Another Interesting Weekend

As I had mentioned in a previous post balls are a commodity in Ghana, and this fact was proved after a ball disappeared during the week. One of the coaches has since approached me and informed me that a member of the community has possession of the ball and is demanding 10 cedis to give the ball back. The battle continues.

For the 3rd weekend in a row our league match was not completed, in fact the match never kicked off. The opponents and match officials never appeared for our crunch league match. The usual extensive pre-match prayer in the changing rooms seemed to last ridiculously long, with the players finally emerging at 14:45. Kick off is supposed to be at 15:00 but this is rare! As happens most weeks I was growing increasingly impatient, demanding to the Ghanaian coach the players must start to report earlier. The players finished their on pitch praying at 15:00 and waited for their opponents and the referee, who never appeared.

The junior friendlies on Saturday were against another academy from another area of Accra, as often happens, I officiated some of the games. The Under 12's game ran smoothly, although we lost 1-0. Next were the Under 14's. The game represented more of a war than a football match. Tackles were flying in from all angles, and as Cantonments took control of the match the tackles got worse from both sides. The opposing manager was growing increasingly angry at our team, at one stage running onto the pitch to remonstrate with me, demanding I yellow card one of our players. Unfortunately for him I did not have any cards on me so had to continue to warn each player.


This week I plan to buy the club a set of cards for such occasions. Indeed, the standard of tackling from junior players is generally similar to Essien when he first arrived at Chelsea, although often worse.