Maidstone pulled off a huge FA Cup upset, beating Coventry with a World Cup icon
WORLD CUP icon Roger Milla is backing Maidstone United to create more FA Cup magic.
The National League South minnows are in the last 16 of the FA Cup on Monday night as they chase promotion from the Championship to Coventry.
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And Stones boss and former Wolves star George Elokobi, 38, has received a specially recorded video message from his boyhood hero back home in Cameroon.
He told SunSport: “It was to congratulate me. This is what the magic of the FA Cup does.
“He told me he had been watching us and had to keep working hard.
“He knows that I am doing well for Cameroon and that I am flying the flag high. He wants to wish us the best for the next one round of the FA Cup.
“And he also wanted to wish me the best health and to keep working hard, keep developing and hopefully one day I can help the nation.”
Milla, 71, was told his message during a television broadcast BBC Sports function.
He is among a number of high-profile Cameroon stars who have approached Elokobi after leading the team past League Two Barrow and League One Stevenage at their Gallagher Stadium – before stunning Championship promotion hopefuls Ipswich at Portman Road.
When asked who else there is, he said: “I don’t want to keep mentioning names, but quite a few!
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“Sebastien Bassong, who used to play for Spurs, these are good friends of mine.
“Alex Song, who used to play for Arsenal, we go back quite a way, he has also reached out.
“I am good friends with Enoh Eyong, who played for Ajax, and he congratulated him.
“So a lot of them have told me it’s incredible to see what I’m doing, the transition I’ve made now to become a manager and keep the flag flying high for them as well.”
Elokobi, who only became manager last year, was emotional when he saw Milla’s message as memories of his youth came flooding back.
Although he was only four and a half years old, he vividly remembers watching his hero almost single-handedly beat England in the 1990 World Cup quarter-final before the Three Lions won 3-2 in an epic.
The Maidstone boss said: “We had to pay money to go into someone’s house and watch the game on TV in our numbers.
“We thought we had stolen it and had a chance. It was an incredible time. He was such an inspiration when I was so young. I can remember and see myself in that moment.
“So when I see his message, it takes me back to 1990, when I was a young kid, when football was the only thing you could do. It’s incredible to think he will support me and Maidstone.”
Elokobi’s journey has been an extraordinary rags to riches story.
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His father Martin died diabetes when he was ten and the boy sometimes went without meals and had to look for food from garbage bins – hunting birdseat snakes and digest unwashed raw potatoes from the ground.
His mother Irene left him and his twelve older siblings in Cameroon when she sought work in Britain to better support her family before moving to Elokobi at the age of 16 to study.
The rest is history when he was spotted by Colchester while playing for Dulwich Hamlet at the age of 18, and went on to play for Wolves in the Premier League – including scoring in a win against Manchester United.
Whatever happens tonight, Elokobi and Maidstone have written an inspiring story.
And he said, “I’m just doing my job. I’m here to empower everyone around me – everyone who falls under the Maidstone umbrella.
“Yes, my title is manager, I understand that, but it is also my job to try to give everyone the freedom to develop themselves and enable everyone to enjoy working under me.
“I come in every day to make people’s day better, so for me it’s not just football, it’s bigger.
“It’s about the environment you create: when you see someone in the morning, can you give them a hug or a handshake, just to brighten the day?
“And then we can look at the day ahead, but yes, it is important that I continue to inspire so many people and non-league teams.
“That’s part of my job too, to show everyone that it’s possible. If we can do it at Maidstone, hopefully another club can do it one day.”
The Stones, who reformed after going bankrupt in the Football League in 1992, have made around £450,000 so far from this season’s FA Cup – and hope to reinvest most of it in the renewal of their 4,200 stadium.
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