Bendel Insurance

The 2023 Federation Cup win did not come easily on the scoreboard — a single goal against Enugu Rangers — but it closed a gap of forty-three years since Bendel Insurance had last lifted a trophy.

The club was set up in 1972 by the Bendel State government together with Dr Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, built to represent the state-owned Bendel Insurance Company, and it entered the Nigerian top flight that same year as one of its founding members. The stadium in Benin City now carries Ogbemudia's name.

The strongest run came early: two national league titles in the 1970s, a Federation Cup won three times before the decade was out, and then, in 1994, the CAF Cup — beaten only 1-0 away to Angola's Primeiro de Maio before a 3-0 second leg turned the tie around. Nicknamed the Benin Arsenal, though the side was first known as the Vipers of Benin, the team of that era carried players such as Henry Nwosu, who went on to be part of the Nigeria squad that won the 1980 African Cup of Nations.

None of that continental or league success returned in the decades that followed.