Yidnekatchew Tessema
Birth-Childhood-teen age football
Yidnekatchew Tessema was born on September 11 1921 in Jimma town south-west Ethiopia; where the father Tessema Eshete was serving his fifth year in exile following the overthrow of Lij Iyassu's Government, in which he was the Minister of Posts and Telegraph. The mother W/ro Mulatwa Gebreselassie was a housewife.
Souvenir photo of guests invited to the exile home in Jimma on the day Yidnekatchew was baptized.
As was customary in those days, Yidnekatchew received his early Amharic language studies at home. The father employed tutor, Aleka Negede Israel, not only for his children, but also for a good number of Arada neighborhood students appearing in the souvenir photo on the right.
Childhood photos with his father sister & brothers
Yidnekatchew attended French classes available in the country ; at the Alliance, Menelik, and Tefferi Mekonnen schools before he became one of two young Ethiopians selected to travel to France for higher education. He was taking orientation at the French Legation in Addis Ababa when the travel plan had to be cancelled due to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. During the occupation, Yidnekatchew went to the Italian Mission School in Addis Ababa where he completed the courses then allowed to the natives.
His unparalleled fifty eight years sports career commenced at age eight, when he was the captain of the children’s football team of the Tefferi Mekonnen School. At age 14, just a few months before the Italian invasion, he had joined “Arada”, later Saint George, the first sports club in Ethiopia, founded by his friends Ayele Atnash and George Dukas.
Earliest photo of Arada, later Saint George football team.
As there were no other formally established clubs for Ethiopians before the occupation, St. George’s early matches were with Greek and Armenian Community teams in Addis Ababa. In May of 1936 these encounters between blacks and whites were banned by the invaders .
The sports office for the indigenous. One year into the occupation, the Italians launched a separate football and cycling championship for the natives. In line with the divide and rule policy, teams participating in these competitions were given Italian, religious or ethnic names. Saint George was accordingly renamed “Littorio Wube Sefer”.
Littorio Wube Sefer.
In his teens, Yidnekatchew Tessema was an all round athlete; he was a short distance runner, a boxer, a cyclist and above all the best football player and the highest goal scorer in the country. According to "Ye Roma Berhan or The light from Rome", the official news paper of the occupying force at the time, Yidnekatchew had scored a record 43 of his club's 47 goals in a single competition season.
At age 17, the Italians picked bilingual Yidnekatchew Tessema to run “The Sports Office for the indigenous ”. Great cyclist Kassa Fadil and another popular football player Amelework Tekle Zena were also employed in this office as messengers. Yidnekatchew translated the rules of the games from Italian to Amharic and also registered results and points of all competitions for the natives. Though he despised the occupation, he admitted receiving his first experience of modern sports management in this colonial office.
Football After liberation The sports office for the Natives was closed on the liberation of the country in 1941, however, Ethiopian footballers continued to play informal neighborhood matches. On the other hand, the few Italians who remained behind, still believed Mussolini’s promise of recapturing Ethiopia in three months time and were therefore reluctant to involve in the forbidden football matches with the Natives. They preferred to join the “expatriates only” competition, for the British, Greek, Armenian and Indian community clubs at the site of the now Addis Ababa Stadium.
The turning point came when Yidnekatchew succeeded in convincing the Italians for a match against his club, Saint George. The match ended with Saint George defeating the Italian Community Club, “Fortitudo”, 4-1. This encouraged more frequent friendly matches between Ethiopians and the community clubs of Europeans and Indians, in Addis Ababa; eventually heralding the historic first official multi racial Championship in Africa.
Inspired by his lifelong passion for sports and especially for the beautiful game of football; twenty years old Yidnekatchew,was at this juncture exploring possibilities for the establishment of a National sports office for football, cycling and boxing. He knew starting from scratch was not going to be an easy task; as his country Ethiopia, did not inherit any sports infrastructure from the short lived Italian occupation (1935 to 1941). Nonetheless, with determination, perseverance and selfless effort, he succeeded in founding the first sports office in 1943.
