Joseph Yegba Maya

Joseph Yegba Maya was born on 8 April 1944 in Otélé, a town near Yaoundé in what was then French Cameroon. His father was a railway mechanic whose postings moved the family from place to place. As a young player he joined Dragon Club de Yaoundé and played in the Cameroonian first division during the colonial era.

In 1960, aged sixteen, he emigrated to Marseille to live with his elder brother Marcel, who also worked as a railway mechanic. He has said he wanted to follow his brother into the trade but did not know where life would take him. In the Marseille suburbs he played amateur football for Gallia Chutes-Lavie.

Details of his formal schooling in Cameroon have not been made public. On arriving in Marseille he was set to train as a railway mechanic, the trade of his father and his brother Marcel, and French reports describe him as a mechanic with the national railway (SNCF) before football took over.

After his playing career ended he earned the French state diploma as a football instructor (moniteur), which allowed him to coach amateur clubs in the Hérault for more than two decades.

Olympique de Marseille (1962-1970). A four-goal performance for Gallia Chutes-Lavie against the OM reserves in a Coupe de Provence tie, which his side still lost 5-4 after extra time, earned him an invitation to OM, and he signed in 1962. He made his first-division debut at Sedan in November 1962, a 4-0 defeat. OM spent several seasons in the second division, and the young striker was often criticised for imprecision. He became a crowd favourite during the 1965-66 promotion season alongside the Togolese forward Fiawoo, and scored in the decisive June 1966 win over Bastia at the Stade de l'Huveaune.

Under coach Mario Zatelli he scored the second goal, in the 89th minute, as OM beat Bordeaux 2-0 in the Coupe de France final on 18 May 1969 at Colombes. OM also reached the 1969 Challenge des champions. In 1969-70 he scored 24 goals, his best season, OM finished league runners-up, and on 22 March 1970 he scored five goals in one half against Red Star at Saint-Ouen. In all he scored 113 goals in 236 matches for OM, the seventh-best total in club history.

Valenciennes, Strasbourg and Béziers (1970-1976). In 1970 he moved to US Valenciennes-Anzin in an exchange for Daniel Leclercq. Valenciennes say he played 111 matches and scored 64 goals for the club between 1970 and 1973. He joined RC Strasbourg in 1973, scoring 14 goals in 36 matches according to the club, and finished at AS Béziers from 1975, where a knee injury ended his career in 1976. French Wikipedia credits him with 124 goals in 238 first-division matches.

Cameroon (1964-1974). He won 25 caps and scored 10 goals for Cameroon. OM's demand for a large release fee meant he missed the 1970 Africa Cup of Nations, but he played at the 1972 tournament in Cameroon, where the hosts lost the semi-final to Congo and finished third.

Coaching. He coached Roujan, Saint-Chinian (taking them from the first district division to the regional DHR from 1995), Saint-Chinian's reserves, Montagnac and finally the Cheminots club in Béziers, stepping away from coaching around 2007.

He met his wife Antoinette at student dances in Marseille in the early 1960s. After his move to Béziers in 1975 the couple settled at Néfiès, about thirty kilometres from Béziers, and opened clothing shops called Campus and Maya on rue de la Citadelle in Béziers. He later sold a shop to buy a bar, hotel and restaurant in Puisserguier, which he eventually leased out.

His younger brother Martin Maya was also a professional footballer and Cameroon international who played at Béziers. In a 2008 interview he spoke proudly of his grandson Anthony, who played youth football at Montagnac, and said his dream was to see him turn professional. In later life he had knee and hip replacements but kept active with cycling and walking. He openly admitted a tendency to put on weight, both during and after his playing days.

He held clear views on the centre-forward's job. In a 1973 interview quoted by RC Strasbourg he said the role was not to play to the gallery but to disarticulate a defence and keep moving: you should not see the centre-forward often, but when you notice him, he makes the difference. He described himself as not very technical, scoring most of his goals with his head by anticipating in the penalty area.

He believed football had given him everything and that he owed it to young players, which is why he took up coaching. He spoke warmly of Marseille's passion while acknowledging its harshness, saying that when things go well OM is the equivalent of Real, but southerners have hot blood. His religious and political views were not made public.

With 113 goals he is the seventh-highest scorer in Olympique de Marseille history, behind names such as Gunnar Andersson, Jean-Pierre Papin and Josip Skoblar. Writers on OM history describe him as the scorer who carried the attack before Skoblar's arrival, a transitional figure who did the hard work that allowed the great early-1970s side to flourish. His five goals in one half against Red Star in 1970 are still cited as a record in the French top flight.

He was the fourth African player in RC Strasbourg's history, and with more than a hundred top-flight goals he remains among the 50 leading scorers in French league history. He was also part of a pioneering generation of African players in French football who faced racist abuse; La Provence notes that he was renamed 'Joseph' because his surname was considered too hard to pronounce and that he suffered racist insults even on the night of the 1969 final.

With Olympique de Marseille: Coupe de France winner 1968-69 (scored in the final); French Division 1 runner-up 1969-70; French Division 2 runner-up 1965-66 (promotion); Challenge des champions finalist 1969.

With US Valenciennes-Anzin: French Division 2 champions 1971-72.

With Cameroon: third place at the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations.

In 2022 the Cameroonian brewer UCB (Kadji group) rewarded the surviving members of the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations squad; La Tanière du Lion reported that he was one of two survivors living abroad still due to receive the award.

Archive footage of his career survives online, including the French Football Federation's restored film of the 1969 Coupe de France final in which he scored, the federation's documentary feature on OM's 1969 cup run, footage of OM's 1969-70 Cup Winners' Cup tie against Dinamo Zagreb, and a photograph of Cameroon's starting eleven against Mali at the 1972 Africa Cup of Nations.

His most detailed interview, by Nicolas Deltort for ActuFoot34 in February 2008, was republished by the OM history site OM1899 and the Cameroonian football heritage site La Tanière du Lion. La Provence profiled him in January 2021 under the headline 'Du mal aimé au héros de Colombes' (From unloved to hero of Colombes).

His relationship with Cameroon's national team ended badly. According to La Tanière du Lion, after Cameroon's semi-final defeat to Congo at the home Africa Cup of Nations in 1972 he was accused of betrayal and turned his back for good on the national side, which was rebuilt from 1973.

There is also a long-running dispute over the first goal of the 1969 Coupe de France final. The French Football Federation records it as an own goal by Bordeaux's Gérard Papin, while Maya said he deflected a shot by Jacky Novi into the net, and some accounts credit him with both goals.

In retirement he publicly rejected rumours circulating about him in the Béziers area, telling ActuFoot34 in 2008 that claims he was ruined or dishonest were untrue and that people should be left to say what they like.

Joseph Yegba Maya died on Sunday 4 October 2026, aged 82, after an illness, his family announced. La Provence broke the news on 5 October, and tributes followed from RC Strasbourg Alsace, Valenciennes FC, So Foot and other outlets on 6 October. The place of death and funeral arrangements had not been made public at the time of writing. The specific illness was not disclosed.