Ugo Ehiogu

[Paddywhack]

Gutted when I heard the news. Ugo was part of the 1995/96 squad that I'll still be able to name in 50 years time, I'll never forget it.

Every Easter at primary school we had to decorate a hard boiled egg. One year I did Ugo Egghiogu and got 2nd place to a kid who did Cleopatra. Still annoys me, that's rubbish. Not even a pun.

[turvontour]

We as a family started going to Villa 95/96, so the loss of Ugo has had much more impact on me than the loss of Atkinson who I never saw play live. But much more than that, I think he was my favourite player of that time. He was the first players name that I had on a shirt – Ehiogu 16 on the AST Computers home shirt. And I’ll never forget him handing me his training hoody as he ran down the tunnel of the old Trinity before a match. It was one of those LDV vans navy blue hoodies, so I want to say 98/99, feels like it was the same year as the Arsenal parachutist game, who landed about 15 feet away from me btw.

 

I think that it’s made me realise how lucky I was to have people like that as an idol growing up. My young lad shouts the names of Richards (his only autograph to date), Grealish and Mccormack when we play football. Now I know there not bad people but it just feels worlds apart in terms of a role model.  

 

Few things I’ll remember of Ugo;

 

The purpose with which he ran in from training pre-match, was always fairly late in I recall, but would sprint in.

The size of his hands when signing autographs. OK I was 10 at the time but a pen in his hand looked like how a match would in yours or mine.

Attacking headers from corners, again the word purposeful comes to mind, and a very real belief that he would meet the ball.  

 

Good memories

[Villan_of_oz]

So much crazy stuff goes on in the world these days that I didn't realise it was a year today that we lost this champion of our club.

Still blows my mind.

R.I.P Ugo 

[Brumstopdogs]

 

 

[Demitri_C]

Happy birthday king ugo

[villa89]

3 hours ago, Brumstopdogs said:

 

 

I had that jersey with ehiogu 5 on the back. Great jersey, great player. 

Edited November 3, 2018 by villa89

[Brumstopdogs]

 Always have great memories of him at the club. We miss you big man.

 

 

[VillaChris]

How many England caps did he get for us out of interest?

I always remember him hardly getting a call up even when we were top of the league and keeping clean sheet after clean sheet. Odd considering Southgate was always a regular in that period.

Then he moved to Boro and seemed to be regularly called into the squad, can remember him scoring at the Holte v Spain and then pointing to the back of his shirt. Not sure he realised there wouldn't be that many Villa fans in there that night!

 

[Hornso]

On 04/11/2019 at 03:47, VillaChris said:

How many England caps did he get for us out of interest?

I always remember him hardly getting a call up even when we were top of the league and keeping clean sheet after clean sheet. Odd considering Southgate was always a regular in that period.

Then he moved to Boro and seemed to be regularly called into the squad, can remember him scoring at the Holte v Spain and then pointing to the back of his shirt. Not sure he realised there wouldn't be that many Villa fans in there that night!

 

Based on the data on Transfermarkt he came on for 14 minutes in a friendly against China in 1996. Then he wasn't seen for 5 years. Like you said he played a half against Spain and scored, then 6 months later he played 40 minutes against the Netherlands and another 6 months after that he played a half against Italy. In between the Netherlands and Italy games he made the bench against Sweden but didn't feature. Not a bad collection of opponents for 4 caps!

[VillaChris]

16 minutes ago, Hornso said:

Based on the data on Transfermarkt he came on for 14 minutes in a friendly against China in 1996. Then he wasn't seen for 5 years. Like you said he played a half against Spain and scored, then 6 months later he played 40 minutes against the Netherlands and another 6 months after that he played a half against Italy. In between the Netherlands and Italy games he made the bench against Sweden but didn't feature. Not a bad collection of opponents for 4 caps!

Honestly though it was more than that. Only 4 caps, wow but then again in that era Steve Bruce didn't get a cap and Gary Pallister only got 20 but injured loads. Ugo would've got so many more if he'd played 5 years later.

Surprised Glenn Hoddle didn't call him up more though as at the time we were playing a back 3 to great success and England were doing the same in that period.

[Zatman]

5 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Honestly though it was more than that. Only 4 caps, wow but then again in that era Steve Bruce didn't get a cap and Gary Pallister only got 20 but injured loads. Ugo would've got so many more if he'd played 5 years later.

Surprised Glenn Hoddle didn't call him up more though as at the time we were playing a back 3 to great success and England were doing the same in that period.

Not sure he would have if honest. Rio, Terry, Campbell, King was probably stronger competition than mid 90s

[VillaChris]

15 hours ago, Zatman said:

Not sure he would have if honest. Rio, Terry, Campbell, King was probably stronger competition than mid 90s

Was thinking of that period when Upson was getting loads of caps but that was 2008 so decade on from Ugo's peak I guess.

[Zatman]

10 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Was thinking of that period when Upson was getting loads of caps but that was 2008 so decade on from Ugo's peak I guess.

Dont think was just Ugo and Bruce though, Steve Bould won 2 caps so did Nigel Winterburn yet  shocking players like Steve Howey won 4 caps Neil Ruddock won 1 cap and John Scales 3

Carlton Palmer won about 30

[Villan_of_oz]

Our lives go so quickly and sometimes I'm not sure we have the ability to realise. For some reason I'm always reminded of this on this day since Ugo passed away.

Legend of our club, all round good guy.

Be grateful for every day my friends.

[It's Your Round]

Such a huge shame for Ugo Ehiogu to pass so young. Gregg Evans has written a nice article on him in The Athletic. Worth a read.
 

Quote

Life After Ugo
 

It was during a trip to Nigeria, when Ugo Ehiogu buried his father, Chike, less than a year before his own death, where the extent of his obsession with life as a football coach at Tottenham Hotspur was truly revealed.

Every night during the week-long visit, the former England defender would use the electricity that was pumped through a generator in a village near the city of Umuahia to spark up his laptop and study clips of his under-23 players back home.

He was surrounded by his family (mother Grace, brothers Uzo and Obi and sister Ola) as they gave the most senior man of the Ehiogu household the send-off he had always requested. But even during this emotionally charged period in his life, Ugo was still fitting in time to work.

For Uzo, a former patrol medic in the Royal Marines and a qualified physiotherapist, it was a real eye-opener. He says Ugo ended his playing career too soon and struggled to find a real purpose in his work in the immediate aftermath.

“He absolutely loved working with the under-23 players at Tottenham,” Uzo tells The Athletic. Today marks three years since Ugo’s death from a heart attack at the Spurs training ground.

“He was so driven and determined to get the best out of those boys. In Nigeria, just as I was about to go to sleep, he would start his video analysis. Every night. Always looking at ways he could make a difference. It was surreal in many ways. There we were, with no electricity running through the mains, nine hours from home, and we’re sharing a room like during our childhood in London. The only difference was that we were not top-and-tail like when we were kids.

“I remember having to put up his mosquito net for him that week because he was struggling to do so. He was actually very practical, but that he couldn’t do. He knew all about his football, though. He would have made a great manager in the future.”

Before Ehiogu died in 2017, aged just 44, his long-term plan was to move into first-team management when the right opportunity came up. There was no rush. He had ideas that he wanted to implement at Spurs first and he genuinely cared about the future of each youngster under his wing.

Ehiogu, a former Aston Villa, Middlesbrough, Rangers and Sheffield United centre-back, was a realist, too. He recognised that his role as Tottenham Under-23s boss was not just about on-field coaching.

Only a select few players would progress into the first-team in north London, so he was considering ways to make sure the others departed the club with a back-up plan. He had reached out to school teachers and had plans of further developing the education each player received.

John McDermott, who was head of coaching and player development at Tottenham and now works for the FA as assistant technical director, recognised Ehiogu was perfect for such a role. He said: “He was a coach in the true sense of the word — a developer and pusher of those around him. He understood that less than half of his job was teaching football — he knew that, to play at the top, they had to develop a character to help them thrive and survive. He was a kind and caring man who always wanted to give his best for those in his charge.“

Ehiogu’s outlook on life was very simple. “He loved football, his family, and music,” adds Uzo.

There was also an extremely generous and caring side to him. “He didn’t like giving out hand-outs, but he would try to give others a platform so they could help themselves,” says Uzo.

It’s fitting then to see his widow, Gemma, taking on the Side-On charity that he started. Ehiogu spoke passionately about wanting to give children the opportunity to play football in a safe environment and in recent years the charity has started to do that.

Had he been around now, he would have wanted to help ease the problems of the sweeping COVID-19 crisis, too, although his input would have been done in a “quiet and unassuming way” says Uzo.

“We were actually planning to extend his charity work after visiting Nigeria. Our plan was quite fluid, it was basically to help people in other parts of the world.”

His son, also named Obi, is a budding goalkeeper; keeping football in the family.

Indie band The 1975, signed to the Dirty Hit record label, of which Ehiogu was an investor, are also still successful, achieving their third straight No 1 album in 2018. Their fourth album is due out in late May.

At Tottenham, Japhet Tanganga and Oliver Skipp, players he helped nurture, have progressed into the senior set-up. Ehiogu also would have been proud of Will Miller, a former Spurs player who has since quit football and recently released the song Crash Landing as a moving tribute to his former mentor.

There really aren’t too many footballers out there to have left a lasting legacy like Ehiogu has. At the Hotspur Way training ground, a 20-foot mural of the coach can be seen in the academy wing.

There’s now an all-weather area at Seven Sisters Primary School in Tottenham, named the “Ugo Ehiogu pitch”. It’s just 15 minutes away from the house he grew up in, where his mum Grace still lives.

As a player, he scaled so many new heights. He was the first black player to captain England Under-21s in 1993. Villa fans still sing his name at every game. They remember his efforts in the 1994 and 1996 League Cup-winning seasons and beyond. Ehiogu played alongside Gareth Southgate and Paul McGrath in arguably the strongest defensive unit in club history.

Former coach John Gregory also reckons Villa could have won the title in 1998-99 had it not been for the unfortunate injury to Ehiogu, when he almost lost his left eye following an accidental kick to the head by Newcastle United’s Alan Shearer. His recovery from the surgery kept him out of action for three months.

Holding back the tears, his ex-Villa team-mate Mark Bosnich finds it hard to accept he’s no longer around. Bosnich remembers the visits Ehiogu and his close friend Dwight Yorke would make to see him in Sydney, Australia.

“What a phenomenal player and gentleman he was,” the ex-goalkeeper tells The Athletic. “He was a player I felt so secure behind. Hopefully one day in the future I will meet up with him again. He’s never far away from my thoughts.”

The Ehiogu family are regularly invited back to Villa Park, a place that became their second home in the 1990s. It was on that pitch where the towering centre-half scored his only England goal in 2001 during one of his four full appearances for the national team.

Ehiogu rises highest to score a header in England’s 3-0 victory over Spain (Photo: Craig Prentis/Allsport)

Ehiogu’s legacy extends up the country and into Scotland, too. He was a part of the Middlesbrough side that triumphed in the League Cup in 2004, the only major trophy the club has lifted, and featured heavily in their run to the 2006 UEFA Cup final.

At Rangers, he also earned hero-like status for scoring a spectacular overhead kick against Celtic which gave his side a 1-0 away win at Parkhead in 2011. It was the only goal he scored north of the border and it remains one of the greatest strikes in Old Firm history.

“I still picture him standing on the stage receiving his goal of the season award, all suited and booted to an amazing round of applause,” said Kevin Thomson, his old Rangers team-mate.

Uzo also recalls an intervention he had to make in the aftermath of that strike: “I had to get on the phone to him quite quickly to tell him not to drive around Glasgow in his 4×4 with the number plate UG01,” he laughs.

What a career he had. And to think, he fell into football by chance, with Uzo describing him as an “accidental footballer”.

“Mum and Dad were very strict when we were younger,” he explains. “They left Nigeria because there was a civil war. Dad was anti-football at the start and playing was certainly not seen as a career move back then. It’s never been written that ‘Ugs’ only signed for West Bromwich Albion at the start of his career [in 1989] because the club allowed him to study at the same time.

“Dad insisted that he went to college. I think he was the only player at West Brom to do that. The other apprentices all felt that football was the be-all and end-all. In the end, he left with good grades and the ability to play at the highest level, whereas most of the others in the academy didn’t make it.”

Two decades later and Uzo remembers receiving a call when he was working in Kabul, Afghanistan. It was Ugo. Aged 36, he had decided to hang up his playing boots and call it a day after a spell at Sheffield United.

“He was at a crossroads and didn’t want to drop down the divisions,“ adds Uzo. “But he could have gone on for longer, no doubt. For a year or two after that, he had no direction. Then came the job at Tottenham and he fully bought into it. I’d say he was even slightly obsessed in that final year.”

For those that knew him well, the circumstances around his death left a raw and numb feeling. A measure of his popularity could be seen at the funeral, which more than 1,000 people attended.

For some time, his family struggled to accept it. Uzo, with his medical background, knew the exact process that follows such incidents and initially expected his brother to pull through and recover. Seeking closure months after the incident, he approached an old friend for answers.

By a strange quirk, the man who performed immediate CPR on his brother at the scene was actually a friend. Uzo knew Tottenham’s rehabilitation physio, Dave Appanah, from their time together in the armed forces. He was soon reassured by the process.

After the initial CPR, a defibrillator had been used on Ehiogu as those close by worked quickly and efficiently to aid the next steps before an ambulance arrived. Hospital staff then provided exceptional care and attention to detail.

An extracorporeal life-support machine — of which there are only a limited number in the country and the patient selection criteria is very specific — was even transferred from a cardiac hospital with a specialist consultant to provide additional support, but ultimately nothing could be done.

“My brother was actually very lucky,” Uzo says. “No other person in the country would have received the service he did on that day. The staff at Spurs and the hospital were fantastic but nothing could save him.

“As hard as it is to accept, he died where he fell. That it was out there on the grass, where he was at his happiest, now feels somewhat comforting.”

 

 

[Dave-R]

Remember Ugo where ever you are, you will never be forgotten.

https://www.facebook.com/101566839887394/posts/4215754671801903/?sfnsn=scwspmo

Edited April 21, 2021 by Dave-R

[Jas10]