After 130 years, football returns to where it was first played in Nigeria with Hope full of Waddell

Hope Waddell Training Institution, Calabar on Thursday organised its 130th year anniversary celebration and 121 years of the introduction of the game of football into Nigeria. The first recorded game of football in Nigeria involved Hope Waddell Training Institution against the crew of British gunboat HMS Thistle, which Hope Waddell won 3-2.

NFF Deputy General Secretary, Dr Emmanuel Ikpeme (4th from left, back row), who represented the NFF President, in a group photograph with the Hope Waddell Training Institution team, before their celebratory game with St. Patrick’s College. To Ikpeme’s left is Barr. Efioita Ephraim, President of Hope Waddell Old Students’ Association.