Nigerian women’s national team, Super Falcons’ former top striker, Mercy-Akide Udoh has opened up on secrets of her successful married life, as she revealed how she first met her husband, Colin Udoh, who was once media officer of the men’s national team, Super Eagles, megasportsarena.com reports.
While also disclosing how much joy she has found and continues getting since they got married in 2004, the striker-turned-coach, whose first daughter was named Coleen, recalled that it was her smile that first attracted her to the man who is now her loving husband of 16 years.
It indeed is a captivating story for a romance movie from the heroic lady, who started playing football at the age of five with her oldest brother, Seleipiri and younger one, Ipali, in the sandy field of Bundu Waterside, near Port Harcourt Prisons in the Rivers State capital.
During her days at Holy Rosary Secondary School in The Garden City, Akide also took part in long-distance races as well as 400m, 800m and 1,500m against older competitors, while also going on to emerge regional table tennis champion, but she soon fixed attention on football.
Incidentally, she was nicknamed ‘Ske’ (Skinny), because of her lean physique while growing up playing games at Mile 1 in Port Harcourt, where she soon excelled in a contest organized to select talented girls to form a new team called Garden City Queens FC.
After two years of playing for Queens, she opted to head out the oil rich city in search of the Golden Fleece, hence her decision to snub an offer to join local rivals, Larry Angels, and move on to Jegede Babes of Lagos, where he made huge waves in just two seasons.
Her haul of 49 goals caught the attention of then Falcons’ coach, Ismaila Mabo, who invited her to the national camp in 1994, after which she hit 17 league goals and nine in the Challenge Cup, and she soon got her international debut in a FIFA Women’s World Cup qualifier.
Although she played that game in Ibadan against Sierra Leone as a winger, Akide netted twice and added another in the return leg to cement her place in the Falcons, which she later helped to three African Women Championship (AWC) titles in 1998, 2000 and 2002 as well as outings at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1999 and 2004, the year she married Colin, a then fledgling yet fast-growing sports writer, in Port Harcourt during the month of November.
Mercy Akide-Udoh, who started her coaching career with Stars Soccer Club of USA, where she was the head coach for the under-16 Athena C Gold Girls squad, was in 2005 named by world soccer governing body, FIFA, as Ambassador For Women Football.
There is now a vision of better days of marital bliss ahead of the Amazon, who has also worked as the co-director of Beach FC Youth Development in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA from 2008 to 2013, when she joined the coaching staff of Virginia Rush Soccer Club in the same community.
Akide, who in 2001 won the first ever award staged by Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the continent’s best female player and was a star performer in the Nigerian squad that made history in being the first to reach the World Cup got to the second round at USA 1999, said she has been blessed a lot more after marrying Colin Udoh, who is also a broadcaster and blogger.
Her exposé is contained in a post on social media by another Nigerian ace broadcaster, Godwin Enakhena, who disclosed the ex-player’s ‘love secrets’ in a tweet he captioned ‘One time Africa’s Best Woman Footballer, Mercy Akide-Udoh speaks on her journalist husband, Colin Udoh.’
The post that came via @genakhena added that Colin was immediately attracted to Mercy due to the way she smiled, and both stars continue waxing strong in love, as the ex-Falcons’ striker, who is now a licensed coach, youth developer, social worker and motivational speaker in United States of America, says her hubby is the pillar of her soul.
Akide recalled: “He told me he liked the way I smile. We ended up as husband and wife in 2004, Colin is just a blessing, he is my best friend, and my soul mate, and he is still who he was…”
