My Sporting Life is The i Paper’s look behind the curtain on what drives sports stars to greatness. Martin Offiah shot to fame in rugby league at Widnes before joining an all-conquering Wigan side who dominated the sport. He scored 501 career tries and is immortalised in a bronze statue outside Wembley Stadium. The man affectionately nicknamed “Chariots Offiah” looks back on his life and career with Ross Heppenstall.
I describe myself as a Northern Cockney of Nigerian extraction. My parents emigrated to England from Nigeria in the 1950s. My mother became a teacher and my dad qualified as a barrister.
I grew up in Hackney and went to primary school in Islington before going to Woolverstone Hall School, a boarding school in Suffolk, aged 11.
My mother gave me the drive to achieve what I did. My mum, Regina, instilled a great work ethic in her children – she led by example in everything she did.
She died in October 2024, the day Wigan won the Grand Final at Old Trafford. I had been with her the previous night and before kick-off I got the phone call from my cousin that my mum had passed. That was the last time I cried.
Joining Wigan for a world-record £440,000 in January 1992 changed my life. I’d done very well at Widnes and had some success in Australia before Wigan came calling. I was in dispute with Widnes over my contract and they put a £750,000 price tag on me.
‘Chariots’ in full flow for Wigan (Photo: Getty)I eventually signed for Wigan but I needed huge resilience to get through what was a difficult period and Maurice Lindsay, the Wigan chairman, backed me completely. My career was on big upward trajectory but joining Wigan took it to a new level.
I bought a house with a Jacuzzi and a swimming pool and got a big Nike contract, so it was life-changing. I still had to perform but I did, scoring 186 tries in 159 games between 1992 and 1996, winning every trophy along the way.
I mixed with the stars in the early 1990s. I lived in Manchester when I played for Wigan and Damian Noonan, a well-known gangster, worked on the doors at the Hacienda nightclub. He would let Ellery Hanley and I straight in for free ahead of the Gallagher brothers.
I became friends with Mick Hucknall and would knock about with people like Dwight Yorke… they were interesting times! United players such as Ryan Giggs would come to Wigan games and we’d go to Old Trafford.
In 1994, we were the top sports team in the country, winning the BBC Sports Personality Team of the Year after lifting every available trophy.
I was written off by a rugby league legend. Before Wigan played Leeds in the 1994 Challenge Cup final at Wembley, Alex Murphy claimed in a national newspaper that “Offiah was finished” and had “lost his bottle”.
I responded by scoring twice – including an iconic length-of-the-field effort – in a 26-16 victory.
Offiah and the Wigan team after beating Leeds to win the 1994 Challenge Cup (Photo: Getty)My greatest achievement in life. Becoming a father to my two sons was obviously special, but having a statue outside Wembley Stadium has to be my biggest career highlight.
In 2015, a statue of me and Billy Boston, Alex Murphy, Gus Risman and Eric Ashton was unveiled there. It depicts me dropping to my knees in celebration of scoring that try against Leeds in the 1994 Challenge Cup final.
I am so proud of the statue because I have many happy memories of playing at the old Wembley.
I regret not playing rugby union for England. I played union for England Students and the Barbarians, but a lot of the guys I played league with were full dual-code internationals.
When I go and watch England at Twickenham now, I rue the fact I wasn’t a full England rugby union international.
But I wouldn’t swap what I achieved in my career – rugby league gave me everything and I became a legend of the sport.
Now it’s time for the next generation of Offiahs to shine. My eldest son, Tyler, is playing for Bath and also studying for a degree in politics and international relations at Bath university.
The next generation of Offiahs are already making a name for themselves (Photo: Getty)He’s only 19 but scored on his Premiership debut against Saracens earlier this year and also plays for England Under-20s. He’s a winger like I was and my younger son Phoenix is doing well for Tottenham Hotspur.
He recently turned 16 but is already 6ft 2in and is scoring goals for fun in their academy. It’s great to see the next generation of Offiahs doing the family proud.
A tragedy made me realise there is more to life than scoring tries. The best things in life really are free and I had a big turning point in 1995 when a good friend of mine called Louise Dean was run over by a car.
She was the lead singer of a band called Shiva and losing her made me realise there are more important things in life than scoring tries and winning trophies.
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