Fat Footballers: Adebayo Akinfenwa

Picture: Kelly Cooper www.northamptonchron.co.uk.

It was a Summer cluody Sunday, when, thanks to a link appeared on Facebook, we discovered the existence of a footballer, who, like a sunbeam, enlightened our Sunday and our Sunday.

Saheed Adebayo Akinfenwa is a striker, probably of Nigerian descent, who was born in 1982 in Islington, near London, and, despite their surnames being quite similar, we suppose he’s not related with Igor Akinfeev, the GK of Russian National Team !
After spending his youth career with Watford FC, Adebayo’s professional one started far away fron England, in Lithuania, because in 2001 his agent’s Lithuanian wife had reported him to a member of the coaching staff of FK Atlantas from Klaipeda (a Club that is currently playing in Europa League) she knew. In two seasons that he spent in the Baltic State, he played overall 28 games and scored 7 goals, including the only and winning one in the Final of 2002 Lithuanian Cup (FK Atlantas – Zalgiris 1-0), but during Winter 2003 he came back to United Kingdom because he was signed by Barry Town, with whom he won the Welsh Championship and the Welsh Cup (6 goals in 8 matches).
During 2003/04 Season he was part of 5 different teams: in August Barry Town released all his players because of financial troubles, then he played for Boston United, Leyton Orient, Rushden & Diamonds and Doncaster Rovers, performing decently just with the latter (4 goals in 9 games).
In 2004/05 he moved again and had a good year with Torquay United (14 goals in 37 League One matches), followed by a spell at Swansea City AFC (he scored the same amount of goals, including the first ever competitive goal scored at new Liberty Stadium, but this time in two League One seasons), while in 2007/08 had a bad year at Milwall FC (League One), where he played just an handful of matches without scoring.
In 2008/09 and in 2009/10 had two positive seasons, despite being relegated in the first one from League One (third tier) to League Two (fourth tier), scoring 37 goals in 88 games for Northampton Town, and then moved to Gillingham FC, with whom scored 11 goals in 44 League Two appearances.
The following three years of Adebayo Akinfenwa‘s career have been literally a deja vù, because he repeated his last three ones: he played two other seasons with Northampton Town (34 goals in 80 League Two matches) and another one, the 2013/14 one, with Gillingham FC (10 goals in 34 League One games).
During current Summer he didn’t renew his contract with his Club and moved to AFC Wimbledon, a team from London, currently playing in League Two, that was established by the fans of the famous Wimbledon FC, after that in 2002 their Club was relocated to Milton Keynes and renamed Milton Keynes Dons. During a pre-season friendy, in which his new club faced Chelsea FC, he has finally become internationally popular: let’s find ouy why !

As you probably had already figured, we didn’t write about Adebayo just because of his football achivements, that anyway can’t be forgotten, considering that he has scored so far more than 100 goal in English lower Leagues, but also and mostly because of his body, similar to a weightlifter’s one: he’s 1,80m tall and his weght is a little bit more than 100 kg, that allowed him to be the strongest player in the world, according to FIFA 14 stats.
His impressive body has caused him few problemas, because he’s often mocked by opposite fans, and because has suffered many injuries and he needs longer times than usual to recover.
Anyway he looks very proud of his body, and, as you can find on several pictures and videos on the web, he loves practising at the gym to keep it powerful, because his enormous size can help him to defend the ball better, and we can imagine – we surely would do that - that few defenders preferred letting him score rather than risking their lives trying to stop him !

In this video you can find few goals from him !