212: Ade Akinbiyi, Leicester City, Merlin’s F.A. Premier League 2001 Official Sticker Collection

The growing trend in education for providing students with opportunities to reflect on their work and respond to marking is one that I have struggled to get my head round. Gone are the days of a few ticks here and there and some “good work”/”see me” comments with an expectation that students are set targets to respond to or sections of assessed work to redraft. Needless to say there is a questionable acronym involved. When I first came across the concept of ‘DIRT lessons’ I was hoping this would be an opportunity for my classes to discuss why Mick Mars has always been the best member of Motley Crue but apparently it stood for ‘Directed Improvement and Reflection Time’. Despite my cynicism towards anything remotely new and exciting in teaching there are some benefits to this for exam classes where there is a clear mark scheme outlining expectations. When it comes to the lower years though it can be a bit of an exercise in futility especially in the last week of the summer term with a Year 9 class where more than half of them are dropping your subject.

The summer is, however, always a useful time for reflection in the world of football. With the transfer market wide open, boards of directors making bold statements about exciting new directions and, at least every two years, previously unheard of players putting themselves in the shop window at major international tournaments every club is able to think back to the previous campaign and draw up a wish list. Whether your club has just won the Champions League or has found themselves scrabbling around the youth team to build a side ready for non-league action these lists are fairly similar: an experienced ball-playing centre-half, a creative midfielder and a striker who can hit double figures. The scarcity of such players is what makes those who fit the bill genuinely world class whilst the desire for goals has allowed several honest professionals the opportunity to earn themselves some big money moves despite the fact said goals might not be forthcoming which brings us nicely to today’s subject.

Ade Akinbiyi made his professional debut for Norwich City in 1993 in the second leg of their famous UEFA Cup victory over Bayern Munich. Across four seasons at Carrow Road he contributed five goals in 58 appearances as the Canaries went from European glory to Division One before dropping a division to Gillingham in the 1996/97 season. It was at Priestfield that Akinbiyi began to forge his reputation as a source of goals as he found the net on 29 occasions across 68 games in all competitions. Bristol City were suitably impressed and took Akinbiyi up to Division One with them for £1.2m at the start of their 1998/99 campaign and were rewarded with an impressive 23 goals across 49 appearances. These strikes were not enough to keep the Cider Army in the second tier and, after two goals in three early season games, Wolverhampton Wanderers shelled out £3.5m to bring him to Molineux to replace the outgoing Robbie Keane. Akinbiyi once again delivered with 16 goals in the 1999/2000 season as Wolves just missed out on the play-offs.

Whilst Akinbiyi would not be heading to the Premier League with Wolves he did find himself back in the top flight with another Midlands club when Leicester City, with £11m burning a hole in their pockets from the sale of Emile Heskey, broke their transfer record to bring the Nigerian striker to Filbert Street for £5.5m. His first season was by no means a failure, with ten goals in 43 appearances across all competitions, but he developed an unhappy knack for missing sitters during this period. With the wheels falling off for the Foxes in his second season he became an easy target for frustrated fans. A particularly miserable 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool in October 2001 saw Akinbiyi miss four gilt-edged chances from physics-defying close range and the confidence that had secured him a series of big money moves all but eroded. He found the net in two morale boosting wins against Sunderland and Aston Villa before being offloaded to Crystal Palace for £2.2m in February 2002.

With recently initiated Irish international Clinton Morrison occupying the coveted no.10 jersey Akinbiyi brought out his inner Ivan Zamorano by making his Eagles debut against former club Wolves wearing the previously unseen no.5+5 shirt. This was pretty much his only standout contribution in a game where he had about four touches of the ball and Dean Sturridge smashed in a wonder goal to seal a 2-0 win for the visitors. A grand total of three goals in 28 games across two seasons did little to dispel the striker’s “Akin-bad-buyi” nickname forced on him at Leicester and, after a brief loan spell had seen him net twice in four games, he was snapped up by Stoke City on a free transfer. In the Potteries he rediscovered some of the form from his earlier career and his ten goals in his first full season earned him the club’s Player of the Year award. Seven more goals in the following campaign attracted the attentions of Sheffield United and Burnley with the latter getting their man for £500,000.

Akinbiyi rediscovered some of his potency at Turf Moor with eighteen goals in a season and a half although his debut lasted the grand total of two minutes after he was sent off for laying the nut on Sunderland’s George McCartney. Sheffield United saw enough to break their transfer record to bring him to Bramall Lane but a winning goal in the Steel City derby was a rare highlight in a short spell which culminated with a training ground fight with Claude Davis. He returned to Turf Moor for a second spell with Burnley where he became something of a fan’s favourite with thirteen goals across two and a bit seasons in Lancashire. Now in his mid-30s the classic move to the MLS was on the cards and he managed a solitary goal in a fourteen-match spell for Houston Dynamo. He returned to England with Notts County in the 2009/10 season but left the club after a year and eleven goalless appearances. Two years as a free agent finally saw him make his last professional appearances for Colwyn Bay in the Conference North before retirement in 2015.

Six years after his playing days came to an end reflection on Ade Akinbiyi can reveal a number of things. 152 goals in 564 appearances is hardly the worst record but for a striker so often called upon to solve a club’s problems in front of goal it is not exactly on the Roger Milla scale. What can’t be questioned is the fact that there was always enough about Akinbiyi to convince you he would come good eventually and he definitely won’t be the last striker called upon to rescue an ailing football club even if the statistics suggest otherwise.