Tesi Balogun

Long before droves of foreign footballers began to strut their stuff on the Premiership stage visitors from overseas had already reached these shores, but in nowhere near the sort of numbers today's fans see as normal. I can remember Long Sutton having a Dutch goalkeeper in the late 1940s. But the moment I recall in greater detail was the day in July, 1957, when Holbeach United player-manager Len Richley telephoned and told me he had signed Nigerian international and former QPR centre-forward Tesi Balogun.
Locally, this was big news. Balogun was foreign and he was coloured, and the chattering classes went wild. The aspect of colour didn't matter. It was simply interesting and unusual. In any event, other things were more pressing. 'Will he play with bare feet?' 'Can foreign players actually shoot?' - for there was a perception at the time that all they did in the goalmouth was pass the ball sideways. I found out that Tesi's nickname was 'Thunder,' so that seemed promising. As for the bare feet, I didn't know.
In those pre-Google days information was more difficult to find than it is now. Two months before he signed for Holbeach, Tesi had written an article for Charles Buchan's popular Football Monthly ('I came 4000 miles . . . '). Aside from that, I was able to ascertain that Tesi was 6ft2in and that he had played for several clubs, including QPR, for whom he had made 16 League appearances and scored seven goals. It was enough, and it added several hundred people to the Tiger's average Eastern Counties League gate at Carter's Park.
Tesi did not play in bare feet, and alas, he did not stay long, for despite his undoubted ball skills he did not overly impress the fans. His downfall, so to speak, could be traced to the heavy and sometimes waterlogged pitches prevalent at the time. I think he rattled around several more non-League clubs, including Skegness and Peterborough, and then, one day, I heard he was playing at Boston.
I travelled from Spalding to Boston by train and went to the game, and afterwards, returning to the railway station, found myself sharing an otherwise empty compartment with the man himself. At this distance I cannot recall what we talked about on the journey back to Spalding. Football, presumably. But I can place on record that Tesi 'Thunder' Balogun, so tall and smiley, was also friendly, approachable, completely at ease, and thoroughly enjoying the interest he was creating wherever he went.
Memories of Tesi Balogun faded over the years, and it was only recently I caught up with more details about him. He was born in Nigeria in 1927, so he was 30 when Len Richley signed him. He had played for his country, he was the first Nigerian to play in the English Leagues, and he was a Law student at Cambridge, eventually qualifying as a lawyer. He also became a politician. In 1968 he was coach for the Nigerian team at the Mexico Olympic Games, and in fact, I think he was the first African to qualify as a professional soccer coach.
Teslim Balogun died in 1972 at the age of 45, and 35 years' later they named a stadium after him, the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, next door to the national stadium. There is even a statue of him on the approach road.
Lovely man, and a brave pioneer.