 1999 after the club had been suspended nine matches in the 1998 season due to the family wranglings. They returned to the professional level in summer 2004 but were relegated after failing to make several games and fielding several unregistered players.

Return

There have been requests since 2007 for the Lagos State government to revive the team. The team's former players played a pair of games in July 2008 in an attempt to jumpstart support. In January 2009 efforts gained steam with a launch of a website. The team was supposed to play friendlies and enter the FA Cup before entering league play the next season. The team was poised to enter the Nigeria National League in 2012 and play in a pre-season friendly tournament at Onikan. However they withdrew from the tournament. In February 2014, it was announced Stores would buy Union Bank F.C.'s slot in the National League a ten-year exile.

Current Squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Trivia

The King Sunny Adé song "Challenge Cup 1967" was written about Stores' first FA Cup win.

Foreign exhibitions

Achievements

Performance in CAF competitions