Cod Almighty | Article

by Andy Holt

3 November 2002

April 2000. Not my first visit to west Africa - I visited the Ivory Coast a year earlier - but it was my first visit to Ghana. Travelling around the nation's cocoa-growing regions was an exciting and eye-opening experience - and made all the more so by the prospect that, on my return to the capital Accra, I would be attending an African Champions League match. The game was the first leg of the second-round tie between Ghanaian champions Hearts of Oak and Motema Pembe from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hearts had defeated Horoya of Guinea in the first round with a 2-1 win at home followed by a 2-2 draw away. Despite struggling against supposedly a much weaker side, hopes were still high among the inhabitants of Accra that their team could succeed.

Much of my time during the three-week trip was spent in a Toyota Landcruiser with two Ghanaians, George and Dan, speeding between cocoa farms, through towns, along mud tracks, and past small villages comprising no more than a handful of small mud huts. I saw a lot of the countryside; and varied though it was, one factor was consistent: football. They say football is a global game, and Ghana proved it to me.

Everywhere I went there were football pitches. Every city, town and village had one. They could vary from a ground like the 40-000 seater Accra Sports Stadium, home of Hearts of Oak, to a little patch of land in the middle of the jungle with the undergrowth cleared away. It was these little pitches that interested me most. The pitches could be any size, with seemingly any length-to-width ratio, but the really appealing thing was the goalposts. The main criteron was the shape, as you'd hope, but again size and relative proportions seemed less than high on the agenda. The smallest I saw was perhaps two feet square, while the largest was maybe 15 yards wide with a crossbar approaching 10 feet off the ground. I guess it's the sentiment that's important when it comes to football pitches, although I did think that letting the village livestock graze on the pitch was not quite within the spirit of the game.

There was something strangely reminiscent of home about seeing children scurrying around after a makeshift ball, perhaps constructed from a plastic bag stuffed with rags, in the middle of a strange continent, miles from the nearest plug socket. The location was different; the language was different; but the screams of joy, the cries of anguish and the appeals for offside were not so foreign.

One evening in a town called Wiaso I had the privilege of witnessing a match between the local team and the team from the neighbouring town. Twenty-two bare-footed men charging around an allotted area of sparsely-grassed ground. The standard was quite good, I thought, considering the uneven, rock-hard earth which sometimes induced the football to bounce more like a rugby ball than the sphere it was. I can't remember the score, but I think it may have been 1-1 when play stopped. It had started raining, and when it rains in the evening in west Africa it rains.

Although most days there was not a cloud in the sky, most evenings there would be a huge storm. For some reason, the Ghana Electric Company's supply becomes disrupted by the odd drop of water. So when the rain is falling so hard it sounds like a troupe of overweight pixies tap dancing in football boots on the hotel's corrugated iron roof, the lights go out. And when the lights go out it gets dark. Very dark. No street lights (there aren't any), no back-up generators (there aren't any), no light pollution from a nearby town (there aren't any). It's dark. Only if you've been locked in the cupboard under the stairs for eating Easter eggs before tea could you understand just how dark it gets.

The storms could be pretty spectacular though. And the one that stopped the football match was perhaps the best of the lot. The rain started, the wind got up, and I was in the middle of the most amazing electrical storm I've ever witnessed. The whole sky lit up with flash after flash: sheet lightning, fork lightning, I saw it all. The thunder rolled and boomed, crash after crash, like a young boy kicking a football against a metal garage door. The sky changed from a deep Wimbledon blue to a regal Fiorentina purple; and then, as suddenly as it had commenced, it ended. And afterwards the air was still, and the rain was cool and fresh. I felt like lighting a post-storm cigarette. Shame I don't smoke. I went inside to play on the home-made table football against George instead. I lost.

Now back to Accra and to be among the hugely partisan sell-out crowd for the match between Hearts and the champions from DR Congo. Hearts are one of the big names of west African club football and, although supporters of key rivals Asante Kotoko of Kumasi may dispute the fact, are the most successful team in Ghana with the biggest fan base. They've been league champions 16 times since 1956 and they've won the Ghanaian FA Cup on 12 occasions. The 2000 season would also see Hearts win the league title for a fourth successive year, and retain the Cup.

In the African Champions League they'd been losing finalists in 1977 and 1979 and reached the semi-final in 1980, but the 20 years since had seen little continental success. This would be the second largest stadium I'd watched a match in, after Wembley (England v Hungary, May 1996, 3-0; Grimsby v Bournemouth, April 1998, 2-1 aet) and I was rather excited by the prospect of it all. Yet, alas, it was not to be. A combination of roadworks and a breakdown prevented it. I was almost inconsolable. I cheered myself up by exacting retribution on George and finally winning at table football.

Incidentally, Hearts of Oak won the match. A 4-1 win virtually sealed passage to the group stage of the competition. The return leg was a different matter, however, with home advantage almost paying dividends for the side from DR Congo, who won 2-0 but lost the tie on aggregate. So Hearts progressed to the group stage of the competition: two groups of four teams. Successive wins in their first four matches against Al Ahly (Egypt), Jeanne d'Arc (Senegal) and Lobi Stars (Nigeria) twice meant that a draw for Hearts of Oak on match day five against Al Ahly would seal progression to the final. This was duly achieved with a 1-1 scoreline. The final group game, then, was meaningless and another 1-1 completed an unbeaten group stage for Hearts of Oak. Straight to the final from here, where they'd meet Esperance of Tunisia, who'd won Group A on goal difference from Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa.

The first leg was played in Tunis with a 2-1 win for Hearts of Oak. Hearts were down 1-0 at half time; and despite going down to 10 men still managed to secure the win. Esperance had all the play but the age-old north African problem of a lack of finishing ability was their downfall. Two weeks later the second leg was played in Accra. An early goal from a corner brought Esperance level and this was the way it stayed until half time: 2-2 on aggregate, but Hearts still ahead on away goals. Seventy-nine minutes gone and the scores still level, but then some crowd trouble and a little teargas incident meant a delay in the match. As play restarted Esperance made their third and final substitution. A couple of minutes later the Tunisian team's keeper went down injured - and stayed down. The Tunisians called for an abandonment but the referee made them play on with an outfield player in goal. A goal followed quickly for Hearts, followed by another two, separated by a red card for an Esperance player. 3-1 to Hearts, then, 5-2 on aggregate - but the score didn't tell the whole story.

The farce continued well after the match as Esperance protested to the Confederation of African Football (CAF). This protest was rejected and Hearts of Oak were confirmed as champions. A subsequent CAF investigation lead to Hearts being banned from playing any other than domestic matches at the Accra Sports Stadium; the Ghanaian FA were fined $US3000 for poor organisation; the Esperance keeper was banned for one year from competitive football for injuring himself in an attempt to get the match abandoned; Esperance were fined $5000 (US) for bad behaviour after the final whistle; a Tunisian referee (not sure why he was there) was banned for one year from CAF competitions for trying to interfere with the match referee; the President of the Tunisian FA was reprimanded in an official letter for the same offence; and the Esperance player who was sent off was given a four-match ban. And the result stood.

Accra is over 3000 miles from London. In a very different country. A whole other continent apart. But football spans that gap. There's definitely something reassuring about that.