To heaven from hell

Africa

Nigeria, young Victor is playing football with his local friends. The game takes place on the street. He doesn’t carry any shoes. He can’t afford them. But it’s normal. No one has shoes. There is a goal made from a few stacked up stones and happy kids playing from side to side.

Victor is coming back home. There’s been unrest in the country for a while. It is religious clashes between Muslims and Christians. His family is poor but a potential target. His father is a pastor in the local church.

He comes back home and learns that there was an attack and both of his parents were killed. He is 11 years old, nowhere to go to and possible next target that barely escaped death only because he was away playing his favourite game.

His friends smuggle him to a hiding place and wait until the situation is calm.

He doesn’t have much time to act. He contacts his relatives from South London and they accept to take care of him. A week later he’s on the trip to England.

“That trip from Nigeria was too big. What I want, is to stay strong and work hard for myself whether this has to do with football or not. We should thank God for what I am today. It’s a dream come true and if I continue at the same rhythm, who knows, I may play for Barcelona one day.” says Victor Moses.

England

At age of 11, Moses arrived in England as an asylum seeker, in a place completely unknown to him, away from his home, in a place that he knew absolutely no one.

“As a young boy in a new country, you had to make new friends and that was really difficult. When I first came, I couldn’t even speak the language.” He explained.

Moses was sent to school in South Norwood, which was close to an asylum support and immigration centre in Croydon.

“When I started going to school, I started getting used to things, like the language,” said Moses. “After that, I started adapting to school, friends and everything.

“It was really difficult to start with but I survived.”

He continued to play for fun with other kids mostly in the park. He was spotted by Cosmos 90 FC members, a team that played in a youth league.

As soon as he started playing for Cosmos he elevated the youth club in the league and the word was spread about some African talent playing for a club.

“It was Cosmos who actually told Crystal Palace about me,” added Moses. “Palace came to have a look, liked what they saw and they took it from there.”

Crystal Palace placed Moses in the academy that was neat, organized with superb facilities and environment that was miles away from Nigerian street reality.

The coach behind his best development was Colin Pates, Chelsea legend. “He was a good man, and I always like being around him,” said Moses. “He always encourages me every time he sees me and he always believed in me when we used to play school games.”

“He encouraged me to do the best I can to become a professional footballer. At that time I was very young but when older people like that are giving advice, you have to take it.

What Pates repeated to him was: ‘You’ve got to work hard as a footballer. Talent alone won’t take you there, hard work is what is going to help you’.”

The rest is history — Victor Moses was sent to Wigan and after that, he started playing for Chelsea. He was sent on loan to West Ham last season but returned this summer. He is valued at £18.00m, played in the Premier League over 200 times and scored 20 goals. He decided to represents Nigeria in national football.