Football

This won’t get much attention anywhere, but today a guy called Jabo Iberhe announced his retirement from football aged 37. He started his career at my beloved Leyton Orient, coming up through the ranks from the youth squad, and played for us for some 8 years. A striker, he was at best erratic, and was described as “uncoachable” by manager Tommy Taylor. He was a firm fans favourite, always dropping into the supporters club after games, and just a nice guy.
He went on to play for a raft of lower league clubs in a career that spanned just on 20 years, played over 750 games and scored over 150 goals, not a great strike rate but his work rate was always worth more. He was once mistakenly sent off after 34 seconds of a game for violent conduct, which stunned everyone; as his manager said “he hasn’t got a bad bone in him”. It was overturned on appeal.

My abiding memory of him will always be from the final game of the season in 2006 at Oxford Utd, where Orient had to win to secure promotion, and Oxford had to win to avoid relegation from the Football League. With the score at 2-2 and going into injury time, Jabo found himself 1-on-1 with the keeper. He shot well, but the keeper made a fine save. He was absolved when we scored the winner with 17 seconds remaining. Cue the inevitable pitch invasion, where I grabbed a sweaty shirtless Jabo and hugged him. “Mate, what happened with that 1-on-1?!”. He replied, “I shit myself!”

When he left us after 8 years he came into the supporters club and thanked everyone for their support over the years. He always came to games if he was in town and not playing himself. When we were in dire straits he donated his playoff final shirt to be auctioned off. He was surprisingly softly spoken for such a big guy, and was always quite shy, never loud or arrogant. He was, in short, a top guy and a model pro.

I just didn’t want his retirement to go completely unnoticed, that’s all. Enjoy your retirement, Jabo. You’ve earned it.