Ashious Melu

Ashious Jordan Melu (6 June 1957 – 20 January 1997) also known as Ashios or Ashols Melu was a Zambian footballer and coach who captained the national team from 1988 to 1992 and is credited with having one of the hardest shots in Zambian football.

Ashols Melu
Personal information
Full name Ashious Jordan Melu
Date of birth 6 June 1957
Place of birth Chililabombwe, Zambia
Date of death 20 January 1997 (aged 39)
Place of death Zambia
Position(s) Forward
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
?-1978? Konkola Blades
1978?-1989 Mufulira Wanderers
1989-1990 Apollon Kalamarias 5
? Olympiacos Piraeus
? Favoritner AC
National team
1986-1992 Zambia
Teams managed
1992 Mufulira Wanderers (assistant manager)
1992-1997 Mufulira Wanderers
1994 Zambia (assistant manager)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Playing career

Melu was born in Chililabombwe on 6 JUne 1957 and attended Chililabombwe Secondary School and turned out for the Konkola Blades before moving to the Mufulira Wanderers in the late 1970s.

Melu played as a striker and was top goal scorer in the Zambian league in 1983, scoring 43 goals in all competitions with most of them scored from distance and free-kicks, and winning the Zambian Footballer of the Year award. Melu had the distinction of having the hottest shot in the league and he got called up to the national team but did not hold down a regular place.

Alongside Efford Chabala, Kalusha Bwalya, Frederick Kashimoto, Evans Katebe and the Philemon brothers (Philemon Mulala and Philemon Kaunda), and later Charles Musonda, Jonson Bwalya and Gibby Mbasela, Melu would be part of a Wanderers team that was very successful in cup competitions in the 1980s though they never actually won the league championship.

At the beginning of the 1986 football season, a few eyebrows were raised when Melu converted into a defender for Wanderers but his performances in defence were impressive enough to earn him a call-up to the national team and he still weighed in with his share of goals from dead ball situations. Melu represented the country at the African Cup of Nations in 1986, in which Zambia was eliminated in the first round.

In 1987, Melu won his second Footballer of the Year award making it an almost clean sweep by Wanderers players with Kalusha Bwalya (1984) Jonson Bwalya (1986) and Efford Chabala missing out on the award but winning the Sportsman of the Year trophy in 1985. In 1988 Melu took over as Zambian captain when Fighton Simukonda was dropped after the President’s Cup tournament in June in South Korea. Later in the year, Melu led the team to the Seoul Olympic games, in which Zambia became the first African country to reach the quarter finals, disposing of Italy and Guatemala along the way with 4-0 scorelines, losing to West Germany by the same margin.[1]

In 1989-90, Melu played five matches for top division Greek side Apollon Kalamarias.[2] Melu later played for an Austrian club for a year before returning to feature for Zambia at Africa Cup of Nations in 1992 which proved to be his last outing for Zambia due to stiff competition from Samuel Chomba and Robert Watiyakeni. As a result, Melu was not part of the team that perished in the Gabon plane crash disaster the following year.

Coaching career

Melu turned to coaching and was first appointed assistant coach at the Wanderers in 1992 before taking over as head coach. In the interim, he attended a coaching course in Germany.

In 1994, he was named Zambia national team assistant coach to Roald Poulsen. He then led the Wanderers to back to back league championships in 1995 and 1996 achieving what he did not as a player and netting the Wanderers their first league success since 1978.

Before the beginning of the 1997 season with the Wanderers, Melu fell ill and died in early 1997.

References
  1. "Ashols Melu Biography and Statistics". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on 2020-04-18. Retrieved 2010-02-11.
  2. "Greece 1989/90". www.rsssf.com. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.