Another Hearts-Kotoko Match

Sunday, August 19, 1962 to Sunday, February 20, 2022 is just seven months short of 60 years. That is a long time in the life of a person. That long, however, happens to be the distance between my two consecutive visits to the Accra Sports Stadium to watch two separate football matches.

In our motherland, where life expectancy was fixed at 64.42 as at 2021, some compatriots would have only 4.42 years to live after that much time. Many would have been born, lived entire lives and died over that period of time. The same, though, is the time difference between a septuagenarian spectator's first visit to the Accra Sports Stadium to watch a football match and the next visit for that same purpose. He had first visited as a 15-year-old teenager and later as 74 year-old septuagenarian.

Accra Sports Stadium, as it was known in 1962, had been renamed, as at 2008, after the extraordinary football administrator, Ohene Djan. Obviously, he is the one who did more for football in the motherland than his adversary, Oko Abɔdwesɛ, could ever have. It was Abɔdwesɛ who would revert the stadium's name to its original Accra Sports Stadium. So despite a name change for some period, the venue is with the same name during the second game I ever watched there in 2022.

On Sunday, February 20, 2022, compatriots/matriots had thronged to the match venue, even in COVID times when attendance was supposed to have been restricted. In the various stands, evidence abound that some people really love football. It could be felt that some people live football; and some people lived for football.

Unlike the Black Stars-Real Madrid match, when I could easily make out captain 'tall, lanky' Aggrey Fynn and Edward Acquah the goal poacher. Acquah scored two of the Black Stars goals as did Puskas of the three Real Madrid goals. In the Hearts-Kotoko match, I could make out only two players mainly from their mpɛsɛmpɛsɛ hair, one each from the two teams: Sulley Muntari and the other a Kotoko player, whose name I still don't know, five days after the match.

Special attraction, Ferenc Puskás, is still counted among the club of football greats, GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). There, he had been on the other side, spearheading the Real Madrid attack. I would learn playing alongside him was also Alfredo Di Stefano.

It was a colourful going gay spectacle. And, although there was no goal to celebrate, the atmosphere was electrifying at times. Behind me, I was reminded of the usual anti-referee profanity uttered in expletives. I couldn't tell if my son of twenty-something was paying any attention to that.

Shouts of 'Phobia' for Hearts and 'Fabulous' for Kotoko occasionally cheered moves. Much was also of 'jama', drumming and dancing, which drew one's sight of festivities with fans relishing the moment. Interspersing these were the singing of the anthems: 'Asante Kotoko yɛbɛhyɛ (we'll score)' and 'Arose, Arose, Arose,' for Hearts.

Thanks to a football administrator's generosity towards an old man. Two tickets at a total cost of GH¢240 was as generous as anyone who would dole out that. It was a great privilege to watch the display of the classic football rivalry between two glamorous clubs.

During the 1962 Black Stars-Real Madrid match, it was eye-feasting two colts' matches before the adult match. The first match might have been between Hearts Babies and Kotoko Babies. In the sports organisation genius, Ohene Djan's scheme of getting things done, he was most influential. He was the Director of the Central Organisation of Sports.

Backing him up was the Ghana Amateur Football Association (GAFA). One remembers the Academicals, another handiwork of the duo. The Academicals was a national team of high school student players. They played in international competitions, especially against Nigeria.

A combination of the tiered system (colts, academicals, second teams, and so on, created a kind of direction for mobility, a graduated maturing progression through various stages towards playing for the senior national team. Actually, all the top teams had their second teams also playing their own league. For Hearts of Oak, they had Auroras while for Kotoko, it was Anokye Stars.

A melee had degenerated into a stampede that caused deaths on May 9, 2001. On February 20, 2022, it was nothing like that nightmare. Maybe, that day's goalless draw results should recur always when the two teams play. It could help generate and sustain the peace and satisfaction that marked the end of the February 20, 2022 proceedings, and never a repeat of the dreadful May 9 events.

One sensed an atmosphere of fan versus fanatic as is often identified in Angle land, the home of football. A fanatic is said to have gone as far as a name change to incorporate the name of his favourite football team as part of his new name.

As a footnote, in all that occurred at the Hearts-Kotoko match on Sunday, February 20, 2022 game at the Accra Sports Stadium, observing COVID-19 protocols was a matter of 'for where?' No masks, no sanitiser and no handwashing. Maybe it didn't matter because I haven't felt any sign of infection of the pandemic, days after the match.

By Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh